WEBVTT - TechStuff Pulls Some Pranks: Part Two 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.960 Get in tech with Technology with text Stuff from how 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:16.360 stuff dot com. Hello, everyone, welcome to the podcast and 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.759 you are listening to stuff you missed in history class, 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.080 where you're two new hosts, Jonathan Strickland and Lauren. Today, 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:28.080 we wanted to talk about the history of April Fools Day. Uh, actually, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.840 obviously this is an April Fools Tech Stuff episode. The 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:33.559 last time we did one of these, it was it 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.479 was me and my my former co host Chris, and 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.120 we decided to say that tech Stuff had been canceled 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.760 and replaced with reruns of stuff you should know. So 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:43.720 I thought this time I would just say that we 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:45.440 were now stuff you missed in history class. That, of 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.040 course is not true. We wanted to update folks on 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.559 other pranks and jokes that technology companies have done in 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.840 the years since that tech Stuff episode, which that published 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.480 in two thousand nine. We did not cover two thousand 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.320 nine because us it published that day. Yeah, we record 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.080 the episodes early, so there's no way of that we 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:06.960 would have any way of knowing what was going to 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.280 happen on the actual April first. Yeah, we also don't 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.760 know what's going to happen this year. When when you're 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.640 listening to this, we will also be finding out what's 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.800 going on. So uh, but before we jump into two 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.199 thousand nine and then work our way through, I thought 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.160 I mentioned a few pranks we didn't talk about in 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.880 that first episode, and one of them is, Uh, it's 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:29.800 some of these are not April Fools pranks, by the way. 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.640 They're just famous pranks that have happened within the world 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.959 of technology. And one of them is is one that 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.920 that definitely ruffled feathers. And uh, and Lauren, I know 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.600 you know about this one too. It's what Gizmodo did 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.280 in two thousand and eight at c e S and 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:51.000 they brought along these little controllers called TV be Gone. Yeah. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.720 So these are controllers that they only have one purpose, 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:57.320 which is to turn off any television set that uses 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:01.640 the infrared receivers to you know, you just press a 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.440 button and it goes through all these different codes that 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.960 are used for various television sets to turn them off. 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:12.800 So some folks from Gizmoto were given some TV begne 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.120 controllers and then they proceeded to wreak havoc or at 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:21.080 least spread mischief around the and they even did it 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.320 during some presentations Oh, that's not that's not necessarily kind. Yeah. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.640 So um yeah. In fact, they cut a lot of 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.840 flak for that, and including for me. I mean, I 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.240 you know there, I'm sure there are very talented people 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.320 who write for Gizmoto or who work on other projects 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:41.560 with Gizmoto, but that that got under my skin, you know, 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.119 to the point where I was thinking, like, if I'm 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.400 a guy whose job it is to to present to 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:48.960 the press and two vendors how amazing a product is, 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.720 and the product keeps not working throughout my presentation, that 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:57.600 could mean actual loss in sales and bad press, and 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.959 it just I mean to me that that's not the 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.079 role of journalism. It's not to to be like, hell, 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.040 look how clever and naughty we are, you know. And uh, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.240 the c E A that's the organization that puts on 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.160 c e s agrees with me because they banned Gizmodo 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.680 for that behavior. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's that kind of 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.040 goes with I think that a lot of people in 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.560 the press are kind of over this entire tech April 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:21.640 fools on the web thing. That's a great thing to 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.720 point out. Yeah, there to be fair, Like, I still 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.120 find it amusing but it's not my job to follow 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.080 every I don't report the tech news. We're not a 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.880 news situation, so it doesn't it doesn't really matter if 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.960 we have a day by day up to the date 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.120 everything going on all the time, Whereas if if we 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.080 were to cover the news, then you already know on 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.000 April one that there's no way to have any sort 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.680 of reliability. Yeah, all the news stuff you run into 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.480 on April one, there's a very good chance that it's 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.160 Shenanigan's right, right Canary. Yeah, although I do think most 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.080 places are pretty good about having a little link at 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:57.560 the bottom that says like, oh no, this is an 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.560 April Fools joke, most but not all. Uh yeah, and 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.280 a couple of other pranks. I wanted to mention, I'm 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.200 sure that we mentioned this in an episode of Tech 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:08.960 Stuff in the past, but I could not find it. 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:10.600 If any of you guys remember right in because it 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.920 is killing Jonathan, it's really it's there's that little vange. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.760 I am definitely guilty of manufacturing false memories, so so 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.400 it's quite possible that I did invent these, but I could. 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.479 I'm sure that I heard Chris talking about this, But again, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.920 these aren't April Fools jokes, but but cal Tech has 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:32.760 a rich, rich history of pulling pranks. Some of them 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.520 aren't hacking in the sense of hacking electronics, but are 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:40.159 more like social hacking, life social horror, or just yeah, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.040 life hacking. A great example of the life hacking approach 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:49.000 was in nineteen sixty one during the Rose Bowl game. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.679 So cal Tech, which was not in the Rose Bowl 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.760 that year, UH, discovered that one of the plans UH 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.000 during that that game was for the one cheerleading squad 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.479 to yell out numbers and then the audience would hold 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.279 up a card that related to whatever the number was, 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.320 and some cal Tech students went in and fiddled with 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.880 the system so that one there were fifteen different numbers 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.320 that they would go through throughout the game. So once 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.320 they hit fourteen, when everyone held up the cards, that 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.840 actually spelled out cal Tech. So they managed to crash 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.040 the Rose Bowl. Well, they did it again in nineteen 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:30.480 four because that year they ended up rewiring the scoreboard 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.000 so that although the actual game was U c L 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.919 a versus the University of Illinois, the scoreboard said that 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:42.279 it was cal Tech thirty eight M I T three UH, 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.680 and then UH They've done a lot of pranks on 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:47.560 m T, and m T has done some on cal 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:49.279 Tech as well. It's like, if you get really smart 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:50.920 kids all together in one room, they get a little 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:55.919 bit bored. And yeah, apparently they once traveled from California 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.800 all the way to Massachusetts. Uh, there's a sign at 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.080 m I T that says the Institute of Technology, and 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.960 they made the sign read that other Institute of Technology, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.560 and then they passed out free T shirts to the 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.120 pre freshmen who were there to explore the grounds, and 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.040 the T shirts on the front red m I T. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:18.919 On the back it said because not everyone can go 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.919 to cal Tech. So yeah, anyway, the cal Tech has 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:24.960 got a real long history of it. But let's move 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.400 on to some actual pranks that were pulled in two 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.280 thousand nine. Yeah, do you do you have one you 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:33.200 want to start off with, which just kind of kind 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.160 of alternate. Yeah, um, I was. I was really fond 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.120 of of of YouTube flipping all of its videos upside down. 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:40.919 And there's a little message that would play on the 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:45.480 site that said that for for maximum like viewing optimacy. Right, 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:47.320 that's not a word, that's not the word that they used, 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.000 but it's similar to that. Yeah, where it was everything 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.240 was upside down. That was a good one. Microsoft released 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.880 a trailer for a game called Alpine Legend. Yeah. It 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:02.240 ended up yeah, like like Guitar Legend, Yeah, but with 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:04.880 an alpine horn. Yeah. The Alpine Horn looked like it 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.360 was twelve ft long and had four buttons on it 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.000 and you were supposed to it was a rhythm game, 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.920 just like Guitar Hero or Rock Band or anything like that. 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.240 And um. Yeah, and then they had a singing component, 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.680 so you would have someone yotally next to you as 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.360 you were playing them. I love this. I want one. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.080 It's kind of my think geek moment when I didn't 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:25.960 I didn't even see that when it happened in two 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:27.680 thousand night, or if I did, I have no memory 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:29.640 of it. Uh, do you have another one you want 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.520 to do? Um? Amazon announced that they were going to 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.600 have some blimp based cloud computing systems yea, which is awesome. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.080 I still I still want that. I would take Yeah, 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.040 they would pay for that service. They were they were 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.280 going literal with cloud services. It was called the Floating 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:49.000 Amazon Cloud Environment or FACE, and it supposedly had solar 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:50.800 cells on the top of each blimp that would collect 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.720 solar energy to provide the electricity needed for that that blimp. 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.880 There was the Hotelicopter. Hotelicopter, Yes, I think that end 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.840 gadget actually fell for. It was supposedly a Soviet m 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:08.120 I l V twelve helicopter, helicopter, one of those kind 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.840 of double decker looking things, enormous thing, and that I 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.280 had been converted into a luxury hotel that had eighteen rooms. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:20.800 Each room had a coffee machine or WiFi WiFi, yeah, 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.760 and they used the images they used were actually images 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.280 taken from a chain of hotels called Yotel and uh. 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.400 In fact, it was later discovered that Yotel was in 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:31.440 on the joke, so it wasn't just that someone had 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:36.000 stolen stole the pictures. Google that year, Oh gosh, Google 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:40.040 always comes out with a ton of things. Uh, let's see, 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:41.840 they had I think I think it was a kind 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.040 of under an umbrella, that one that was their Caddie 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.640 Katie k A d I E. Yeah, that was the 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:53.480 kind of have auto heuristic distributed intelligence entity. Yeah, and 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.720 it was an artificially intelligent creation that Google then unleashed 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.160 on the web, supposedly, and one of the first things 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.360 that did was build its own website. And it built 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.520 its own website by from Google explained that it was 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:11.000 designed to pull design elements and design strategies from the 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.640 web and pick the ones that are the most popular 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.120 because those have to be the best ones, and build 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.160 its own website. Did you actually see the website? It 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.880 looked like something from It was like Geo cities. Yeah, 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.120 there was. There was an animated banner at the top, 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.960 there were pandas all over the page. There was a 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.679 there was a music playing in the background. I mean, 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.920 like every bad design, there was an under construction gift. 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.959 That's what was my favorite. Um. Yeah, there were every 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.800 bad design you can remember in the in the nineties 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.800 from web page design was and this artificially intelligent UH 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.440 creation had supposedly created this picture. Uh. There also was 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:49.920 an announcement to a three D upgrade to the Chrome 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.080 browser because of all households have at least one pair 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.040 of red blue three D glasses laying around right right. 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.720 There was a Gmail autopilot which would answer your emails 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.640 for Yeah. There was a Picasta feature that would let 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.360 you put red eye into your photos. It would automatically 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.280 add red eye into your photos and if and if 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.800 the photo didn't have any eyes to add red too, 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.400 it would it would destroy it. I didn't get to 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.959 that part. That is awesome. Uh yeah, I mean in Australia, 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.520 Google announced g Ball, a GPS enabled soccer ball. I'm 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.760 assuming that they meant soccer since it's Australian rules football. 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.800 Australian Okay, so not not soccer but Australian rules football. Yeah. 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:29.880 It not only was a GPS enabled, but it could 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.320 send messages to like, let's say that you are a 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.360 sports fan, but you can't watch the game. It would 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.440 update you via text messages how the game was going 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.360 based upon the position of the ball, Like I'm getting 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.880 kicked around a lot. This is hurting my self esteem. 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.240 Uh yeah, that was. There was some great stuff from 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.400 Google that year. Yeah. Yeah. My My other favorite, being 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:52.520 that I work in social media, is that Guardian reported 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:54.080 it was going to shut down all of its web 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.400 and print services um and go Twitter only. Yeah. They 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.080 said that that everything that has ever reported in the 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.080 news can be summed up in a hundred forty characters 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.800 or fewer. Expedia offered flights to Mars starting at and hotels. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.880 Dot Com offered deals on hotel rooms on the Moon. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.000 Warner Brothers supposedly bought the Pirate Bay for thirteen billion 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.720 dollars because they were involved in a lengthy lawsuit and 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:18.880 Warner Brothers it didn't look like Warner Brothers would win, 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.160 so the only way Warner Brothers could get around it 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.720 would be by buying the Pirate Bay. Yeah, that obviously 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.240 was not true. That was reported on torrent Freak. That 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.120 was the source of that one. Yahoo announced that they 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.080 had ideological Search, which would let you filter out any 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:38.080 search results that that conflict with your own worldview. So 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.400 it's kind of like Facebook, how you just start to 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.760 unfriend people like I do not want any more posts 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:45.960 about that. Actually, I'm kind of afraid that that's what 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.199 Google is doing right now, like this very moment in 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.560 the real world. Yeah, tech Crunch reported that their their 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.760 technology blog, crunch Gear, had been purchased by General Mills, 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.320 so that crunch Gear would be about crunchy cereals, which 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:00.199 again I don't know I thought I would of I 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:05.520 would read that Wired's geek Dad became jock Dad. Uh. 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:11.560 Reddit became red dig and they totally redesigned themselves. Yeah, 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:13.800 they redesigned the page to make it look more like dig, 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.280 which you know, redd it and dig. There's definitely a 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:24.079 especially at the Zappos said that they were introducing bunk desks, 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.719 so they would build platforms above a desk and put 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.600 a second desk on there. The picture was great because 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.200 it showed a guy sitting at his desk facing away 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.880 from the camera and a platform built over his desk, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.560 and on top of the platform was a second desk 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.720 with a young lady facing towards the camera working on 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.040 at her desk, and they had to remove the ceiling 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.120 tile over her head because otherwise her head would be 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.120 pressed up against it, so that was kind of funny. Um. 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:50.400 There was the service Chirper that was announced by box 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.120 dot net because they said that Twitter is just characters. 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.880 There's just just too long, so it reduces your tweets 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:01.480 to fifty characters by dropping letters. Wow. Yeah, it was 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:07.840 pretty amazing. Uh yeah. Opera browser was introducing face based gestures, 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.679 so to zoom out, you'd puff your cheeks out. To 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.959 zoom in, you you suck your cheeks in. To reload 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.400 the page, you twist your neck that kind of stuff. 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.920 There were some pretty good ones that year two thousand nine, 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.920 I have to say was probably like the banner year 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.160 for I think that was where the tech goofiness on 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.680 April Fool's really peaked, and then people started to kind 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:31.599 of back off after that. But this was like the 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.160 the year where everyone was doing it. A National Geographic 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.880 announced the publication of its newest title, National Geographic, The 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.000 Best of the Breasts. The press release said, finally, a 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.600 compendium of all our stellar breast photography has been called 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.480 for our one twenty six year history. It's a celebration 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.679 of the female body and its honest form that is 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.440 completely amazing. It makes me so much more fond of 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:55.600 National and I'm like, I didn't know that they had 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:59.000 that sense of human and uh. In a little website, 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.080 a blog for a webs sight, a little website called 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.239 how stuff works dot com had an article about rechargeable 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.839 chewing gum written by a Jonathan Strickland. That was my 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.040 contribution that year. I couldn't talk about it during the 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.480 podcast that we recorded way back in two thousand nine 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.240 because it had not yet published. UM. I was particularly 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.640 proud of that when I had some people believing it, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.400 even though I thought it was the thing when you 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:25.560 write these things, you'd think, there's no way anyone. We'll 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.160 move on to twenty ten. So twenty ten, well, first 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.240 of all, un let's say, Think, of course has a 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.920 history of announcing ridiculous products on April Fool's Day and 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.560 then another history of making them become real things. When 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.800 people say, why doesn't that exist? I would buy that thing. 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:46.440 Please let me give you my money. And my favorite 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.200 from Think was the year that the Dharma alarm clock 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.040 from from Lost came out. This is and if you 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:53.760 guys have not watched Lost, then you're going to be 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.080 completely bored for the next fifteen seconds. But but it 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.440 had two alarm settings and one minute warning and an 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:02.680 electromagnetic cataclysic mode um nice. It has a twenty three 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.040 year warranty or until your house explodes, and polar bear 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:11.920 not included. Does it does it flash sideways like like 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.160 Lost did? It's it's got a got higher glyphs, but 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.920 it had. They also introduced the ikade, which was the 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.840 little arcade cabinet housing that you would put an iPad 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.320 into and you could play arcade games on it, which 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.880 and that became a real thing. We have here, we 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.800 have one here in the office. I've played with it myself. UM, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:34.160 let's see YouTube announced text p, which was and there 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.400 was a response to the fact that the online videos 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.360 take up a lot of broadband. It takes up a 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.720 lot of you know, it requires a long time to buffer, 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.200 like especially back in you know, it wasn't quite as 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:49.320 fast and mobile was definitely an issue there too. So 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.320 text p was a service that would convert videos into 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:58.320 streaming text instead of video actual video images, and that 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.280 you could supposedly just watch a video and text form, 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:08.080 which was nice, nice way to streamline that broadband problem. Uh. 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.680 The The Independent newspaper from the UK reported a plan 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.040 to build a had drunk glider in the circle line 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.480 of London's metro right so the tube would become a 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.560 particle accelerator. I thought that was a great one. I 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:24.280 love that Funny or Die turned into Bieber or Die. 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.480 Supposedly Justin Bieber purchased Funny or Die and then it 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.320 just became a website about Justin Bieber. All the videos 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.520 were about Justin Bieber. That was a fantastic one. Uh. 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:39.080 There were there was some great fake articles on Wikipedia. UM. 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:40.880 I don't know how that's different from any other day, 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:43.880 but one of those was a joke, just a joke. 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:46.360 Not all of them are fake, no, but you know, 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.680 I'm saying this just after the news broke that that 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.440 someone detected that BP had been fudge changing the environmental 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.600 report about the the oil spill. So you know, they're 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:03.040 always check your sources. Wikipedia right right. Wikipedia has its place. 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.240 It's just you have to take it with a grain 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.560 of salt, and you know how people sometimes mess with 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:12.520 the system. Anyway, They purposefully had some some joke articles. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.199 My favorite one was one that said a Japanese company 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:19.680 had accidentally sent some of its customers back to That's 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.320 that's a good one. That's good. Hulu created a fake 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.639 option to watch videos in three D and that was 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.040 one of the those things where you start watching it 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.960 and it turns into the whole aliens have created Hulu 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.359 and TV. It's part of that secret plan campaign that 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.240 they were doing for so long. What's his name in 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.359 that other girl Baldwin? Yeah, Alizadu, I think was also 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.360 in some of those one of the Baldwin's I think 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:47.720 it was, yeah, Alec I believe. Um. Let's see what else. 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.600 Let's see um read it. That year, that was the 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.160 year that they temporarily granted all users at an accident. Wow, yes, 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.280 for the whole day, which means, you know, you could 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.400 you could edit headlines, you could ban users, You could 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.040 infinitely vote up anything you wanted, so you could post 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.359 your own link and then vote it up to the 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.800 very top of Reddit. Meanwhile everyone else is doing the 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.040 same thing, right, So yeah, it was that was a 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:13.120 I love I love the stuff that read it does. 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.920 That one was terrific though, Um Google went nuts again. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:18.960 that was okay, So that was That was the year. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.719 That was right after UM, Topeka, Kansas had named itself 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.320 Google for a Day in a way too, and they 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.040 were trying to to attract Google to build out that 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.080 fiberhood in Topeka. Yeah yeah, and uh and so Google 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.520 renamed itself Topeka for the Day. Yeah. And then they 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.119 also replaced search speeds with fake terms, so you know, 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.240 like you it tells you how long it took you 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.679 two took Google to perform your search. Then it was 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.080 saying things like it's seven point to warp or twenty 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.960 three point oh skidoo, which I thought was great. Um, 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.439 Gmail had a vowel outage and so only consonants were 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.760 showing up. Google UK had a translate for animals, so 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:02.800 you could hold up your phone your tone. You can 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.040 make a little audio recording and it would tell you 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.360 what your dog or cat or pig was saying. Pig 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.280 pig Latin was going to be a new expansion coming 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.920 out sade right. Uh, there we was. There was also 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.560 if you typed in where am I into Google search field. 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.719 Usually you get coordinates when you do that, but if 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:20.560 you did it on that day, it would tell you 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:25.040 things like Neptune or more door or entrance to Hogwarts 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.280 if only. Uh yeah, there were some great ones there. 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:35.560 Um Kodak announced aeromatography. Aeromatography it's like smell a vision, 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:37.960 but in picture form, so you captured the actual scent 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.040 of the subject of your photograph. I would I would also, 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.320 that's actually I wouldn't want that technology to be unleashed 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.840 upon the world at all at all. I think PC 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.800 World had had an article um users blame sudden acceleration 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:53.920 for recent spade of injuries, and it was about how 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.600 how you know? Windows search queries could be completed a 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.040 less than two minutes and it would just give people seizures. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.240 Nice thrill lists reported that there was a new startup 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.200 called meeting Roulette, which was like chat Roulette except for 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.480 business people. So if you wanted to practice your presentation, 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.439 you would get on meeting Roulette and get connected with 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:11.840 other random business people and then you would do your presentation. 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.400 So it's like chat Roulette, but with more power point 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.119 slides and fewer more didy more, more pants and more pants, 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.320 more pants, and more power point slides exactly. Uh you know, 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.480 you know. Um. There was a flicker announced the flicker Pad, 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.000 which was a pad of paper with photos attached to it. 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.960 Group On had group poop on, which was all luxury 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:37.400 items like crazy luxury atoms, like here's a collage made 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:43.199 out of dollar bills, it's two thousand dollars. Um. College 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.360 Humor actually didn't go on the Internet for their joke. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.280 They went to real New York locations, New York City 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.760 locations and put up posters saying coming soon in and 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.720 out Burger So in and out Burgers a California fast 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.160 food chain. And they were putting up these California fast 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.840 food chain posters up on like vacant buildings a little 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:03.920 bit boarded up. They put up the signs there. Yeah, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:05.479 oh that could that could get you punched. I mean, 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:07.640 I know it's in and out as a religion among 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.359 some people. Yes, supposedly. The blogs of New York, the 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.359 food blogs kind of picked up on the the joke immediately. 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.280 That's good, that's good. Um yeah, So anyway, that's that's 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.240 a good overview of some of the big ones from 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.159