Friday 5 April 2013
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Fridaygram: April foolery, ripping planets, and dream readers

Author PictureBy Ashleigh Rentz, Google Developers Blog Editor Emerita

With all of this week’s developer news, it’s easy to forget that Monday was April Fools’ day. As usual, Googlers channeled their playful spirits into creative new “features” for many of our products.  Did you spot them all?  Wikipedia has a recap list, featuring Google Trends’ “Cold Searches” (discover new unique things that nobody else is into!) and Google Analytics’ export support for even more external media options.

After we stopped fooling around, space.com got serious and shared this animated sequence of what astronomers have observed happening to a massive gas giant planet somewhere around 20 times the size of Jupiter: a supermassive black hole 300,000 times the size of our sun has been ripping the planet apart!  (We’re all relieved to know it’s 47 million light years away from our much-beloved Earth.)


If perchance you take advantage of the weekend to catch up on your sleep, take special note of your dreams. Scientists in Japan have been carefully studying brain scans and reached a 60% success rate in identifying what images dreamers are “seeing”. Maybe soon we can finally answer one lingering question: Do Android developers dream of electric sheep?



Each week, Fridaygram brings you geek-friendly stories of interest to enjoy during your weekend. We can’t read minds, though. Just docs.

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