Google Fools Day!

It comes as no surprise that Google – as one of the world’s leading internet companies – is also the one with the biggest sense of humor when it comes to practical jokes.

Last year on the 1^st of April, Google blew the world away when they announced a print service that allowed Gmail users to print out their emails and have them delivered to a physical home address, complete with a Gmail-stickered cardboard box!
Needless to say, the next day everyone realized the joke was on them when Google pointed it out.

And thus history repeats itself again; and I almost instinctively knew Google is up to no good again this year.

So I go to the Google homepage and guess what I find:

Google Chrome in 3D

Yup, you read that right; apparently this time Google wants us to believe there is actually a version of their popular browser that let us see stuff in 3D!
The page actually features a special version of Chrome with 3D along with steps to follow to get the perfect 3D view.

And get this; the site comes complete with a PDF document with a picture of 3D glasses you should print, cut out and wear!!!

I doubt if the site (or at least the link) will stay for long, so here’s a couple of screenshots from the site and the 3D glasses:

Given the amount of following Google has, I'm sure there's lots of downloads of this already; but I really wonder how many people are gonna fall for it this time!!

Chrome comes to Google!

Yup, it’s finally here! The long awaited browser from the most popular name on the internet – Google, with the launch of its fabled ‘Chrome’ web browser.

And like most internet junkies, I scrambled to be among the first to download and use it – and I have one thing to say about it:

It’s brilliant!
Not beautiful – there’s no eye-catching colors, fancy design or anything, but it’s just brilliant.

And although people who are used to Safari’s fluid interface may not be too thrilled with the bare-minimalist design, most of the common folks who’ve been stuck with Microsoft IE might choose to move, thanks to automatic import of bookmarks, favorites and all your settings right from your old browser into Chrome.

And that’s not all; there are several features that are leap years ahead of anything on Mozilla Firefox, Safari and (is it even worth mentioning?) IE. For instance, the tabs automatically open with your most recently visited pages, and you can just click on where you want to go. Searches are direct from the address bar, and Chrome automatically gives spelling suggestions for misspelt words – pretty much like Google itself.

There are also nifty well-thought features like the status bar that automatically disappears after loading, downloads that are tied to the page itself without launching a separate pop-up and so on.

You can also do a lot of extras – like dragging out tabs to make them into a separate window or joining multiple windows into one single window, right-click a phrase and search for it and so on.

Of course, it’s only beta, and there’s bound to be improvements; as well as bugs in the current version. Right now, I’m just trying this out and am really excited…and now that I read back what I’ve written, it almost sounds like a promotion campaign for Chrome.

But I really think this is one download that’s worth trying out. And let me know what’s your take on it.