Gotta catch ’em all: the best of Google’s April Fool’s jokes

When it comes to April Fool’s day, Google doesn’t just sneak in a few half hearted jokes into its many services — it goes nuts. Back in 2012, Google Maps went 8 bit and more recently, into treasure mode, while YouTube announced it was actually a massive contest and not a video sharing site. But the search giant isn’t running out of ideas.

This year, it’s gone for auto awesome photobombs and CVs stuffed with Doge, along with targeting for planets and moons in AdSense… as well as some brilliant gags we kinda wish were real.

Become a Pokémon Master with Google Maps

Yes, Google wants you… if you’re a Pokemon Master, that is. The company teamed up with Nintendo and Pokémon to give Google Maps users the ability to ‘catch’ Pokémon using their iPhone or Android devices. An updated version of the mobile app has 150 of the creatures hidden all over the world, which you can collect into your own Pokédex. If you catch ’em all, you stand a chance to apply for Google’s current vacancy for a Pokémon Master — but hurry, the deadline is tomorrow.

Why does an internet company need a Pokémon Master you ask? Well, apparently they value employees who are “risk-taking and detail-oriented, have deep technical knowledge, and can navigate through tall grass to capture wild creatures.” Cool.

Spend more time with your self(ie) in Gmail

Dream of your front-facing camera? Is the mirror just not enough? Don’t stress – Google’s new theme option for Gmail can help you out. Shelfies (shareable selfies) make it possible to share the wonder of your visage with your friends and family. You just pick an image (or switch on your webcam) and create a customised background you can send around.

If you get bored of your face, you have the option to test out some of the popular shelfies — which the Gmail team is helpfully rounding up over on its Google+ page.

YouTube’s allowing the public to make its own memes

YouTube’s done it again… in the most painful format possible. This time, it’s given us mere mortals an inside look into what trends are going to be rocking the interweb in the near future — because, you know, YouTube makes all those videos itself and controls what goes viral. Apparently we have an innovative game called “Kiss my dad” to look forward to, along with an update on planking called “Clocking” and yet another iteration of the Harlem Shake.

And, for the first time ever, you can submit your own ideas for memes YouTube should spread. So if you have an “idea for a weird thing that people would enjoy copying”, hit up YouTube on Twitter with the #newtrends hashtag.

Google Translate goes after the web’s emojis

It seems that Google understands that sometimes, a face palm emoji just sums up your mood better than words ever could. So its team has been working on translating the web into emoji (and emoji into words) — so you now you can simply tap a button in Chrome for Android and iOS and swap into smileys.

A job post for a ‘dogengineer’

Want to work for Google? According to this ad, it’s looking for a ‘dogengineer’ who is drawn to concepts like “such computer sciencing” and will be responsible for writing “much web-based code. very programming. so .” Wow.