Google Nose: Search Engine’s Elaborate April Fools' Joke

Google introduced Google Nose BETA just in time for April Fools' Day, every prankster’s favorite holiday.

The new “smell” feature for the search engine that was just launched, although still in beta mode, contains an “aromabase” exceeding 15 million “scentibytes” for searchers looking to stimulate their sense of smell. The company even went so far as to promise the “sharpest olfactory experience available.”

“What does a ghost smell like? Google knows,” boasts the ad Google made for Google Nose. “What does the inside of an Egyptian tomb smell like? Google knows.”

How does Google claim to have created this new sensory technology? When a user searches for smells, Google Nose intersects “photons with infrasound waves” and temporarily aligns molecules to emulate a particular scent,” according to the video.

Google’s joke even claims that Google Nose is available on mobile devices, with their “Android Ambient Odor Detection,” which allows you to record and save scents to your smartphone.

Last year, Google announced a multitude of gag products on April Fools' Day, including a Morse code typing app called Gmail Tap and the 8-bit Google Maps quest. In 2011 on April Fools Day, searching for a font on Google would yield a results page in the respective font.