Happy April Fool's Day from Google's Gmail...

This April Fool's, Google had a little fun at Microsoft's expense. The search giant has concocted a page about a product called Gmail Blue, a dig at Microsoft's upcoming Windows Blue update and Windows 8 in general.

A spoof video for Gmail Blue features a straight-faced "Gmail Blue project manager" who says that "in trying to bring e-mail into the 21st century, we are faced with a challenge: how we do completely redesign and recreate something while keeping it exactly the same? The answer is Gmail Blue."

Touting the new e-mail program's reliance on blue fonts, blue colors, and blue buttons, the project manager says that "it's Gmail, only bluer." The Gmail team claim that inspiration for Blue came from nature but is "better than what nature created."

Given the testy relationship between Microsoft and Google, their April Fools' pranks could have easily been more vicious. But in keeping with the spirit of the day, I think the companies poked a few holes in each other without doing any permanent damage.

Source: CNET

Is it Google or is it Bing? Happy April Fool's!

Yesterday, Microsoft's Bing search engine poked a little fun at Google.

Yesterday, Bing users found if they typed "Google" in the search field, a Bing page pops up spoofing Google's pure white and stark home page (screenshot below). Hovering over the small boxes that populate the Bing page displays tips that take a few more swipes at Google.

One tip asks if you're having trouble seeing this picture of an arctic fox eating marshmallows in a snowstorm. A second one says that when there's nothing else to look at, you may take drastic measures. Clicking on that tip brings up a Bing video results page of watching paint dry. And a third tip says that if blank space is your thing, you could go low tech. That tip displays a Bing images results page of plain white paper.

Even the familiar "I'm feeling lucky" button has been replaced by an "I'm feeling confused" button that takes you to a Bing blog touting the benefits of Microsoft's search engine.

Source: CNET
 

Samsung fined $900 after fatal gas leak.

The gas leak reportedly occurred sometime on Sunday at a Samsung facility south of Seoul, Korea. Several hours later, Samsung contacted a maintenance company to clean up the leak. Five crew members arrived on the scene and started to clean up the spill. However, one of the individuals, who was reportedly not wearing a full hazmat suit, died due to exposure. Four other individuals who were wearing their full protective gear were sent to a hospital, but fully recovered, according to reports.

Investigators have determined that Samsung took too long to alert law enforcement to the spill, and the company has been assessed a fine of up to 1 million Korean won (about $900) - Yonhap News, citing sources within the police office assessing the fine.

Samsung has remained tight-lipped on the leak, but reportedly told Yonhap in a statement on Monday that it believed the leak was "minimal."

Source: CNET

New iPad sticker shock:

The new iPad Fourth-Generation comes in at $799, with the cellular enabled one hitting $929; just under $1,000.

Sure, the storage capacity is 128GB. But it has all of the same features as before, including a 9.7-inch Retina Display, a FaceTime HD camera, and an A6X processor. All that was upgraded was the storage! Are you serious, Apple?

Read the full story here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57566376-37/apple-ipad-jumps-to-128gb-starting-at-$799