Google Nose April Fools' Prank Connects Smells to Search [Watch Ad]
In honor of April Fools' Day, Google introduced a fictional way to better search the Internet; by using smells.
In a video, Google Nose Beta is explained to help users identify certain smells, connecting scent to search, since people don't always have time to smell scents themselves.
The alleged product manager Jon Wooly jokingly says in the video, "In the fast paced world that we live in, we don't always have time to stop and smell the roses. Now, with Google Nose Beta, the roses are just a click away."
The faux advertisement ends with a list of items that Google Nose can detect the smells of, including new cars and ghosts.
The idea behind Google Nose is explained in the video to have been inspired by Wooly's puppy, who gets information about her world by smelling everything.
Engineering lead Doug Smith explains that "photo auditory olfactory sensory convergence is a phenomenon that has been promised in science fiction for decades." The program has a "mobile aroma indexing program" with an over 15 million scentibyte database and intersects photons with infrasound waves to identify scents.
In 2012, according to The Huffington Post, Google played about a dozen April Fools' pranks including a self-driving car and Gmail Tap, which uses Morse Code.
