Tìngäzìk: a Retrospective – ep. 27 “Google Ja. Apr. 1”

This article was published over 2 years ago. The information mentioned may be changed or developed.
本文发表于 2 years前。文中提到的信息可能已发生变化。
この記事は 2 years前に書かれたものです。記載された情報は変化した可能性があります。

Google Ja. Apr. 1

Expected solvable difficulty

  • 1sample: experienced solvers knows past April Fools’ jokes from Google Japanese IME team
  • 3samples: other experienced solvers
  • keywords+: most solvers

Level design

This level was inspired by the past Google Japanese IME April Fools’ jokes. These are the jokes I’ve been watching every year until the pandemic stopped all the fun. Each year Google (Gboard) Japanese IME team makes a new text input product of a new theme. Recent products would also release a hardware blueprint and software source code so that you can make it on your own.

An interesting thing is that the page name always reflects nature of the joke product, and sometimes cryptic. Here are some of the past products:

Google 日本語入力キーボード ドラムセットバージョン
-.-. (Japanese Morse, web demo, circuit diagram and firmware source)
patapata (Flap display, web demo, circuit diagram and firmware source)
___o (Party blower, web game, build instructions)
m9 (Magic hand, circuit diagram and firmware source)
furikku (Physical flick keyboard, circuit diagram and firmware source)
ooooo (Bubble wrap, archive, circuit diagram and firmware source)
tegaki (Physical handwriting, web demo, circuit diagram, source and training model)
---o (Bending spoon, circuit diagram and firmware source)
yunomi (Yunomi cup, web demo, circuit diagram and firmware source)

Expected thought process

Find out the sample answers are pointing to the codename of Google Japanese IME April Fools’ jokes, and search for the code name of the given year in the question.

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Eana Hufwe

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