For almost two decades, Google has worked to push the limits of technology in our personal lives and our day-to-day society. Next month marks the ten-year anniversary of the launch of Google Earth, which, at the time, gave everyday internet users an unprecedented look at the world from the comfort of their home. Now, Google’s ambition takes another step – weather control. No, this isn’t an X-Men movie, it’s 2017 living in the Netherlands, it’s just an awesome April Fools joke.
Legendary trance music producer and DJ, Armin Van Buuren joined forces with Google to crease and share their ‘innovative project’. Armin discusses the appeal of living in his homeland of Holland, but unfortunately, it rains 145 days a year. Matthew Feigal, Wind Engineer, says that Google has solved the Netherlands rain problem. Being a country roughly twice the size of the state of New Jersey, Holland happens to have an impressive 1,170 windmills. Google’s proposition is to re-purpose this infrastructure. Instead of capturing wind to use for power, they will be used to create wind… a lot of wind.
According to the video below, Google believes that they are able to literally moves clouds in the sky to prevent rain. If the story hadn’t been published on April 1st, we may have actually believed that this is a thing.