Stop me if you've heard this one before but, Kingdom Hearts fans are begging for some kind of update on Kingdom Hearts 4 now that it's been two whole years since it was revealed.
31.03.2024 - 12:31 / tech.hindustantimes.com
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved pulling pranks, so much so they began rolling outlandish ideas every April Fool's Day not long after starting their company more than a quarter century ago. One year, Google posted a job opening for a Copernicus research center on the moon. Another year, the company said it planned to roll out a “scratch and sniff” feature on its search engine.
The jokes were so consistently over-the-top that people learned to laugh them off as another example of Google mischief. And that's why Page and Brin decided to unveil something no one would believe was possible 20 years ago on April Fool's Day.
Also read: Ixigo launches ‘Flyfie' drone selfie stick for travellers but you can't buy it
It was Gmail, a free service boasting 1 gigabyte of storage per account, an amount that sounds almost pedestrian in an age of one-terabyte iPhones. But it sounded like a preposterous amount of email capacity back then, enough to store about 13,500 emails before running out of space compared to just 30 to 60 emails in the then-leading webmail services run by Yahoo and Microsoft. That translated into 250 to 500 times more email storage space.
Besides the quantum leap in storage, Gmail also came equipped with Google's search technology so users could quickly retrieve a tidbit from an old email, photo or other personal information stored on the service. It also automatically threaded together a string of communications about the same topic so everything flowed together as if it was a single conversation.
Also read: Govt Warning: Don't use public USB ports to charge your smartphones
“The original pitch we put together was all about the three ‘S's” — storage, search and speed," said former Google executive Marissa Mayer, who helped design Gmail and other company products before later becoming Yahoo's CEO.
It was such a mind-bending concept that shortly after The Associated Press published a story about Gmail late on the afternoon of April Fool's 2004, readers began calling and emailing to inform the news agency it had been duped by Google's pranksters.
“That was part of the charm, making a product that people won't believe is real. It kind of changed people's perceptions about the kinds of applications that were possible within a web browser," former Google engineer Paul Buchheit recalled during a recent AP interview about his efforts to build Gmail.
It took three years to do as part of a project called “Caribou” — a reference to a running gag in the Dilbert comic strip. “There was something sort of absurd about the name Caribou, it just made make me laugh,” said Buchheit, the 23rd employee hired at a company that now employs more than 180,000 people.
The AP knew Google wasn't joking about Gmail
Stop me if you've heard this one before but, Kingdom Hearts fans are begging for some kind of update on Kingdom Hearts 4 now that it's been two whole years since it was revealed.
Overwatch 2 released a special April Fools' Day update, giving players access to a wacky game mode in the Arcade as well as adding Googly eyes to the characters, though it appears this update also impacted NPC characters as well. For many fans, April Fools' Day can be a double edged sword, as many companies come up with some elaborate pranks that many only wish were true. For example, CD Projekt RED revealed a fake special Limited Floppy Edition of Cyberpunk 2077, putting the game on 97,619 3.5in diskettes.
Disney Dreamlight Valley made a post for April Fools’ Day as a joke but it has fans thinking the game will be receiving a update but it isn’t confirmed. In the post, the developers teased a new shop – which obviously got attention by the community. There is only a couple stores in the game, including Goofy’s stalls, Scrooge’s store, and Kristoff’s stand, but that is about it.
A Pokemon GO player has revealed that they made significant progress on the Excellent Throws quest required to reach level 50 after the April Fool's event. Since Pokemon GO's launch, Niantic has held an April Fool's-themed event for players. In the first edition, Pokemon GO added a shiny Murkrow and made an adorable change that swapped the images of the Kanto Pokemon for 8-bit sprites.
RPS was on holiday yesterday, which is fortuitous timing because it was April 1st and it meant we missed all the "jokes" (lies) the games industry likes to spread on that day each year.
A new shop was teased for Disney Dreamlight Valley as an April Fools' Day joke, but players are speculating what might be coming in the future as a result. Following an annual tradition that started last year, developers of Disney Dreamlight Valley have shared another joke to celebrate the holiday. A new shop called Olaf's Snow Sculpture Emporium was added as a joke, with developers subsequently teasing actual new additions.
TinyBuild Games picked the one day when people question information on the Internet to announce its new game, Duckside,and its upcoming Closed Beta. Announced on April Fool's Day, it's an addition to the survival genre. Instead of playing as a humanoid character looking to stay alive in the wilderness, players are ducks wearing hats. This spawned rumors that Duckside was a joke to celebrate the holiday.
Developers Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software have added a new limited-time game mode to Call of Duty: Warzone just in time for April Fools' Day. The new event, Totally Advanced Resurgence, is not only a hilarious new mode for Call of Duty: Warzone players to check out, but it also acts as a callback to one of Sledgehammer Games' previous works.
Another April 1st has come and gone, and with it a glut of April Fools Day jokes, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.
There is a Bugsnax card game on the cards.
A Genshin Impact player has created an interesting Epitomized Path for four-star characters as part of an April Fool's joke that tricked many players into believing it was the real thing. The game's roster currently exceeds 82 playable characters, which can be divided into two main categories when it comes to rarity: five-star and four-star units.
Overwatch fans eagerly wait for the release of the April Fools Update every year, and the event is back with some hilarious changes. The Overwatch 2 event is well-known for the googly eyes as well as the comical voice lines, but fans look forward to the ability changes the most.