WEBVTT - The Top April Fools Tech Jokes Episode 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:12.520 Get in Touch with Technology with tex Stuff from Hey 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.360 the guys, it's Jonathan from tech Stuff and today is 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.520 a special day. This episode is publishing on April first, 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.040 two thousand and fifteen, and that means it's an April 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.640 Pool's edition of the show. Now, I could have done 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.440 something super lame, like claimed that Chris Palette was coming 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:35.320 back to the show or that some other amazing co 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.040 host was going to join on permanently, But honestly, that's 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.800 just not fair to you guys and would kind of 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.520 make me upset too. So instead I thought I would 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.360 try something else. And I debated about recording a show 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.239 about some sort of fake technology, like I don't know, 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.480 perpetual motion device or something. But instead of all that, 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.160 I decided, let's just look back on some of the 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.760 best and worst April Fools Joe in the tech sector. Now, 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.200 this is not the first time tech Stuff has looked 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.200 at April Fools. There are episodes from two thousand nine 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.520 with Chris Pallette and two thousand thirteen with Lauren Vogelbaum 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.240 that covers some of the famous stories, so you should 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.120 check out those episodes to learn of earlier examples of 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.920 tech Tomfoolery. I'll be focusing on more recent jokes, hoaxes, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:25.720 and scams, and sometimes outright lies for today's episode. If 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.720 you follow tech news, you're probably aware that many tech 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:33.279 journalists detest April Fools Day with a passion that burns 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:37.480 brighter than a thousand exploding suns. Part of the reason 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.880 is that it can sometimes be difficult to separate the 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.720 fact from the fiction, as lots of tech companies love 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.840 to indulge in some silly antics on that day. Part 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:48.640 of the problem is that not everyone knows how to 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:53.240 tell a joke, and sometimes the jokes aren't particularly funny. 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.080 Reporting on unfunny jokes or what you suspect to be 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.200 a joke can be a real pain. So I'm sure 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.520 a few of those journalists maybe sour pusses who don't 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.760 find any humor and fake product announcements or press releases 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.080 that are just elaborate hoaxes. Personally, I still find a 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.480 good April Fool's joke to be really entertaining, but then 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.320 I don't have to report on the news. With all 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.120 that in mind, it's time to dive right in. Here 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.400 are some of the big jokes from the past couple 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.959 of years, starting with That's the year when Apple announced 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:31.200 a new gaming console called the I Play. Johnny I've 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.640 himself introduced it in a video. Apple explained that the 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.120 elegant design and simple form factor made the device a beauty. 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.519 It connects seamlessly to television systems, and it plays the 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:47.280 only video game that really matters, Angry Birds. That's all 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.840 it plays, according to Apple, is the only game you need, 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:54.000 and so the I Play would only feature Angry Birds. Now. 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.359 I love this joke because it poked fun at something 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:01.239 we had all noticed. Angry Birds was everywhere. You could 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.200 play it on your smartphone, on your tablet, video game consoles, 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.280 even set top boxes like the Roku allowed you to 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.360 play Angry Birds. So of course Apple would make a 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.520 game console product, and of course you could only play 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.400 Angry Birds on it. And of course, Apple, the company 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.600 that people like me criticized for telling us what we 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:24.840 really want, would state that this was enough. My favorite 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.880 line from the video reveal was when I first told 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.640 you about the I Play, I was excited, and nothing 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.600 has changed. They also mentioned that you could get the 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.360 new I Play, the I Play for S, and the 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.760 I Play five g all at launch, So it was 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.760 fun seeing Apple reflect on their cultural image and make 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.080 some jokes about it. Google always does a few things 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.160 for April Fool's Day. In two thousand thirteen, the company 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.920 announced that Google was going to shut down YouTube because 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.040 the winning video had finally been found In a video 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.600 posted on YouTube, The company revealed that YouTube wasn't actually 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:05.000 a video hosting site, It was a contest for the 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.080 best video. The joke claimed that YouTube would shut down 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.160 at midnight and a team of judges consisting of movie critics, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.680 YouTube celebrities, and people who left lots of comments would 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.159 gather together and debate which video was best. Then the 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:23.640 service would come back online in twenty three after having 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:28.240 watched all of videos ever submit YouTube and feature the 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:32.120 winning video and nothing else. I thought this was also 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.160 a pretty funny joke, something no one would really take seriously, 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.520 and something that just folkes fun at the cultural phenomenon 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.360 that YouTube had become. But some people did take it 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.960 seriously and we're worried that all their videos were going 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.719 to be a race forever. Of course, that didn't happen. 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.080 Google has a lot of divisions besides YouTube, and a 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.000 lot of them will get involved in April Fool's Day. 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.560 So Another one in two thousand thirteen was Google Maps, 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:03.240 which introduced treasure mode. Now. In this prank, Google claims 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:07.040 that it had uncovered treasure maps from Captain Kidd himself 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.479 that included codes and riddles that would lead to treasure. 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.760 Google claimed it had scanned most of the maps and 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.120 that using your smartphone or tablet along with other devices, 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.600 you could uncover clues. Now, some clues would require you 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.039 to hold your phone up to sunlight so that the 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.200 camera could detect the light and then you would see 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.359 where X marks the spot. Others would require you to 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.720 get together with groups of people and you'd all put 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.320 your phones and tablets together like a puzzle, and then 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.400 the X would be revealed that way. In reality, you 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.680 could view Google Maps as if it were an antique 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:43.320 map from the eighteenth century, which by itself was pretty cool. Sadly, however, 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:48.000 there was no booty to be found. Believe me, I looked. 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.440 Gmail joke was Gmail Blue, which was a jab at 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.440 Microsoft for Windows Blue, which was meant to create small 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:01.159 updates to Windows eight Gmails. Blue update asked the question, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.200 how do we redesign and create something while keeping it 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.719 exactly the same. It did, however, turn Gmail blue for 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.960 a day, So there's that. Now, this is an example 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.039 of one company taking a pot shot at another using 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.159 the April Wouls Day explanation as sort of a shield. 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.080 And it's not the only example I have in this list, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.560 so we'll come up to some other ones a little 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.039 bit later. And of course the main branch of Google 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.919 had to introduce something new as well. In this case 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:36.120 it was Google Knows. It claimed to introduce aromas to 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.480 your computing experience with more than fifteen million scent to 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.600 bytes of nasal information. Now you could explore the web 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.680 and indulge your sense of smell along with your other 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.880 information and the search results. So if you were searching 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.719 for flowers, your computer would emit the lovely smells of roses, 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.080 for example. Now Google said it could use the photons 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.320 from light sources and the computer itself to organize molecules 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.799 properly to stimulate the smell, and of course the entire 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.400 project was in beta. You could also use your smartphone 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.840 to find out what that weird smell you were detecting 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:19.480 actually was. Clearly all of this is science fiction. You 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.080 couldn't really do that. Right now, But who knows, Maybe 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.080 we'll get our sense of smell in the future and 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:32.720 be able to search very, very carefully. Meanwhile, Twitter announced 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:37.200 it was going to start charging for vowels. If you 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:42.000 compose messages without vowels, you could use Twitter t W 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.880 T t R and that would remain free. Vowels would 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:50.320 come at a premium service at five dollars a month. Why, however, 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.760 would remain free of charge since it's only a sometimes vowel. 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.200 Then you have Tashiba, which announced a three and a 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.280 half giga Hurts twelve or processor gaming device with four 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.800 gigabyte RAM graphics processing card and infrared sensors as a 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.880 competitor to the Connect. They didn't name it in their 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.239 press release, but that was essentially the message. Now. According 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.320 to the specs page on this fake device, it could 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.280 scan your room fifty seven thousand, six d forty two 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.920 times per second to make sure your gaming experience was 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.760 as accurate as possible. It was called the Sheba Sphere. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:35.079 Now I would let families play games together like Contract Negotiation, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.840 where you pretend to sit at a table and argue 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:42.000 over contractual clauses, or the Travel Simulator, which required you 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.319 to take off your shoes and belt as if you 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.120 were going through airport security. Mostly the video existed to 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.240 make fun of motion control systems like the Connect and 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:55.400 suggesting that perhaps it wasn't as compelling an experience as 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.080 the companies would want you to believe. But if you 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.800 ever wanted to pretend like you were having contractual meeting 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.880 with your loved ones, I guess that would be the 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.840 way to go. All right, this one might be my favorite. 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.440 From two thousand thirteen, Netflix created a special category for 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:17.480 the day. That category was movies featuring an epic Nicolas 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.240 Cage meltdown, which, to be fair, it's pretty much every 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.520 Nicholas Cage movie ever made, and fortunately Netflix had a 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.480 lot of them saved up so that you can actually 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.640 watch them. The service also offered other joke categories, like 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:35.319 movies that are in English but still requires subtitles, an 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.840 example being trained Spotting. Since then, Netflix has experimented with 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:45.080 playful categories, particularly those involving characters from Netflix original series. 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.280 One of my favorites is watched by Buster Bluth, character 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:54.079 from Arrested Development, which includes choices like hands of orlock 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.840 hook and Freaks and Geeks, which makes a lot of 0:09:57.880 --> 0:09:59.560 sense if you've ever watched the show and you know 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:04.199 the character or a bust blue. Meanwhile, Hulu advertised fake 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:08.480 shows that were featured within other television series, such as 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.280 Rural Juror, which was a fake TV series featured in 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.520 the show thirty Rock, or You Heard with Pard, which 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:20.840 was featured in Parks and Recreation. Video, on its hand, 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:25.839 acknowledged that the power of cat videos was overwhelming, and 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:30.640 so had become vimeow for the day instead of vimo. 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.680 All your cat videos would now belong in one place, 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.400 without the distractions of other videos that feature different life 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.480 forms or subject material. I'm actually kind of amazed they 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.360 didn't stick with that strategy. Skypes, April Fool's joke was 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:48.840 introducing a new feature called Skype in space. You see, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.200 we had become used to the idea of making Skype 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.560 calls from across the world, but what about when we 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.679 happen to be across the galaxy from each other? So 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.439 Skypes new program would allow people to beam conversations across 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.440 vast reaches of space, and it would have useful features 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.600 like an auto rotate function, so that as you float 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.920 around in microgravity, the screen would always stay right side 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.720 up from your perspective. The biggest challenge, according to Skype, 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.640 was that the speed of light was still a limiting factor, 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.640 meaning that if you're really far away from the other person, 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:27.640 there's gonna be some delays in your conversation. Virgin Airlines 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.760 announced that it was going to introduce a glass bottomed 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.920 plane for April Fools. Now, that way you could actually 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.280 watch the world pass beneath you as you saw at 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.319 thirty thousand feet. Got a feeling that would have had 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.199 a negative effect on folks who already find air travel stressful. 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.640 And another company, a big one that routinely makes great 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:52.360 April Fools jokes, is Thinking. In two thousand thirteen, one 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.040 of those jokes was the play Dough three D printer. 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.240 It supposed they could connect to an iPad and that's 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.640 where you would create your three D too signed before 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.880 sending it to be printed in play Do. It even 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.240 featured three extruders for the play do giving you up 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.959 to three colors to build with simultaneously, which is pretty 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.040 impressive compared to actual three D printers on the market, 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:19.040 many of which are limited to a single color per printing. Now. 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.640 Sadly this never became a real product, unlike some of 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:24.640 the jokes that have come out of Think Geek in 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.800 the past. The other Think Geek fakes in included the 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.600 Bain Mask walkie talkies, which would change your voice to 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.720 sound like the Batman villain, or the Eye of Salon 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:42.520 desk lamp, which I actually want for myself, though the 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:47.440 price tag was pretty hefty on that fake product, so 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:49.920 if they ever make a real one and it's not 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:55.920 ridiculously expensive, I'll buy it. Also in two thousand thirteen, 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.520 Star Trek alumnus and Internet superstar George t Kay got 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:03.320 into the by announcing he had been cast as a 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.520 Jedi Master in the upcoming Star Wars film. That's a 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.079 shame that we won't get to see Sulu wield a 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.160 lightsaber the same way he handled a foil in the 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:18.000 iconic Star Trek original series episode The Naked Time. That's 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.840 the one where he ends up getting affected by this 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.480 stuff that makes an act of crazy and he believes 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.679 himself to be a musketeer and then he buckles everyone's swashes. 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.760 It would have been interesting to see the Jedi version 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.560 of this character, and of course having a crossover uh 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.760 Star Trek and Star Wars character or actor at any 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:40.840 rate would have been a lot of fun. But it 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:45.720 was just a joke. Now, perhaps the award for least 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.920 funny joke in two thousand thirteen, at least for folks 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.960 who live in the United States, goes to the National 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:57.559 Turk Online newspaper. The news site reported that an eight 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:02.440 point seven magnitude earthquake had hit Washington, d C. And 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.160 that many famous landmarks were destroyed or were burning, and 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:10.240 that President Obama had been evacuated to Norad. I should 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.800 probably do a full episode on Norad sometime. That would 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.720 be a pretty cool topic. At any rate, this entire 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.640 story was reported in a very straightforward way, including a 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.840 bit about a tsunami affecting Halifax, Nova Scotia, And at 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.840 the very end of the article, which had no indication 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.920 that it was actually a joke, there was this sentence 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.560 and it's this is verbatim the way it was written 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.520 on the site. You can actually go and read it 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.560 right now, and it's written the same way. This is 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:46.400 a April fool. Thank you for your understanding exclamation point. Now, 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.400 maybe the whole thing is much funnier in Turkish, but 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:51.680 on the face of it, this sounds more of what 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.080 I'd like to call a fib than a joke, and 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.720 it reminds me of some sites that do the stuff 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.880 all the time, every single day. But that's another podcast. 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.640 I could do a full episode just talking about fake 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:09.040 news sites that claim to be satire but in fact 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.360 just report fake news in a way that doesn't indicate 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.040 that it's a joke. Uh, something that I find really irritating. 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:18.680 Kind of curious what you guys think. All right, Well, 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.800 that brings us up to two thousand and fourteen. Let's 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.280 talk about some of the jokes that came out that year. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.000 There were some big themes in There were a lot 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.160 of things about wearable technology. There were a lot of 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:34.360 things about video games, and obviously I just picked picked 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.200 in a few from the various sources there were so many. 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.560 And that's part of the reason I think a lot 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.120 of people are getting sick of April Fool's Day in 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.160 the tech world is that everyone tries to get in 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.080 on this, and not everyone does a great job of it. 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:56.160 So Microsoft made me both wins and smile simultaneously April 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:00.360 Fool's Day, and that kind of hurt and away. If 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.440 you logged into office dot com and opened up a 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.760 new document or a new spreadsheet, you were greeted by 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:12.400 an old friend. That's right, Clippy, the helpful paper clip 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.000 that nobody liked, pops up and tries to ruin your 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:19.560 day by suggesting what to do next. It was amusing 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:24.760 to see, but still just as irritating as ever. Google 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.920 Chrome's big joke was that it would now have an 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:32.720 automatic emoji translation service so that you could use it 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.720 when viewing websites. Now why you didn't have to worry 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.080 about what a site is actually trying to say or 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.120 how it was trying to say it. You didn't have 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.800 to worry about misinterpreting it because you could get the 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.840 whole gist of it just from a winky face or 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.680 a shy snowman or some other emoji. The whole concept 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.400 was explained in a video demonstrating how the team was 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.600 able to boil down complex concepts into a series of 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.760 simple images. They showed how everything from videos, subtitles to 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.919 medical journals could be emogified. This is another one of 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.840 those that I think is is pretty cute. It's worth watching. 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.240 Not necessarily laugh out loud funny, but you know, I'm 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:18.520 sure you'll crack a smile. Maybe YouTube's big joke was 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:22.320 claiming that it was responsible for all those viral videos 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:28.120 you know and love or hate or are indifferent to anyway. 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.959 A video explained how YouTube writers meticulously crafted every viral 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:38.479 video from jankat to skateboard fails to GANDAM style and 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.440 everything in between. So everything was supposedly orchestrated from scratch 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:48.960 and created by YouTube as opposed to submitted to YouTube 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.439 and then just went viral. And they even gave us 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.040 a sneak peek at trends that were supposed to become 0:17:54.119 --> 0:18:00.639 big in that included clocking, which was the next generation 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:06.240 of crazy physical activities like planking. Now in this case, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.600 clocking is when you go to a location and hold 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.120 your arms up like you're an analog clock, and then 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.520 you move your arms so that they are in line 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.600 with the correct time, and you keep correct time for 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.280 as long as you can. According to the video, the 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.760 longer you do it, the funnier it is. Other trends 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.760 that they said were in store for us included cake bumping, 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.280 which is just casually knocking cakes off of tables, uh 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:38.320 Wolf mask t ball, the Harlem Shake again, and geology 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.560 another amusing video. I think check that one out to 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.120 All of these that I mentioned are still up, so 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.159 you can actually go back and find them if you 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.760 miss them the first time. Now, Google Maps had something 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.600 that I ended up playing with pretty much on and 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.159 off all day on April Fools Day last year. It 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.439 was a new feature that allowed you to explore cities 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.680 while tracking down and capture ring Pokemon monsters, or as 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:07.120 Bernie Burns of Rooster Teeth refers to them, pokemons, which 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.119 I think is my preferred way of designating them. But 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.399 as you discovered the little critters, you could click on 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.200 them and then add them to your Poka decks, which 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.760 I guess is your index of pokemons. You didn't have 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:24.400 the ability to actually hold spontaneous Pokemon battles with nearby folks, unfortunately. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.040 It was really just kind of looking around to see 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.800 which Pokemon monsters you were missing from your Poka decks 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.440 and capturing them. Uh, Larger cities had a lot more 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.760 of them than smaller cities. Tokyo had a ton of them. 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.320 As I recall, I never collected all of them, so 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.920 I did not catch them all. Very sad. Now, to 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.800 wrap up the Google extravaganza for the Google Plus social 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:54.160 network added an Auto Awesome photo Bomb feature. So Google 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.440 Plus has this Auto Awesome feature that will automatically enhance 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.280 pictures for you. Then you can choose whether or not 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.560 they get posted to your account. So, for example, I 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:08.720 took a picture in a snowy field one day when 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:13.560 it was snowing overhead, and the Auto Awesome feature created 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:18.600 an animated layer of snowflakes falling down my actual picture, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.600 which was kind of cool. In this case, it was 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.719 an Auto Awesome photo bomb feature which would insert an 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.480 image of Baywatch and Night Riders star David David Hasselhoff 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.320 into the photo, so you get David hassel Off photo 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:35.560 bombing you. I had a friend who had this show 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.560 up and it looked hilarious. Never got any of my 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:40.880 pictures to do this, though, so I was a little 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.000 left out. Uh So, David, if you're listening, um, maybe 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:49.440 we can get a photo together sometime. Canadian airline west 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:53.159 Jet announced it was converting to metric time with a video. 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:59.080 Metric time, according to WestJet, includes million minutes and keylow minutes, 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.439 and they and included a simple conversion formulas that you 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.159 can be as accurate as possible, which involved multiplying by 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.719 a certain number, subtracting another number, converting it over. It 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:15.920 was ridiculous, and you know, I'm using Perhaps this might 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:20.240 have been my favorite video. The apparel company Bnobo's entered 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.960 a new line of shirts with Internet connectivity through what 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:27.200 they called Wi Fiber, which already was cute, but the 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.840 video really made me chuckle a couple of times. It's 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:35.240 supposedly linked your clothing to an artificially intelligent personal assistance, 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.920 so sort of like Siri or Cortana or the Google 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.840 Voice assistant, and I guess that one doesn't have a name. Anyway, 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:46.800 this particular personal assistant would get a little crazy or 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.600 do things that you didn't necessarily wanted to do. It 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.199 could do some useful stuff like alert you to the 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.040 temperature outside and even suggest if you need to put 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.359 on extra layers of clothings that you stay warm, but 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.720 it could do crazy things too. In the demo they show, 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.040 the shirt ends up sending a Facebook message to the guy. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.080 The guy who's wearing the shirt, it sends it to 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.399 his ex girlfriend, which he then says, why would you 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.640 do that? And then it likes the message on Facebook 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.440 and he just totally loses it and it's pretty amusing. 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:20.240 It's actually a really funny video. I recommend checking out 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:24.640 the Benobo's video on tech. It's called tech style, as 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.280 in tech and style put together as instead of textile. 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.040 You gotta see the whole joke. And I actually own 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:34.359 the same shirt that's in the video, which I thought 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.000 was kind of funny. Um. It does not, however, talk 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.639 to me or do crazy things. Highly recommend checking that 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.280 one out. It was one of the funnier ones of 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:46.160 the year, and wearable tech, like I said, was not 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:53.480 surprisingly a huge topic in jokes. Fourteen Toeshiba, HTC and 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:59.600 Samsung all announced smart gloves complete with different gesture user 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:04.040 interface aces. Some of them had screens. Uh. Very predictable 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:08.480 considering how popular wearable technology was getting in tween. In fact, 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.199 I'll be shocked if the day you're listening to this, 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:13.720 if we don't have at least three or four examples 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:19.520 of silly wearables as jokes, I'll be completely shocked. Probably 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:21.639 augmented reality too. I'm gonna go ahead and take a 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:24.399 wild stab at that. With things like the hollow lens 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:28.159 and uh magic Leap coming out, I'm i imagine we're 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:31.800 going to see some really crazy augmented reality jokes. Back 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.280 in though, I g n ran a video that got 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:38.480 some gamers hopes up. They claimed that the video game 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:42.760 titan Fall, in which you compete in uh in military 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:45.480 style games with other players who all of whom are 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:48.800 playing as pilots who can control enormous mex so you 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:51.440 run around in these games. You can either play as 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:54.960 your pilot who can jump really far and shoots guns 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:57.919 and stuff, or you can get into a mech whenever 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.280 the max land whenever you can call one in and 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:04.359 now you're a giant robot that can shoot stuff. You're 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:06.440 still the pilot in sight, so you can actually eject 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:09.359 from the robot. It's pretty cool concept, and it was 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:14.159 really popular before it finally kind of died down. But 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:17.439 they said that they were introducing new downloadable content that 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:23.160 inserted Optimist Prime from the Transformers series into video gameplay, 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:26.199 which would have been incredible. The idea of getting someone 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:30.840 as iconic a figure as iconic is Optimist Prime incorporated 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:33.960