The Weekly Round-Up: 07.04.06

April Fool's Day has come and gone again and one technology company which pulled out all the stops to ensure last Saturday wasn't without a chortle was Google.

The company released a whole host of April Fool's japes on its site and services on 1 April, possibly overcompensating in an attempt to regain its position as the 'fun corporate' and brush all that awkward Chinese business under the rug.

The company's first gambit was a press release on its website announcing the beta launch of an innovative new service - Google Romance.

According to the release, the service offered users "both a psychographic matchmaking service and all-expenses-paid dates for couples who agree to experience contextually relevant advertising throughout the course of their evening".

The company explained that as its self-appointed goal to make sense of the world's unstructured ocean of information, it had brought its algorithms and advertising nous to bear on the most chaotic and disorganised of all life's matters.

The releases read: "'Our internal projections say Contextual Dating is going to be unbelievably huge, just a total cash cow,' said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in prepared remarks placed into the notes section of an executive PowerPoint presentation and intended solely for internal use but promptly leaked onto the web and then roundly mocked on Digg and Slashdot."

Oddly, the company decided to avoid making any "I'm feeling lucky" references with regards to Google Romance's chances of getting invited upstairs for "a cup of coffee" on the first date.

The official Google blog implored: "Give it a try. You've got true love to gain and only your faith in psychographic and contextual advertising software to lose."

The next gag revolved around an announcement from its AdWords team about two new image ad formats they'd been playing with. The first, a super-large 2560 x 1920 image is designed for advertisers who want to appear “larger than life" and showcase photo-quality five-megapixel images.

"If it makes advertisers happy, it will make our publishers happy as well,” said Google, possibly with a nudge and a wink.

The second format - a 1 x 1 pixel ad - can be purchased in blocks of 10 by keyword. “We’ve actually been working very closely with pixel ad inventor Alex Tew on this one,” said Ferguson, trying desperately to suppress a guffaw.

The company also tweaked Google Earth to add a spaceship to Area 51 in the Nevada Desert - a location that's a hotbed for conspiracy theories about alien spacecraft experimentation by the US military. One little blue alien was washing the spaceship, the other preparing a barbeque. Nice.

Meanwhile, other technology-related April Fool's gags had Microsoft executives going to Google, Google executives going to Yahoo!, AOL executives leaving AOL for Google, and China buying Google. (Just to make reference to that civil rights business again.)

In other (totally made-up) news it was announced that iTunes was switching to the WMA format and that Apple and Disney were acquiring each other in a phenomenally complicated takeover.

silicon.com's own contribution to the japery involved Bill Gates appearing in a special episode of Doctor Who as a megalomaniac alien hell-bent on taking over the planet with a line of ubiquitous software, which let's face it, wouldn't have taxed his acting skills that much if the story were true. Which it isn't. But it is here, so enjoy.

However, the Round-Up's absolute favourite April Fool's joke was the one about Apple announcing the release of software that would allow Windows XP to boot natively on an Intel-powered Mac.

Yeah, right. Pull the other one. Eh, what's that? Good grief...

Life as a geek is fraught with peril.

A doctor has warned of a series of adverse health conditions linked to the "geek lifestyle" and he's not talking about the drugs, drink, casual sex and high-living lifestyle. Oh no.

Posting on a health website, a physician known as Dr AA who claims to be an "internal medicine physician in a large, rapidly expanding tech-growth community" as well as a former programmer (so he's been there, right?), claims geeks are increasingly stricken by complaints directly related to life in the frenetic world of technology.

The doctor says IT professionals can fall victim to backache, headaches, sleep problems and a poor attention span... ooh look, a squirrel!

Where were we? [Taps fingers and hums] Ah, yes.

The attention span issue is particularly prevalent due to the multi-tasking in the IT world and relates to how geeks train their minds.

College athletes, he says, could easily run a middle-distance race. Geeks could not.

"However, if you made them sit down and try to learn Java for 12 hours a day, most of them would be asleep at their desk before lunch."

The Round-Up is of the opinion that if most people tried to sit down and learn Java for 12 hours a day they'd more likely be dead before lunchtime.

Then again, very few non-perspiring college athletes would be able to use their Java skills to get a prestigious place in a blue chip corporate either. But let's not stop the good doctor.

He adds that as a result of being trained to multitask, IT professionals will lose focus when forced to think about just one thing - such as when sitting in a meeting, for example. The Round-Up's with you there.

No more meetings, just what the doctor ordered. Now we can all get some proper work done.

Rounding off his tale of woe the doctor had a word of advice for insomniacs: don't turn on a computer in bed. "The bed should only be used for two things - sex and sleep," he added, no doubt with a cheeky grin and a wink.

It's not just bad health that threatens geeks around the world. According to a recent survey, over half of IT workers are unhappy with the amount of spare time their jobs leave them.

Nearly three quarters also feel they can't do what they want with their leisure time (such as train to run middle-distance races) because they don't have enough money (due to learning Java for 12 hours a day).

If they had more time and money, 79 per cent would like to travel more. The problem is exacerbated for senior management, who according to the survey never actually leave the office and never see their families. Or something like that. (More tales of woe here).

The two improbably linked themes of technology and funerals combine again this week (third time in four Round-Ups - who'd have thunk it?) with news from the Netherlands.

In a story filed on 3 April (so the Round-Up's assuming it's not just another April Fool's joke, although you never know), Ananova reports that 65-year-old Dutchman Henk Rozema has developed a digital gravestone with an LCD display capable of showing pictures and movies.

Rozema, from the charming city of Zwolle in the delightful province of Overijssel, got the idea after making a DVD of his life to show at his birthday party. (Van harte gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag, Henk!).

When a lot of his friends asked for copies of the DVD, Mr Rozema realised he could be on to something and decided to develop his digital tombstone.

It’s not a logical leap really. After all, he could have just gone on a movie-editing course.

"I'm an engineer and I thought that must be possible," he murmured. "We are not the Flintstones. This is the digital age!"

The gravestone is equipped with an infrared sensor which activates the display when anybody stands in front of the gravestone.

It then kicks the whole funereal multimedia experience by displaying videos of your life, pictures of your family and friends or merely flashing a message that reads: "Do you mind? You're standing on my bloody foot."

This (un)naturally links to a phenomenon the Round-Up covered a few weeks ago regarding people taking videos of funerals. It seems that opportunity knocks for the morbid cameraman after all.

The footage of the coffin being lowered into its final resting place could be added to the end of the self-made movie giving the graveside viewers the chance to see the circle of life brought to a poignant close.

So what are the possibilities for a techie's digital gravestone? For those short of time (after all you never know when your time's up), maybe something simple: an 'Error 404' message.

Or alternatively, you could go for the simple, understated yet classic: Blue Screen.

You may have a better idea. Let's face it, you almost certainly do. Let us know what you'd like on your digital gravestone and let the Round-Up extend its improbable run of technology-related funeral stories for another week. The email address, as usual, is editorial@silicon.com.

On a related note, last week the Round-Up asked you to email the editorial team about "why anyone would want to get naked on a plane-full of gore-splattered poisonous snakes".

We were inundated with suggestions. Thanks. Unfortunately none of them are fit for publication. So thanks for nothing. (And a note to Zoraya. Good God, man, see a psychiatrist, quickly...)

Finally this week, we leave you with a word from one of silicon.com's readers on the ongoing spat between Apple Computer and Apple Corps (the company representing the interests of the Beatles).

Both sets of lawyers clashed in the High Court this week over the contentious issue of the iTunes Music Store and the use of the Apple brand. This is the third time the two companies have gone head-to-head in court and, to be honest, it's all getting a wee bit tedious.

Richard A from Brixton read our analysis of the Apple versus Apple case and was inspired to compose the following, clearly inspired by John Lennon's 'Imagine':

"Imagine there's no iTunes,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to sue or pay for,
And no injunctions too,
Imagine all the lawyers
Living life in peace...

"Imagine no possessions (ha!),
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or anger,
A brotherhood of man(agement),
Imagine all the Apples
Sharing all the world... "

He adds: "Come on, at least it's better than Lennon's original hypocritical drivel."

Thanks Richard, the Round-Up's got to agree. Money can't buy you love after all.

Until next week, try not to perish without giving due thought to developing a really compelling multimedia presentation for your gravestone.

The Round-Up will return on Friday 21 April.