Smartphones have come a long way since their invention. Earlier, e-mail support in a phone was enough for it to receive the honorific of ‘smartphone’ but phones nowadays come with not one but up to 5 different sensors.
Google added to the list of sensors on Monday by introducing Google Nose BETA with the tag line ‘Smelling is Believing’. It had a few people intrigued before they realised that it was a continuation of Google’s tradition of playing a prank on April 1 every year.
On Monday, Google’s home page carried a small teaser below the search box which said, “New! What’s that Smell? Find out with Google Nose”.
Upon clicking on the link, users were then taken to a Google Nose page which explained how Google used Street Sense vehicles to capture more than 15 million smells around the globe. The page even advertised a ‘Safe Smells’ search option to keep those irritating and offensive smells out of the search results. As part of this elaborate prank, sub-sections where users could scratch and sniff books, a link to ‘Foodles’, similar to Doodles, Self Driving New Car Smell and even AdScent for Businesses were advertised.
Upon searching for a smell, an icon would be displayed along with a link which when clicked would display the message ‘Transmitting scent’.
On mobile phones, a message would pop up asking the user to place his/her nose on the phone screen.
Popular scents like ‘Wet dog’, ‘Fresh Lime’, ‘Christmas Tree’ were also showcased.
The prank generated a lot of discussion on Twitter where Google Nose was trending all day. Many people admitted to having fallen for the prank before news of it being a prank started being posted.
In earlier years, Google played pranks like announcing the shutting down of its YouTube service as well as the reintroduction of ‘Treasure Maps’.