“The Best in April Foolery Around the Web”

Tom Weber:

OK, so maybe you’re working today instead of surfing around the Web for April Fool’s jokes. Fear not: Buzzwatch is here to help with a roundup of April Foolery online.
At Google, where April 1 is celebrated annually with jokes throughout the company’s sites, the main offering this year is a chance to join “Project Virgle” and become a Mars colonist.
Google’s Gmail has its own prank. Users today are informed of a new “Custom Time” feature that promises to predate emails so they appear to have been sent in the past. “Worry less,” Gmail says. “Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We’ll make it look like you remembered.”
If you’re looking to stage your own joke on a coworker today, Lifehacker has an excellent list of suggestions. One example: replace someone’s Windows desktop with an image of the desktop and watch the victim try to click on the unclickable icons. Ah, sometimes it’s the simple things.
Even NASA can’t resist joining the foolery. From the space agency’s popular Astronomy Picture of the Day site comes news that the new space station robot is demanding that humans call it by the name “Dextre the Magnificent.”