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April Fools 2016 Roundup: The Best in Tech

It’s that time of the year. The time when many companies will be pulling pranks for April Fools Day, which is April 1st (today). We’ve seen some pretty awesome April Fools Pranks before, and even seen one product from April Fools turn into a real product (Amazon Dash). Here is our roundup of all of the April Fools Pranks for 2016.

Google Japan

Google always has tons of April Fools Day jokes and pranks, from all of their different teams in Mountain View and around the world. The team in Japan was first up this year with Furikku. Which is a physical version of Google’s Japanese input for Android. According to the product video (above), Furikku allows you to do “flick input”, and of course the hardware and software are open sourced, and the keyboard can be 3D printed in a few colors.

Google Cardboard

The Google Cardboard team decided to announce a plastic version of their Cardboard Virtual Reality viewer. Obviously this is a joke from the Google Cardboard team, check out the video above.

Google

Another one from Google, we’ve all heard of their self-driving cars, but what about a self-driving bicycle? That’s exactly what Google has made here in this April Fools Day prank.

YouTube

YouTube did something that is actually pretty cool. You can watch videos in Snoopavision now. Basically this allows you to watch a video in 360-degrees, however next to you, is Snoop Dogg. What’s better than that?

Android

The Android team and the folks at The Guardian have teamed up here to make it easier for those in Space to read the newspaper. Actually this might be a good idea for astronauts.

OnePlus

With the OnePlus One back in 2014, OnePlus made the device with a Sandstone back. They continued that with the OnePlus 2 in 2015. And now they are looking to Sandstone all the things.

Lyft

Lyft is also getting in on the fun, but this is something you can actually have some fun with. They are allowing you to prank your friends in real life from 11am to 5pm today. Within the app, you can request a prank mode ride. Currently the details aren’t completely available, but we should learn more a bit later on today.

Sony

Sony announced their Proton Pack, which is here to catch all of the ghosts that may be floating around. Sony notes that it uses their Stamina mode for extended and improved battery life.

Virgin America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGCUp_FduKc

For April Fools’ Virgin America decided to go ahead and change their logo. There’s a pretty interesting, and funny, video above that talks about how they are looking to change their logo. Warning, it looks and feels pretty realistic.

Product Hunt

Their prank is pretty straight forward here. It appears that Product Hunt has bought Yahoo, in an “All Stock Deal”. This one actually came out yesterday, but yes this is a joke and not for real. Even though Yahoo is really up for sale.

Razer

Razer announces Project Breadwinner. They seriously put out a nearly 6-minute long video promoting a fake toaster. Some of these companies just take it to far, right?

Samsung

First up is their “Internet of Trousers” for Samsung. This is part of their IoT-enabled smarter fashion products, as the company states in a press release. It will notify you that your fly as down, as well as make you get up every so often and be a bit more active. Pretty interesting and something that may turn into a real product down the road.

Samsung Mobile

Samsung Mobile had a pretty neat tease this morning, teasing that #TheNextGalaxy was coming tomorrow, with the teaser highlighting a “8”. Now for those that just bought the Galaxy S7, don’t worry, you still have about 10 months to wait on the Galaxy S8.

ASUS

ASUS didn’t seem to go to far out with their prank. Using the Zenfone Max, ASUS made a video about how to charge your Tesla with the Zenfone Max and its 5,000mAh battery. Obviously this isn’t possible, but definitely funny.

Honda

Who says car makers are always behind the times? Honda has just announced Emoji license plates. So instead of the typical alpha-numeric characters on your license plate you can have emojis. Definitely customizable and awesome to have on your car.

Apple Music

Sure we are all Android users here, but we’ll take a good laugh anywhere we can get it. Here we have Taylor Swift on the Treadmill in a video titled “Taylor Swift vs Treatmill”

Google Chrome Chromebook

Google announced a Chrome Chromebook today (looks like the Xperia Z5 Premium from Sony). Obviously this is a joke, but it does look pretty neat.

T-Mobile: Binge John

Continuing with their April Fools’ Pranks, T-Mobile has announced “Binge John”. So now you can Binge watch all of John Legere’s events, Slow-cooker Sundays and the many, many rants that come from the CEO.