April Fool’s From Google

Send emails to the past! Live on Mars! I guess the clever thing would be to pretend these new programs are real, but you’re all too smart for that, so we’ll just be straightforward and let you know that Google has a few April Fool’s Day jokes going today which prove once again that even mega-corporations can have a sense of humor.

The new “custom time” feature – announced in red, bold type in your gmail, which certainly suggests legitimacy – supposedly allows users to send email into the past. For journalists in particular this would be pretty attractive, since it would give you plenty of time to hit your deadlines. But, alas, the e-flux capacitor, causality-dodging technology that makes it possible is purely fictional.

Even better: The company announced its partnership with Virgin Galactic in a new project called Virgle, which will lead to the first human colony on Mars in 2014. Google co-founder Larry Page: “We feel that ensuring the survival of the human race by helping it colonize a new planet is both a moral good in and of itself and also the most likely method of ensuring the survival of our best – okay, fine, only — base of web search volume and advertising inventory. So, you know, it’s, like, win-win.”

You can fill out an application to be one of these pioneers here.

Via CNET