This is one of many abandoned babies from the DMfiat.com days. I wrote a satirical news column for the site called “Loaded 20” – I was basically the Andy Borowitz of one of the most popular gaming-themed websites on the internet at the time. Sadly, the site isn’t around anymore. But I held on to all the fake news articles I wrote for posterity.
Enjoy.
AUSTIN, TX – This weekend at SXSW, Google surprised many of its fans by unveiling a new product at the popular conference over the weekend. And no, it wasn’t the renowned Google Glass project: it was a pair of shoes.
But these weren’t just any shoes. The google developers “hacked” a pair of Adidas sneakers in order to make them capable of tracking your each and every move. The shoes know when you are sleeping, and they know when you are awake. They know whether you are standing, sitting, walking, or running. They know exactly how fast or slow you are moving at any given moment. The built-in pressure sensor can tell how much you weigh and tweet periodic updates to all of your friends. For motivational purposes, the shoes even come with a small speaker in order to berate you for sitting around on your ever-expanding posterior all day.
The sneakers are not, according to some, a Google attempt to break into the shoemaking business (which they had to assure several reporters of, many times over) but a part of their new social media project “Art, Copy, & Code”. The project aims to translate raw data gathered from popular devices, such as running shoes, using specialized algorythms to give your inanimate objects a creepily omniscient sense of awareness.
“The project isn’t limited to just sneakers, either; we’ve been brainstorming a ton of ideas” Aman Govil explained. One such idea was a Google Microwave (again, Google swears it is not trying to step on anyone in the domestic appliance industry’s toes) which can scan the food you eat, analyze your caloric intake, and recommend ways to tweak your diet in order to improve your nutritional profile. It could also give you a breakdown of all the high fructose corn syrup, artifical sweeteners, preservatives, and other toxic chemicals you’re ingesting on a daily basis and accurately predict what type of cancer they will give you and the inevitable date of your demise, give or take about 6 months.
Another and slightly more controversial idea is the Google Toilet Paper Dispenser. It would be a normal-looking plastic or metal rod which supports the toilet paper roll, but it would contain special sensors for analyzing the bacterial flora in the room and the timing of bowel movements to diagnose possible GI disorders. Users would also be given the option to use forms of social media, such as Pinterest or Instagram, to upload particularly impressive dumps for anyone on the internet to see.
“Again, we want to assure Procter & Gamble that we aren’t out to steal anyone’s market share,” Google representatives explained in regards to the TP Dispenser. “Like with the shoes or the microwave, we just want to use your products to gather data about your customers so that we can sell it back to you. Then everyone wins, right?”