Google brings Ms. Pac-Man to Google Maps and unveils plans to transform the world

April Fool’s Day isn’t only about pranks and practical jokes, it’s also about spreading cheer and happiness and light to the rest of the world.

As part of its never-ending effort to make the world a better place, Google has unveiled a number of initiatives to help transform the world.

Ms. Pac Man

Why Ms. Pac-Man and not the great Pac-Man himself? I’ve no idea, but it’s probably because Pac-Man already made his April Fool’s Day debut in 2015.

To acquaint yourself with Ms. Pac-Man, simply open Google Maps, tap on the Ms. Pac-Man’s sprite and start playing! Your locality will be transformed into a Pac-Man-esque world with pellets strewn all over the roads. The game is alright, a bit buggy, but it’s definitely worth a shot.

The ultimate VR experience

See, the problem with virtual reality (VR) is that it’s not truly immersive. Human beings aren’t just about two senses, after all. What’s the point of virtually cooking an egg if you can’t taste it, right?

Well, Google will fix that and you can help them do it!

Just head here to sign up for Google’s Haptic Helpers program and volunteer to do your part in making someone’s VR experience that much more immersive.

The ultimate communication tool

What better way to make the world a better place than to build the most relaxing means of communication possible? In our increasingly disconnected society, it’s hard to ascertain the true intent of any form of communication. With tyrants and bigots in positions of power today, it’s easily possible that World War III will be the result of a typo.

The only way to ensure a safe means of communication in this increasingly stressful environment is bubble wrap. Yes, you heard that right. Bubble wrap.

Few things are more relaxing than bubble wrap. A soft, warm, purring cat, maybe. But you can’t use a cat to send messages now, can you? No. It had to be bubble wrap.

This incredible new means of communication had to have come up in Japan, the home of zen and yin and yang and feng shui and bamboo and… you get the idea.

The brainchild of Google Japan, the bubble wrap keyboard couldn’t be more perfect.

You simply take a sheet of bubble wrap and start popping away at the bubbles. All digital forms of communication are binary and the pattern of popped and unpopped bubbles can be used to send a message.

Anyone who receives a message in bubble wrap will know with certainty that the mind behind it was calm and collected. The best part? The receivers also have some bubble wrap to play with as they mull over a reply!

The world will be a better place and all because of bubble wrap! Who knew?

Winds of change

Nature is unfair. What she gives with one hand, she takes away with the other. Africa struggles in the blistering heat while Greenlanders shiver in the never-ending winters. The Amazon sees perennial rain and California is dying under drought.

It’s time we took back control from fickle Mother Nature!

How do we do that? Yet again, Google has a solution, and it’s brilliant.

Google engineers picked Holand as a proving ground, primarily because that place is brimming with windmills. What have windmills got to do with this, you ask? It’s quite simple, actually.

Google used its machine learning chops to figure out wind patterns and cloud formations. It then put that knowledge to use in transforming windmills into wind generators. Enhancing Windmills with two-axis controllers and remote access, Google found a way to repurpose them to generate wind and blow the bad weather away.

Take that, Mother Nature! Muahahaha.

These weren’t all the projects that Google unveiled today. See if you can spot them all. If you do, there’s a small prize in it for you.

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from http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/google-brings-ms-pac-man-to-google-maps-and-unveils-plans-to-transform-the-world-369887.html