Google’s April Fools’ Day pranks

Many companies have made a real effort today with a good list being compiled by TechCrunch but I think Google deserves this year’s imaginary award due to their many fools.

Firstly, Google Motion which claims to allow you to control your Gmail inbox using only gestures and movements. This is how it ‘works’:

Gmail Motion uses your computer’s built-in webcam and Google’s patented spatial tracking technology to detect your movements and translate them into meaningful characters and commands. Movements are designed to be simple and intuitive for people of all skill levels.

And in case you want to try it they have also released a set of gestures that can be used to control your Gmail.

Google’s second April Fools’ effort was less of a prank and more of a cool feature that was added to the search results. If you google Helvetica or Comic Sans you will notice the font changes. Pretty cool, right?

At the time of writing this is Google’s most recent prank and it is in the form of a job offer. Can you type at 32,000 words per minute? That’s 533 words per second! Well, I sure can’t and I even tested it; I managed a pathetic 91 words per minute. Want to apply for a position at Google as an autocompleter? You can apply here.

Those are my three picks of Google’s best pranks for 2011′s April Fools’ day, an honourable mention has to go out to Google classifying Google Places as spam though!