You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz

01.04.2011

It's been all Google, all the time this week -- appropriately enough, given that Google has dominated April Fools' for nearly a decade. But this time, the headlines were mostly real. The G-folks unveiled the addition of Facebook-like social recommendations to search results, announced the winner of its municipal broadband sweepstakes, got spanked by the FTC for violating user privacy via its Buzz social net, and were accused of yet more improprieties by Microsoft. What else happened? Amazon got some skin in the music streaming game, Bill Gates got dissed by an old comrade, and New York City's Bronx Zoo is short one viper. Have you got what it takes to ace our quiz? Give yourself 10 points for each correct answer. Now go out there and try not to look foolish.

1. Google has finally come up with an answer to Facebook's Like button. What's it, like, called?

a. G-upb. +1c. -0d. G-damn

2. There's a new music streaming sheriff in town, and it's not Apple or Google. What is Amazon calling its tunes-from-on-high service?

a. Cloud Drive

b. Cloud and Clear

c. Cloud Stereo

d. Play it CLOUD!

3. After more than a year, Google finally named the fortunate community that will host its new ultra-mega-fast broadband network. And that lucky city is...

a. Kansas City, Mo.

b. Kansas City, Kan.

c. Topeka, Kan.

d. Google, Kan.

4. An adolescent cobra escaped from New York City's Bronx Zoo last week. Where did he turn up this week?

a. Twitter

b. YouTube

c. eBay

d. Craigslist

5. "You can't build an electricity grid and say, 'You should go out and invent vacuum cleaners. Or keyboards or toaster overs.' You have to give the right tools and primitives to folks, so they can build what they want, and what they want to see in the world. The interesting products out on the Internet today are not building new technologies. They’re combining technologies." Who's not interested in telling people to invent vacuum cleaners or toaster ovens?

a. Google's Larry Page

b. Twitter's Jack Dorsey

c. Facebook's Christopher Cox

d. Bronx Zoo's Cobra

6. Microsoft and Google are at it again. What accusations are the Redmondites leveling at the Mountain Viewers?

a. Stealing proprietary code

b. Abusing user privacy

c. Violating European antitrust laws

d. Stealing their lunch money

7. The FTC has charged Google with "deceptive privacy practices." Which of the advertising giant's 3,297 products got smacked down by the feds?

a. Buzz

b. Street View

c. AdSense

d. Chrome

8. Embarrassed by your Facebook relationship status (or lack thereof)? A new service aims to help fix that. What's it called?

a. Facebabe

b. FauxBook

c. Cloud Girlfriend

d. GFXperience

9. "One day early that fall, I saw a gangly, freckle-faced eighth-grader edging his way into the crowd around the Teletype, all arms and legs and nervous energy. He had a scruffy-preppy look: pullover sweater, tan slacks, enormous saddle shoes. His blond hair went all over the place. You could tell three things about Bill Gates pretty quickly. He was really smart. He was really competitive; he wanted to show you how smart he was." Who just wrote a tell-all tome about what it's like to work with the world's richest man?

a. Steve Ballmer

b. Nathan Myhrvold

c. Paul Allen

d. Melinda Gates

10. Take the number of smartphones IDC expects to be sold in 2011 and divide by the damages music site Blue Beat paid to EMI Music for selling "psycho-acoustic simulated" Beatles tunes, rounded to the nearest million. Add the number of times German politician Malte Spitz's location was recorded by his wireless provider over a six-month period. Put that in your cell phone and -- hey, there you are. What do you get?

a. 35,450

b. 354,500

c. 3,545,000

d. 35,450,000

Now see if you're a tech news junkie and .