April 1st is definitely the most fun day of the year. At last, we get a break from hunting down the latest Apple news and our imagination gets a time to shine. Our own Gaj-it writer Andrew scoured the web for the best pranks of the day. If you missed it take a look now. There's some crackers on there. Myself, I had a pop at a prank; inventing a soviet UFO add-on pack for Black Ops. I felt pretty mischievous at the time but then in hindsight it just wasn't wacky enough, nor clever enough in comparison to some of the genius pranks that hit the web that day. And little did I know until YouTube enlightened me that there was a UFO on COD 4. Well I tried. The winner though had to be Google who (as they do each year) pulled out all the stops.
Those gullible folk out there were tricked into believing that Google had developed special motion sensing technology which would allow users to send emails using body movements. The page was accompanied by a hilarious picture guide of motion commands and a couple of fake quotes from 'Google staff.' Sadly when you clicked the button to download the latest Google product a little box came up saying "April Fools" but were those duped really fools? It seems not. They were merely optimistic.
Why do I say that? Because days after the prank the tech has become a reality. Even Google themselves added a cheeky message saying 'one day we'll develop the tech.' But they've been beaten to it by ICT MxRLab’s.
The team who hacked Kinect last year to play World of Warcraft in full-body mode have made put a video online (watch below) which shows how Google's idea can became a reality. It's not the most sophisticated hack in the world but it's great fun and another example the massive potential of motion tech.