Google gets into April Fool's with 'Gmail Motion'

Google joined in the April Fool's pranks on Friday with the release of a new product called "Gmail Motion" that supposedly lets users send and receive emails using only gestures.

Gmail product manager Paul McDonald, in a deadpan explanatory video, said Gmail Motion uses a "language of movements that replaces type entirely" and ends reliance on "outdated technologies" like the keyboard and mouse.

"Using your computer's camera and a spacial tracking algorithm, Gmail Motion interprets physical movement and turns it into actionable commands," McDonald said. "The movements are designed to be intuitive, ergonomic and easy to do."

In the video, a "Googler" demonstrates how Gmail Motion works, pointing backwards with one thumb, for example, to reply to an email message and using two thumbs to "reply all."

The video also includes an interview with a "Lorraine Klayman," presented as an "environmental movement specialist at Nevada Polytechnic College."

"Gmail Motion will free the regular user from the constraints that modern society and our interfaces with our machines have put on the human body," she says.

A link on Google's home page directs a user to the blog post explaining Gmail Motion, which promises to "turn your email into a true body of work."

Google is renowned for its April Fool's jokes, which over the years have included job applications for positions on the Moon and the revelation that its Internet search rankings are compiled by pigeons.

(c) 2011 AFP