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Internet Overrun With April Fool's Gags

By    |   Wednesday, 01 April 2009 04:03 PM EDT

As the potentially dangerous Conficker worm is tracked throughout April Fool's Day, more harmless hoaxes are firing across the Internet.

Google unveiled a "Gmail Autopilot." It alleges that it will help you weed through your inbox by replying to e-mails with automated responses.

The 188-year-old British newspaper The Guardian said it would become a "Twitter-only publication," limiting its reports to 140 characters or less.

One example from 1927 read: "OMG first successful transatlantic air flight wow, pretty cool!"

Other hoaxes include upside-down viewing from YouTube, a Web site of smells called smellr (smell-ER) and an "ideological search engine" from Yahoo that filters results to fit your personal beliefs.

  • The Taipei Times fooled many readers with a report that two pandas donated by China to the Taipei Zoo were, in fact, brown forest bears dyed black and white, reports CNN.

  • Microsoft Corp. said it is releasing a new Xbox 360 video game, "Alpine Legend," which will do for fans of yodeling what "Guitar Hero" did for rock music.

  • BMW announced in ads in British newspapers that it had developed "Magnetic Tow Technology."

  • PC World reports on the Top Ten April Fool's News Articles such as "Amazon FACE : Amazon has taken cloud computing literally with its Floating Amazon Cloud Environment."

  • Computerworld is reporting that Google China has a pigeon watch page, and that Picasa has the "Auto Red-Eye" feature which does the opposite of what it normally does, turning all of your photos into red-eyed alien shots.

  • Even Economist has a gag Web site set up: "Explore a clickable map of The Economist's new theme park" Econoland, announced economist.com ... with attractions like "Dow Jones Roller Coaster," the "Mountain of Debt," and a water park filled with horrors like the "Lagoon of Lost Liquidity," a "Loan Shark," and a tide of red ink.

    And the Associated Press is reporting that Obama's new budget is over $3 trillion, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost half its value, Mexico drug gangs are causing chaos in the U.S. desert Southwest, and there's flooding in North Dakota, during winter.

    Oh, wait ...

    (The Associated Press contributed to this report)

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    InsideCover
    As the potentially dangerous Conficker worm is tracked throughout April Fool's Day, more harmless hoaxes are firing across the Internet.Google unveiled a "Gmail Autopilot." It alleges that it will help you weed through your inbox by replying to e-mails with automated...
    internet,april,fools,hoaxes
    356
    2009-03-01
    Wednesday, 01 April 2009 04:03 PM
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