Say 'Cheese' to Google Satellite at 10AM

13.7BillionYears writes "Google's recent purchase of Keyhole and its jaw-dropping 3D earth-browsing software has apparently netted them ownership of an imaging satellite as well, now named 'gSat.' This Friday, April 1st, gSat will be capturing a new dataset (neighborhood of 1meter/pixel), passing over each time zone between 10 and 11AM. If you stand outside and wave you will supposedly show up as a blurry fleck. Even better news is that the dataset will be available within months not only to Keyhole but also to the equally jaw-dropping and open source NASA World Wind. It all seems aimed at answering a question that has plagued mankind for ages: What foolishness can we wreak upon the Earth on the Day of Fools with only 3 days' notice? I'm guessing the obscene stuff will be Photoshopped out. Thanks to the World Wind Forum for the tip and let's hope those April showers come late."

If...

[BlueCodeWarrior]

...you only show up as a 'blurry fleck,' how are you supposed to do something obscene?

Re:If...

[NinjaFarmer]

You turn the local observatory into a giant breast.

And this isn't even the poll.

Re:If...

[ChairmanMeow]

Mars supposedly has a face on it (which turned out to be a pile of rocks)... so Earth needs a giant breast.

Re:If...

[jericho4.0]

For the uninitiated, "Grand Teton" translates as "Big Tits". God bless the French, for calling it as they see it.

I remember a class I took once; We were studying early societies, and we watched a film on Silbury Hill [wikipedia.org], an artificial bronze age pile of dirt in Britain. The film, and the teacher, insisted that the hill was a breast, and that it was an expression of a matriarchal culture.

The counter argument, of course, is; How the hell do you build a hill that does not look like a breast?

Re:If...

[rylin]

By gathering 50 people, forming the outline of male genitalia when seen from above?

You get a couple of partners

[Alien54]

and make an elongated smear

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:If...

[Tibe]

how are you supposed to do something obscene?

500,000 Highly technical, porn addicted minds are now obsessing over this.

You MUST be new round here.

Sorry had too.

Re:If...

[yulek]

500,000 Highly technical, porn addicted minds are now obsessing over this.

500,000 pixels, you mean...

Re:If...

[4of12]

500,000 pixels, you mean...

Sure.

But wouldn't all the /. readers pointing green laser pointers [thinkgeek.com] at the satellite be arrested by the authorities as bad pixels [cnn.com]?

Re:If...

[kryptkpr]

Not very creative, are you?

Get a bunch of people together in a circle (1 in the middle) and make a big, blurry fleck of a breast.

If you can get enough people together, go for two breasts.

If you still have people left over, form a giant penis below it.

Re:If...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying that with enough people we could make a pre-op transsexual visible from outer space!

Wheee!

Space Resume

[TimeTraveler1884]

I am going to mow my resume into my lawn. Maybe then I will be considered for a job at Google. They like the creative thinking types right?

Re:If...

[conteXXt]

Remember ascii art?

Use what's available to you.

Snow, sand, dirt

Draw it large baby.

(and send us the coords please?)

Re:If...

[pomakis]

If you only show up as a 'blurry fleck,' how are you supposed to do something obscene?

Well, I was part of this arial photo [pomakis.com], in which the stick figure near the centre of the photo was composed of several thousand people. This particular image isn't obscene in any way, but it very well could have been!

(Bonus points for those who can name the event that this was part of!)

Re:If...

[kiddailey]

Is there a higher-res version of that image? It would make a great desktop background :)

Re:If...

[kiddailey]

Awesome! Thank you.

Gotta love April 1st

[Sanity]

Ah yes, April 1st on Slashdot. If every single story is an April Fools joke, we will just fool people over and over again because it totally isn't predictable!

Re:Gotta love April 1st

[buro9]

I shouldn't worry, the dupes will fool people tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and...

Re:Gotta love April 1st

[CausticPuppy]

Yeah but April fool's jokes involving Google have a tendency to become reality.

I better make my big sign for gSat... just in case.

Note to April Foolers...

[digitalamish]

Your 'pranks' would be much more effective if there was an actual article to link to.
--
"Stop reading slashdot, and get back to work!" - my boss

But what if duped?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what if this story gets duped tomorrow and/or the day after tomorrow? Would you believe it then?

Re:Gotta love April 1st

[bjtuna]

I just smile and enjoy it. I actually look forward to April 1 on Slashdot... it's amusing, and yes part of the joke is that everyone knows it's coming. I certainly don't feel the need to prove to the entire online world that I'm too cool/smart for April Fools jokes.

Re:Gotta love April 1st

[m50d]

No, it's working, everyone thinks the story about Tiger going gold is true.

phuck

[hottoh]

april fools stories

goddamn it

Re:Gotta love April 1st

[derphilipp]

Ubuntu has a nice april fool on their distribution. Instead of the normal login screen http://www.ubuntulinux.org/login.jpeg [ubuntulinux.org] they set up a picture with 3 guys (plus one shoe of a guy taking the photo) thats like the loginscreen but with 3 geeks having a party (snacks in the background))

So if you run Ubuntu update today!

Re:Gotta love April 1st

[jvj24601]

For the past three years, I've sent suggestions to The Onion [theonion.com] that on April 1st, they should report real news (Reuters and AP stories, etc). I think it'd be great to see their take on what constitutes absurd in the real press. And it'd be damn funny if they could locate real stories that were goofy enough for people to think they were true Onion parodies.

But does anyone ever listen to me? Oh well. Another year, another wasted opportunity...

Only a blurry fleck? Hubble to the rescue!

[tquinlan]

I suggest we have Google take over the Hubble project, and have them turn that on us! Then we'll see what's really going on down here... ;)

Re:Only a blurry fleck? Hubble to the rescue!

[funk_phenomenon]

What would they call it? Gooble? Gobble? Hoogle?

Re:Only a blurry fleck? Hubble to the rescue!

[Mister Transistor]

The latest series of the real Keyholes are basically Hubbles pointed earthward, minus some cosmic instruments, plus some close-up optics. If you ever get a look at a picture of one they are strikingly similar looking.

But then they'll have to kill you...

Re:Only a blurry fleck? Hubble to the rescue!

[Buran]

Google knows all, Google tells all [cro.net]

Right.

[Markus Persson]

If a guy mugged me tonight I'd just look at him with an uncertain smile until he shot me. I hate april fools. :-/

Re:Right.

[stephenbooth]

April Fool pranks, by tradition, can only be played up until midday. After that it's bad luck to play pranks.

Stephen

Hey!

[InterruptDescriptorT]

I can see my house from here!

Re:Hey!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had a weapon

Re:Hey!

[digitac]

Hey! I can see my basement from here!

YES, STAND OUTSIDE AND WAVE UP INTO THE SKY

[Jakhel]

because today is April 1 and this lame excuse for an April Fool's Day joke won't work unless you're gullible enough to do it.

Re:YES, STAND OUTSIDE AND WAVE UP INTO THE SKY

[AsnFkr]

because today is April 1 and this lame excuse for an April Fool's Day joke won't work unless you're gullible enough to do it.

Did you know gullible isn't in the dictionary? It's true. I saw it on /. last April.

Re:YES, STAND OUTSIDE AND WAVE UP INTO THE SKY

[Radar|TGS]

And again on April 2nd, 3rd, and 6th.

Re:YES, STAND OUTSIDE AND WAVE UP INTO THE SKY

[JaredOfEuropa]

...joke won't work unless you're gullible enough to do it.

It certainly won't work if the gullible read your post, you spoilsport!

A similar joke [www.nu.nl] in NL apparently did work... there was a news item that researchers had received weak signals from the Huygens probe. They asked everyone to stand outside today at 12:30pm, turn on their cellphones, and point the antenna east. The cellphones would act like a giant electromagnetic mirror, amplifying the weak signals from Huygens so that they could be received a

I don't know...

[Kittyflipping]

I keep going outside and waving but I don't see myself.

Re:I don't know...

[smoothwallsamuel]

I see you...the fluro yellow t-shirt gives you away...see, you're that dot riiiiiiight there.....just under the blob and the speckle ;-)

Samuel

gSat

[acb]

If they're capturing all of each timezone at 10-11AM of each day, gSat must either be shaped like a curved tube stretching from pole to pole, or orbiting the earth from pole to pole once every hour.

Re:gSat

[parkrrrr]

Also, Google must have arranged for clear skies over the entire globe.

Google new beta!

[ThaReetLad]

Google gulp [google.co.uk] soft drinks beta programme!

Re:gSat

[Jerf]

orbiting the earth from pole to pole once every hour.

And that's impossible because...?

Creating an orbit that does what Google claims their satellite will be doing is a freshman physics problem, except that the window for North America wouldn't be 10am-11am for every time zone, it'd be like 10:20-10:23, maybe more, maybe less (not whipping out the math for this, but such a bird would be low enough that approximating the percentage of the US, North to South, is of the equatorial distance would be pretty go

Real news

[RaguMS]

What happens if some real news happens today? Nobody will believe it.

Re:Real news

[maxwell demon]

I don't believe you. :-)

Re:Real news

[enosys]

Gmail was announced on April 1st 2004. A lot of people wondered if that was a joke. 1 gig seemed like such a huge amount for a free e-mail service and the press release used some language one might find in a joke. I think it just gave Google extra free publicity as people wondered if it is a joke before Google clarified it. Search for "gmail april.fools" [google.com] on Google for more info.

Re:Real news

[Poeir]

So was StarCraft, I think, or really near it; something like it was to go gold on April 1. This was years ago, and after years of delays, so people thought it was an April Fool's joke.

Now the Pope can't finish "Dark Tower"

[AtariAmarok]

""In other news: The pope is dead! Netcraft Confirms it ... The pope, dead at 84 "

I hope they fry that bastard who creamed him with a minivan. Now we'll never see the last Dark Tower books!!!!!

Google Gulp

[rchatterjee]

Be sure to be drinking or holding a bottle of Google Gulp [google.com] when they take the picture.

Re:Google Gulp

[delymyth]

Be sure to be drinking or holding a bottle of Google Gulp when they take the picture.

It's already afternoon here, and I'm not in the US, but I'll enjoy the drink with you, I just have to ask my Jeeves9000 [ask.com] if he can find me one :)

Re:Google Gulp

[Anonymous Custard]

My favorite part:

11. When will you take Google Gulp out of beta?

Man, if you pressure us, you just drive us away. We'll commit when we're ready, okay? Besides, what's so great about taking things out of beta? It ruins all the romance, the challenge, the possibilities, the right to explore. Carpe diem, ya know? Maybe we're jaded, but we've seen all these other companies leap headlong into 1.0, thinking their product is exactly what they've been dreaming of all their lives, that everything is perfect and

Google in the news - more on google GULP!

[tod_miller]

and the next thing you know some vanilla copycat release from Redmond is kicking their butt

WOAH!!! hello! what a sniping remakr at Microsoft! oooouch!! call in the lawyers! :-)
Full at : GOogle Gulp Faq [google.com]

Maybe we're jaded, but we've seen all these other companies leap headlong into 1.0, thinking their product is exactly what they've been dreaming of all their lives, that everything is perfect and hunky-dory - and the next thing you know some vanilla copycat release from Redmond is kicking their butt, the Board is holding emergency meetings and the CEO is on CNBC blathering sweatily about "a new direction" and "getting back to basics." No thanks, man. We like our freedom.

Re:Google in the news - more on google GULP!

[Majix]

It's great to see that even after becoming a publicly traded company, Google hasn't lost their sense of humor. The Google Gulp [google.com] is a far more elaborate joke than last years Google Moonbase page. Even the GMail [google.com] front page has some funny stuff on it today (love the coffee stain on the drawing ;)

What would be really funny is if some idiot analyst would pick up the story as a fact. Google even likes to unveil legitimate new features on April 1st adding to the humor. Last year it was GMail which fooled many, thi

Oh dear

[FidelCatsro]

Do you know , im running out of things to say i will eat

What?

[Luscious868]

So what are you supposed to do, wave for the entire hour? I can see it now, hundreds of geeks running outside and waiving up in the air everyday between 10 and 11. That's a scary thought ....

April Fools Day Sites

[Urgo]

Isn't April Fools Day just the best? =] For a 'full' list of sites pulling pranks today check out this list here [urgo.org]

Here is a sample:

kellyosbourne.org [kellyosbourne.org] - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net [nukefreezone.net] - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk [jolt.co.uk] - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz [telecom.co.nz] - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com [ytmnd.com] - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com [ampedhost.com] - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com [homestarrunner.com] - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au [whirlpool.net.au] - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com [thinkgeek.com] - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk [theregister.co.uk] - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org [creativebits.org] - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org [ocremix.org] - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com [spacedaily.com] - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org [gnome.org] - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org [kde.org] - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org [ietf.org] - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de [beejaysworld.de] - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com [nature.com] - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov [nasa.gov] - Water On Mars
smh.com.au [smh.com.au] - (Free Reg Req) SMEGmail offers 1 terabyte storage
smh.com.au [smh.com.au] - (Free Reg Req) Linux looks to Hilton for exposure
thetoque.com [thetoque.com] - Canada Builds Own Missile Defense Shield
onion.com [onion.com] - U.S. Dog Owners Fear Arrival of Africanized Fleas
chron.com [chron.com] - Bush Twins in Maxim
ask.com [ask.com] - Jeeves has been replaced by a robot
animenewsnetwork.com [animenewsnetwork.com] - Viz Unlicenses Naruto
uninventthewheel.co.uk [uninventthewheel.co.uk] - New BMW technology to get around the EU ban on right hand drive cars in Europe.
newgrounds.com [newgrounds.com] - changing to numagrounds.com
neopets.com [neopets.com] - neopets adds 50 new pets
www.firstloox.org [firstloox.org] - The Loox is being recalled
packages.gentoo.org [gentoo.org] - Adobe doesn't sell products for Linux
pc.ign.com [ign.com] - Microsoft World of Wordcraft (Extremely Obvious)
spamusement.com [spamusement.com] - Page full of spoof banner ads
gentooexperimental.org [gentooexperimental.org] - Gentoo using the NT kernel
moddb.com [moddb.com]

Re:April Fools Day Sites

[caluml]

The Gnome/KDE swap is (almost) funny. Anyone else strangely aroused by this dog [linux.org]?

Re:April Fools Day Sites

[peter_gzowski]

planet.gnome.org [gnome.org] - Switched site with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org [kde.org] - Switched site with "could not be found"

Looks like the KDE people pulled a fool of their own...

Karma Whore

[DJStealth]

Before modding, see:

This [slashdot.org] and this [slashdot.org] and Finally [slashdot.org], This [slashdot.org]

ytmnd.com warning

[phorm]

This one is *NOT* work-friendly...

Re:April Fools Day Sites

[bobaferret]

I bet, for the Onion, the put a REAL news story out

And since we are talking WW...

[AnswerIs42]

1) 1.3 has been released in early march
2) An update 1.3.1 is in the testing phases but can be downloaded so you can get some big improvements from the 1.3 release.
3) Servers should be able to withstand the /. this time... You brought JPL to it's knees last time.
4) High-rez, close up images are of US locations only (we get asked that 30 times a day..)
5) New NLT images of LandSat are color improved and cover the entire globe down to 10,000 meters.

Get out the ultra-wide-angle lens

[Progman3K]

If you want to capture all of me :-)

sounds like crap

[bird603568]

If you stand outside and wave you will supposedly show up as a blurry fleck.
This ahs to be a april fools joke i seriously doubt that it has that high res.

Re:sounds like crap

[BenjyD]

What, the picture of a cat with a crosshair pointing at it didn't give it away?

This is nice

[oliana]

Slashdot is accumulating all the tech related April Fool's jokes onto one page for my easy access.

This is great!

[AtariAmarok]

This is great. Now I can go to google and enter "find my lost car keys" and get a nice picture. Thanks again, Big G!

Re:This is great!

[drunken dash]

Actually, you'll need to use the find: operator, so your query would be "find:car keys".

Ask Jeeves

[AtariAmarok]

Hopefully, Google will buy and greatly enhance the Ask Jeeves technology soon. It would make it most useful if you could enter "find car keys" into Google, and minutes later a butler taps you on the shoulder and hands them to you.

Re:This is great!

[Majix]

Works for me [vunct.com].

A drunks best friend

[holy_calamity]

Great! Now after a night on the tiles google will not only find you a cab but also remind you where your house is.

Fools! All of you!

[kpwoodr]

Google does not own a satellite. I Do!! Bow to me as I expand my search for Waldo to a Global scale!

How to search my face? I have trouble describe it!

[kentsin]

I have just done that, I really want to see what it looks like.

Can any body help me finding it with Google? Are there any language I can describe my face in the search box? Any standard? Don't RT?M, because I have just google but found none that satisfy.

Thanks in advance.

Hope you all get a good time. Until next.

Better yet...

[O-SUSHi]

if this picture is done successfully, it should be run again during World Jump Day [venehammerschlag.com] >.>

I'm the one holding a big...

[JustOK]

mirror. Aimed right back at it.

To be seen

[happyEverGeek]

It should only take two for F150 trucks and a VW bug to show a " /. " Everyone who does this should post the coordinates.

Oops!

[happyEverGeek]

Not "two for F150"! I meant "two Ford F150".

Will it make another pass?

[93,000]

I think I had my eyes closed on that last one.

Annual useless day for Slashdot

[kriston]

Sigh, another April 1, and another visitation of the annual useless Slashdot day is upon us. It's Friday so expect more than the usual crop of articles like this.

Area 51

[alexjohns]

Will we be able to zoom into area 51? Or will that be conveniently edited out? With photoshopping becoming the artform that it is, I don't know that I'd believe anything any big corporation had its hand in. They're all in on it. Hell, they're still wanting us to believe that men landed on the moon. What kind of fools do they take us for. I know that one of these days, one of the guys in on it will have a death-bed wish to bare his soul, and then the whole house of cards will come crashing down! Who'll be la

Open source?

[constantnormal]

I guess so, but an open source project that uses a proprietary framework (.NET) that targets a single platform via a closed video driver spec (DirectX) strikes me as missing the point somewhat. It's a bit like an open source project coded in PPC assembler.

Yes, it is true that there is the possibility that non-Windozers could port the source to Mono, and perhaps there exists a DirectX-to-OpenGL converter such that a sufficiently talented and determined band of coders could, in theory, create working versions of this impressive project that would run somewhere other than the indicated system requirements, but it seems like a long shot to me.

---

System Requirements

* Windows 2000, XP Home, or XP Professional
* Intel Pentium 3, 1 GHz, or AMD Athlon or higher
* 256 MB of RAM
* 3D Graphics Card
o nVidia GeForce 2 Ultra
o ATI Radeon 7500
o Intel Extreme Graphics 2
* DSL / Cable connection or faster
* 2 GB of disk space

---

And yes, I am an envious OS X user -- pretty much a first for me, being envious of a Windows software project.

April 1st Now "Geeks Christmas"?

[smug_lisp_weenie]

Is it just me, or is April 1st slowly evolving away from a "joke news" day and turning into a kind of "Christmas" for Adults/Geeks?

Yo momma's so fat...

[Anonymous Coward]

she takes up TWO pixels!

Lay Down!

[CrazyWingman]

Dude - lay down and wave! Then you'll end up as ~2 blurry flecks, not just one! ;)

*sigh* I wish this was true...

[Jugalator]

What both World Wind and Keyhole lack is exactly global high resolution data. :-/

It's the main weakness in both softwares.

Ill write on the root with very big letters:

[dark-br]

ALL YOUR SEARCH ENGINES BELONG TO US!!! ;)

p.s.: And yes dumb lameness filter, it was yelling!

*roof* not root :/

[dark-br]

my mistake...

In other Google April Fools News...

[sepluv]

Check out the new capacity of GMail [google.com] and Google's new soft drink [google.co.uk].

April Fooled.

[catdevnull]

Awe, Man! This is a joke? I spent the last 45 minutes outside waving my arms like a chicken in a blender.

I'm glad Paris Hilton is going to be the new Linux chick, though. Maybe she'll hook up with Sidd Finch?

Lactose

[Darthmalt]

But I am lactose intolerant you insensitive clod

(funny thing is I really am)

The Empire will never stand for this.

[FrankieBoy]

Watch for the announcement of the new rebranded MSNASA coming to you via MSNBC. They need some time to paint the "Designed for Windows" logo on the tail of the Space Shuttle.

I forgot to wave ...

[xmas2003]

Here are some satellite pictures of my house [komar.org] - my guess is that Google has even better image quality ... ;-)

OMFG!!! - Must Read

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this [thinkgeek.com] is a funny joke. The only thing is that it isn't a joke. This is a new low for dorkdom.

Re:3 Days Notice?

[Dilbert_]

Maybe if we all stand in giant fish-shaped groups, would that show up on the picture?

Uptight nerds hate 4/1 on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

They spend all day rolling their eyes and posting complete snark just to show the whole world they weren't fooled. "I WASN'T FOLLED YOU KNOW --- THIS SI APRIL FOOLS DAY AND SLASHDOTT IS TEH SUCK .. WHERE ARE MY SERIOUS ARTICELS "

Idiots.

White and pretending to be white?

[AtariAmarok]

"She's white and pretending to be Asian - worst of both worlds"

Depending on where you are in Asia, that is white and pretending to be white. Ever hear of the Caucasian race? The Caucasus region is located at the Euro/Asian border, actually. A huge number of Asians are white: much of the north and west of the continent. Asia is not just China. Check a continent map.

Re:spell Google

[BigBlackDog]

Get 30 of your closest friends

Not enough coffee - I read that as '30 of your closet friends'.

Well, this is /.

--BBD