I recently posted quite a large article on my company blog regarding the various Internet pranks that went on this 1st of April 2010.
Google April Fools’ Day Pranks
Google went a bit heavy on the pranks this year, with each department seeming to produce its own set of pranks.
- Google Animal Translate - Google have supposedly released an ever so sneaky version of Google Translate that can translate animal noises in to English! This is a mobile application, suprisingly for the Android platform and is (not) available in the Android App Store. Take a look at the video below.
- Google renames to Topeka – ‘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.’
- Google Annotation Gallery – GAG is an open source libary for Java that allows programmers to easily express their emotions in the code… ‘The Google Annotations Gallery is an exciting new Java open source library that provides a rich set of annotations for developers to express themselves. Do you find the standard Java annotations dry and lackluster? Have you ever resorted to leaving messages to fellow developers with the @Deprecated annotation? Wouldn’t you rather leave a @LOL or @Facepalm instead? If so, then this is the gallery for you.’
ThinkGeek April Fools’ Products
ThinkGeek, a huge online store for geek wear, gadgets and generally geeky products released a few extra special products for April Fools’ day this year. This is very typical of ThinkGeek, but this year’s prank products were quite something.
- Canned Unicorn Meat – Which is… well, exactly what it says on the tin, apparently.
- iCade – An arcade machine shaped holder for the new Apple iPad.
- moodINQ – A programmable electronic Tattoo system
- Tell Me Your Secrets Bear – A cuddly bear which had a microphone and camera allowing parents to spy on their children and their secrets.
Your April Fools’ Pranks?
What was your favourite April Fools’ Prank this year, either your own or a prank you saw online?