Google has started the April Fools day celebrations with a video which was posted by its Maps team posting a video on YouTube. The video shows an augmented reality game in which players use their mobile phone cameras to find Pokémons inserted into the world around them. “Become a Pokémon Master with Google Maps”, an “Advanced Pokémon Trainer”, going by the name of “Tatsuo Nomura”, says, Google has “worked with Pokémon and Nintendo to develop a new training tool to help people hone their Pokémon-capturing abilities using Google Maps.”
User have to go to Google maps, tap Search, and then tap ‘Press Start’ to scroll in Google Maps and “catch” Pokémons and add them to an in-built app called Pokédex. “The game has over 150 monsters across six generations of Pokémon games, spread over Google maps,” says Google.
“At Google we seek to hire the most exceptional people. Today we are announcing a new job role and challenge — Pokémon Master,” the voiceover in the Video says. “Pokémon Master’s are world’s greatest digital explorers.”
Google has also added more April Fools day pranks this year, Google mentioned in a blog post that users can now set selfies as a background theme. The Google Chrome blog post mentions that users can now translate a page into emoji.
The Google Chrome team says, “Not only does this pictorial and theatrical language allow us to communicate complex emotions, it’s also far more compact. One emoji symbol can easily replace dozens of characters, improving efficiency and comprehension on the go. It turns out the best way to communicate in the future is to look to the past: the ancient Egyptians were really onto something with their hieroglyphs.”
Google had acquired Nest thermostat maker recently. In a video posted on YouTube, Nest team announces that it is teaming up with Virgin America to offer personalized temperature to every flier. Passengers are given options like Cancun Afternoon and Chicago Polar Vortex. Google Maps’ last year’s prank included a treasure hunt across the globe, among others.
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