[theragingbull]

If you logged into Gmail over the last 4 hours (or visited the Gmail homepage), you probably noticed that something looked a bit off: all the vowels are missing! Is this just a prank?

This is what Google has to say: "At 6:01 am Pacific Time, during routine maintenance at one of our datacenters, the frontend web servers in that particular datacenter started failing to render the letter 'a' for a subset of users. As error rates escalated, the strain spread to other datacenters. We worked quickly to avoid a cascading failure of the entire alphabet by implementing a stopgap solution that limited the damage to the letters 'a,' 'e,' 'i,' 'o,' and 'u.' As a result, we're experiencing Gmail’s first temporary vowel outage. (We’re still investigating whether the letter 'y' is impacted and will post an update here shortly.)"

[ph03n!x]

I think this is their April Fool joke (maybe along with what you have posted):

Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka.

Source

[arun1100]

As usual, Google did it again!

[Car-e-ok]

Now when i looged on to google. They are saying its not google anymore. Its topeka. Cause kansas mayor named his city topeka as google.So google is doing the honours other way around.What the hell is that now.

[prateekm]

Google's take on that (Don't know how true it is) :

Internet giant Google on Thursday apologised to users, saying it was “extremely sorry” as the servers of its email service ‘Gmail’ was facing a serious problem of not recognising vowels.

The result, Gmail, was spelt ‘Gml’ and Google as ‘Ggl’ and so forth on the homepage. However, the entire issue later turned out to be an All Fool’s Day prank by Google.

In a post on its official blog, Gmail Engineering Director Sam Schillace wrote, “We realize this makes things difficult for all of you who rely on Gmail — whether at home or at work — and we’re incredibly sorry.”

The vowels were, however, intact in the contents of emails sent or received via Gmail.

“If you logged into Gmail over the last hour (or visited the Gmail homepage), you probably noticed that something looked a bit off: all the vowels are missing,” Schillace said.

Explaining the problem, the official wrote that “at 6:01 am Pacific Time, during routine maintenance at one of our data centres, the frontend web servers in that particular data centre started failing to render the letter ‘a’ for a subset of users.

“As error rates escalated, the strain spread to other data centres. We worked quickly to avoid a cascading failure of the entire alphabet by implementing a stopgap solution that limited the damage to the letters ‘a,’ ‘e,’ ‘i,’ ‘o,’ and ‘u.’

As a result, we’re experiencing Gmail’s first temporary vowel outage. (We’re still investigating whether the letter ‘y’ is impacted and will post an update here shortly.)”

Gmail said it was identifying the root case of the issue and the vowels should be back into the users’ accounts soon. “We’ll post an update as soon as things are fully resolved and, again, we’re very s0rry,” Gmail said.

[maddy42]

Well the truth is the Mayor actually changed the name of his town to google but google changing their name is for the 1st april prank

[arin_12]

I too exxperience the same thing yesterday night... I was bit confusded and ignored this.

[bblost]

Rlly dd nt xpct ths frm ggl

[intoxicangel]

google has the most hoaxes on April fools day.. and due to the fact that people use it so much, no one thinks twice esp on 1st April when Google says or does something!!

This year
- Gmail
- Google Animal Translator

I'm sure we could find a list of all the pranks they have pulled and you would be surprised at the ingenuity!! Hats of to Google's think tank!!

The best one I have come across till date was one from a couple of years ago, was Google TiSP. Details as below!!
Google TiSP
Google TiSP (short for Toilet Internet Service Provider) was a fictitious free broadband service supposedly released by Google. This service would make use of a standard toilet and sewage lines to provide free Internet connectivity at a speed of 8 Mbit/s (2 Mbps upload) (or up to 32 Mbps with a paid plan). The user would drop a weighted end of a long, Google-supplied fiber-optic cable in their toilet and flush it. Around 60 minutes later, the end would be recovered and connected to the Internet by a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)". The user would then connect their end to a Google-supplied wireless router and run the Google-supplied installation media on a Windows XP or Vista computer ("Mac and Linux support coming soon"). Alternatively, a user could request a professional installation, in which Google would deploy nanobots through the plumbing to complete the process. The free service would be supported by "discreet DNA sequencing" of "personal bodily output" to display online ads that relate to culinary preferences and personal health. Google also referenced the cola-and-Mentos reaction in their FAQ: "If you're still experiencing problems, drop eight mints into the bowl and add a two-liter bottle of diet soda."

and the entire list of thier hoaxes will be found here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_hoaxes