News THIS! – Google acquires Moon, Mars
A few years ago I tried my hand as a writer of news satire. I’d comb the Interwebs and select an article to parody. Watch as I crank the gyros on the Archiv-O-Matic to bring the articles back… FROM THE PAST.
Historical Note: This was in response to Google’s announcement that it had licensed real-time images of the Moon and Mars.
20 December 2006
GOOGLE Fortress, Tranquility Base — Search giant Google has announced a “Space Act Agreement” with the Nasa Ames Research Center, which grants Google the rights to real-time images and other data on the Moon and Mars. Google’s lawyers have creatively interpreted that to include the sight of these celestial bodies in the night sky.
Actual image of the Moon, last night.
Google insists that the Moon and Mars will remain free to look at, but they will now be subsidised with “unobtrusive and relevant” ads projected by giant laser from the International Space Station. Google is quick to point out that it has no plans to sell or exploit personal information gathered by its omnipresent geostationary eyeball-tracking stealth microdrone surveillance satellites, but will instead use the information to tailor the ads according to who is currently looking skyward.
Currently Google Moon is in its “Beta” stage. The personalised adverts are only available in a handful of countries and prices for ad space are, quite literally, astronomical. Google Mars is still stuck in “pre-Alpha”, due to the impossibility of seeing ads across the interplanetary distances involved, but Google’s R&D department is on the case, and blueprints are already being drawn up to build a giant machine to move Mars closer to us. Google has not commented on the inevitable widespread earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters such an orbital shift would cause both on Mars and here on Earth.
Google-watchers say that Google’s next acquisition should be Jupiter, as the largest planet in the Solar System has the largest surface area available for advertising space, but a hard-core minority insists that the only way for Google to truly commercialise the Solar System would be to own the Sun.
Critics claim that this is merely another phase of Google’s plan to buy absolutely everything then make money from it. Google’s reply was simple: “Yes. Yes it is.”
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