You may have noticed yesterday we posted about the history of April Fools Day. I included the quote:
Every year on April 1 the unwitting, the gullible and the plain stupid are caught out by tall stories or practical jokes. But why do people play these jokes at all?
and followed that up saying I would get back to it later.
Well, it is later. If you were reading yesterday and were astounding by any of the posts (other then the one mentioned above), well then you fell for a couple of the April Fools Jokes on the web.
No Kia-Nintendo Colab, No WestJet overhead sleeping compartments (Josh even fell for that one) [Josh note: Nuh uh. I knew it was fake. That's why I forwarded it around] and certainly no Google/Virgin trip to Mars (my favorite was one of the comments or Google Custom Time “This feature allows people to manipulate and mislead people with falsified time data. Time is a sacred truth that should never be tampered with”).
Also, if you were paying close enough attention, the acronyms for the Kee-Wii Kia car for their new technologies kind of spelled it all out: F.O.O.L.-Full Orthopaedic Operating Logic, D.O.R.K.-Dynamic On-Road Kinetics and I.D.I.O.T.- Independent Driver Input Operating Technique.
That is the new tagline for a proposed Kia collaboration with Nintendo. Today just seems to bringing us a number of interesting collaborations. Google and Virgin seems like the type of collaboration that could end up taking over the world (or in this case Mars). Kia and Nintendo, this one just seems like a bad idea (well unless they were maybe making a video game).
They are calling this collabed car the KeeWii, cute, right? Essentially you will be able to drive the new concept car (it is a year away from production and based off the Kia Kee) will be able to be driven with a Nintendo Wii game control. You’d think they’d be pushing it to help the handicap or something along those lines, but no, they are trying to atract younger drivers to the Kia brand. I guess you’ve got to attract them at a younger age these days.
Fortunately for us right minded folks in the US they are testing the idea out in other parts of the world first they are also introducing a whole new load of technology that they are dumping into the car which I am sure you will be able to spot on other new Kia models: Full Orthopaedic Operating Logic, Dynamic On-Road Kinetics and Independent Driver Input Operating Technique. To learn more about these features I posted the press release after the jump (I couldn’t find the original press release posting, so I got it from here).
It scares me what they may think of next.
Read more »
WestJet announced today that they are upgrading their planes. They will be eliminating their overhead storage area to replace it with sleeper compartments.
While this may be a pain when it comes to checking luggage, you know WestJet is thinking more about the money. A few more compartments per plane means a few more tickets sold for each flight. These new compartments will be sold for only $12 more then a good old regular seat which will definitely attract people to what they are billing as ‘luxury’ accommodations.
Seems like a pretty interesting marketing idea, and you know if it takes off (no pun intended) you can expect to see this offered on every other airline carrier around.
From Google we have two new releases today, Virgile and Google Custom Time.
Virgile is a joint venture between Google and Virgin (you know, that mega-company that is working on taking over the world… and possibly more from the looks of things) that looks to the future with a plan to Colonize Mars. It seems pretty unbelievable, but they have it all set up, including a 100 year plan that kicks off in 2010. Although I am sure they have already made a number of early selections of folks to go on the trip, they are looking for more volunteers to fill out the project. You can even apply online to be a volunteer. Or if you want to have a bit more of a hand in the project you can apply for a job as the Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering is now hiring.
The other new Google item of the day isn’t quite as exciting: Google Custom Time (GCT). GCT is a Gmail widget that allows you to change the time stamp when sending emails, get that late report in on time or respond to an email before it was sent. I am sure somewhere their is a disclaimer about doing anything illegal with the program, but still seems pretty nifty. The even have beta-user testimonials, Miriam S. said: “The entire concept of ‘late’ no longer exists for me. That’s pretty cool. Thanks Gmail!”
