Ace on Tech

April 1st: Google loves jokes

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

Google has a history of loving pranks and especially April Fools’ Day.
Yep, today’s that day.

For a full listing of all of Google’s jokes, visit the Google Operating System Blog.

iGoogle from right to left

Today, I saw my iGoogle homepage shift everything to the right.

Gmail Custom Time

Gmail Custom Time is a feature in Gmail which lets you set how recipients of your mails will see the datestamp. Dates in the past will also be reflected in the recipients’ inbox. And older message will appear lower in the list than newer ones, making your friends believe they’ve just forgotten about your message, instead of you being late.

The catch is that you can’t set dates back before April 1st, 2004, Gmail’s launch-date.

Tagline: “Be on time. Every time”.

Every time, this time, means you can use the option up to 10 times before it disappears.

gDay

Google Australia gDay, a feature that lets you search the web of tomorrow today. It uses a special technique to forecast what websites will like look like and which content they’ll deliver.

Virgle: The First Permanent Human Colony on Mars

Vigle is a contraction of Virgin Airlines and Google and is a company that will make the first human settlement on Mars, announced by Google’s Main Blog. Here’s the video announcement:

Apart from it not being very believable, it also shows signs of bad acting. But who cares.

New Google Docs Option

The file menu on Google Docs now has a new entry, called ‘Create a new airplane’. It renders an image of an airplane. Well, sort of. It still needs to be folder and that task is up to you.

Happy April Fools’ Day everyone!

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Google, MS and other partner to free wireless spectrum white space

Monday, March 24th, 2008

So, Google didn’t win the wireless auction. Instead, it has formed a technology coalition with Microsoft, Dell, Intel, HP and Philips Electronics to make sure the white space spectrum will be freed to allow ‘open’ wireless broadband services. Earlier, Bill Gates also urged the FCC for more or less the same reasons.

Broadcasters often fear that the utilization of this white space could cause interference with television broadcasts and wireless microphones.

Google handed the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) a proposal on Monday that promises an enhanced system to prevent wireless devices from causing serious interference.

The FCC is assessing the possibility of allowing two categories of uses for the spectrum:

For low-power portable devices
For fixed commercial services

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Pan the heavens with Google Sky

Friday, March 14th, 2008

Google has just released its ‘Google Sky’, which allows you to ‘pan the heavens’ as you would a map of the Earth. It’s built on the same Google Maps technology and can be found at sky.google.com. Prior to the web version of Sky, Google created Google Mars, Google Moon and finally integrated Google Sky into the desktop app Google Earth. The web version provides the following feature-set:

Search the ‘tens of thousands’ of indexed named objects
Infrared, microwave, ultraviolet or x-ray views
Best images gallery from Hubble and other telescopes
Planetary positions and constellations
‘Earth & Sky’ podcast gallery
No download needed

It’s a pretty cool site, though still needs some work, in my opinion. And, of course, you can’t just zoom in ‘infinitely’ like you can on Maps or Earth. Nonetheless, if you’re interested in this kind of stuff, you’ll find it pretty interesting.

The Ballad of ‘Oklahomo’ Rep. Sally Kern

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