April Fool’s Day is a great opportunity to lighten up the mood of a tense election campaign, inject some comedy into the news cycle or generate millions of dollars in free corporate advertising. The Post’s Tristin Hopper provides a round-up of Sunday’s top “fools.”
World’s smallest laptop
Sony announced the launch of the Sony VAIO Q, a laptop no larger than a U.S. quarter. Powered by a watch battery and equipped with a screen only three centimetres wide, the laptop is “portability without compromise” a faux-Sony spokesman said in a promotional video.
Adults only
To eliminate “kids screaming and running up and down the aisle” on its flight, WestJet debuted Kargo Kids. From now on, explained WestJet spokesman Richard Bartrem in a video, parents will be asked to load their children into baggage tubs (“travel toboggans”), from which they will be loaded into the cargo hold. Last year, the Calgary-based airline announced it was going to begin filling its cabins with helium as a cost-cutting measure…
Google Day
While Google has not yet conquered human civilization, it can be argued that the internet giant has successfully conquered April Fool’s Day. Chrome, Google’s web browser, introduced a “multitask” mode allowing users to employ multiple computer mice at once. Gmail, Google’s email service, introduced Tap, a program allowing users to sidestep keyboards by typing out their emails in morse code. Google’s advertising department announced that banner ads would now be equipped with a “teleport me”button; “one click and a customer is instantly standing in your business location and ready to shop.” Google Maps released a function allowing users to view world maps in Nintendo-style 8-bit, while Google Australia announced they would be dispatching camera-equipped kangaroos to record the next iteration of Google Street View. The most elaborate hoax of the day however was a fake joint partnership between Google and NASCAR in which the racing body’s drivers would be phased out in favour of Google’s self-driving technology.
…Hilltop jam
In Bangalore, India, an FM station announced that a group of top Bollywood stars would be making a Sunday appearance at Nandi Hills, a remote hilltop park on the city’s outskirts. An estimated 6,000 people took the station at their word, causing daylong chaos at the quiet retreat — although park officials reported that the hoax netted them an extra $1,000 in parking fees.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/01/google-teleport-april-fools-day/
Related articles
- The Best Online April Fools’ Day Pranks 2012 (collegecandy.com)
- April Fools’ Day Classics: Top 10 Viral Pranks on YouTube (mashable.com)
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