Google Has a Sense of Humor

Google has a sense of humor. When Alphabet announced that it would buy back part of its own shares, it looked like a standard announcement.

Companies regularly buy back their own stock when they have a lot of money in their coffers or when they have the feeling that their stock in undervalued. 

But what is hilarious in this case is the price of the buy back: USD 7,019,340,976.83.

This number is the sum of 26 (the number of letters in the current alphabet) to the power of the mathematical constant e times one million. It would have been easy (and so boring!) to announce a price of USD 7b, so why not throw in another USD 19m plus to have some fun? Especially when money is not an object!

It is not the first time that Google has some nerdy fun, just look at the name Google itself. It’s a play on the words “googol” which stands for the number 1 with one hundred zeros. It is not the first time that Alphabet had this kind of fun. In 2015, it bought back shares in the amount of USD 5,099,019,513.59. That number is the square root of 26 times one million.

When Google went public, the intention was to raise USD 2,718,281,828 which is 1 billion times the mathematical constant e. Google obviously has a thing for this constant, it also used it when is made its offer of USD 3.14b for Nortel Networks. Unsuccessfully so, the Nortel’s patent portfolio was sold for USD 4.5m.

Stay tuned for the next nerdy announcement!

Google Makes a Brave Statement with Its Olympic Doodle

On Friday 7, 2014 the XXII Olympic Winter Games started in Sochi, Russia. 

As always, search engine Google commemorated the event with a doodle. It depicts the popular winter sports such as skiing, ice hockey, curling, bobsleigh, and ice skating and snowboarding. 

Under the doodle, Google cited part of section 6 of the Olympic handbook:

"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play."

However, this time the doodle also made a political statement. The doodle incorporates the rainbow colors to promote the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT).

Google is making a brave statement – Russia is known for its anti-gay stance. In June 2013, Vladimir Putin passed a law stigmatizing gay people and banning "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations." It is part of Putin’s efforts to promote traditional Russian ideals and values. Russia believes that Western liberties will corrupt Russia’s youth.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned discrimination against homosexuals during a speech to the International Olympic Committee. He said that “many professional athletes, gay and straight, are speaking out against prejudice.”

Official sponsors such as Coca-Cola, Visa, Samsung, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Omega, General Electric and Dow Chemical preferred to remain silent on the issue.

Google Nose (Beta) – Google’s Perfect April Fools’ Day Prank 2013

If you googled during the first day of April, you might have noticed a new tab: “Google Nose beta”. There was also a link under the search field: “New! What’s that smell? Find out with Google Nose”

Google Nose promises to be “the sharpest olfactory experience available."  It claims to be the latest sensation: searching with your nose. To enable this, Google Nose uses professional knowledge statistics to combine images, descriptions and scents.

Afraid of bad smells? No problem, SafeSearch protects you from foul odors!

According to Google, the product intersects "photons with infrasound waves" and "temporarily aligns molecules to emulate a particular scent." The "mobile aroma indexing program" at the heart of the product has amassed a “15 million scentibyte database of smells from around the world.”

Google Nose is even available on mobile devices with its "Android Ambient Odor Detection" which allows users to collect smells on their smartphones.

Google even created a YouTube video explaining how users can “search for smells.”

It all seems too good to true, right? Well, that’s because it is! This fake product is Google’s April Fools’ Day prank 2013.

In my opinion, it’s brilliant! Just a pity I will never be able to find out what space smells like.....