While the potentially dangerous Conficker worm was being tracked throughout April Fools' Day, more harmless hoaxes were being fired out across the Internet. Everyone from Google to The Guardian were rolling out prank Web sites Wednesday. It's become an Apr. 1 tradition on the Web to showcase absurd technological breakthroughs and silly pseudo-innovations. Google unveiled “Gmail Autopilot.” It alleges that it will help you weed through your inbox by replying to e-mails with automated responses, tailored to your preference for emoticons. Google also claimed to have mastered artificial intelligence with an entity named “CADIE.” That technology led Google to claim, among other things, that it could now “index your brain.” Yahoo created a new “Ideological Search” that filters results to fit your personal beliefs. On it, you can get either Republican or Democratic results to a query like “stimulus package.” A startup called Monetate launched a spoof of the photo-sharing site Flickr. With “smellr,” the site claims it has brought scent to social networking: “It's like Flickr, but for your nose.” YouTube offered its latest innovation in online video: upside-down viewing. To experience it, YouTube suggests turning your monitor upside down and tilting your head - or moving to Australia. There were countless fake press releases and news reports issued on Wednesday. But most of the most popular pranks were obvious and lighthearted. Microsoft's Xbox unveiled a mock version of the popular video game Guitar Hero: “Alpine Legend.” This version is for yodeling, rather than guitar playing. Even Economist.com, the Web site for the serious magazine, said it was applying the roller-coaster ride of the economic collapse to a theme park, naturally dubbed Econoland.
