Internet hoaxes abound on April Fool’s Day; Mountain Xpress mentioned

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

1

AP story mentions Mountain Xpress:

Internet hoaxes launched for April Fools’ gags

By JAKE COYLE – 1 hour ago

NEW YORK (AP) — While the potentially dangerous Conficker worm was being tracked throughout April Fools’ Day, more harmless hoaxes were being fired out across the Internet.

Everyone from Google to The Guardian were rolling out prank Web sites Wednesday. It’s become an April 1 tradition on the Web to showcase absurd technological breakthroughs and silly pseudo-innovations.

New media mockery was everywhere.

Google unveiled “Gmail Autopilot.” It alleges that it will help you weed through your inbox by replying to e-mails with automated responses, tailored to your preference for emoticons.

Google also claimed to have mastered artificial intelligence with an entity named “CADIE.” That technology led Google to claim, among other things, that it could now “index your brain.”

The 188-year-old British newspaper The Guardian said it would become a “Twitter-only publication,” limiting its reports to 140 characters or less.

One example from 1927 read: “OMG first successful trans-Atlantic air flight wow, pretty cool!”

(The North Carolina alternative weekly Mountain Express announced a similar reconfiguration, calling itself “the nation’s first Twaper.”)