On 1st April 1957, the first recorded April Fool’s day prank went live on British television. A popular current affair show Panorama featured a family plucking strands of cooked spaghetti from a tree. This was to be a special report on a special Swiss family with a special harvest. A lot of viewers fell for it.

 

Consequently, there have been other interesting April Fool’s pranks from tech companies that fooled millions. It is one of the best things about the first day of April. You get a pass pranking your parents, boss, colleague, teacher, friends and co-workers. You may also be an unsuspecting victim currently amid a great prank. It makes for a great laugh.

 

 

Over the years around the first day of April like today, tech companies have introduced fake products and services. Some of them were very clever and some were just downright hilarious.

 

1. Virgin Volcanic

Around April Fool’s Day in 2012, Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group launched a new product, The Virgin Volcanic. The new product was to get customers to the centre of the Earth and back through the nearest volcano.

On the fake website, they had an attractive ad announcing the new product that will attempt to take people of a journey to the core of an active volcano. They called it “a revolutionary new vehicle, VVS1, which will be capable of plunging three people into the molten lava core of an active volcano.”

 

2. Iron Man suit

A year after the Virgin Volcanic, British gadget store Firebox announced in 2013 that it was selling an actual Iron Man suit for £250,000. It said it was a safe mode version that had both military grade technologies and highly experimental technology.

This meant it won’t come with weapons but will have flight abilities and integrated sensory systems. This was not true and was later revealed as an April Fools day joke.

 

3. BMW P.R.A.M

Automobile giant BMW has also done their bit on their customers. They once announced the design of a buggy specifically for the British royal baby.

The BMW baby carrier, named P.R.A.M, had BMW logos. It was also going to be available in royal blue or princess pink. It also included air conditioning and extendable flagpoles.

 

4. Emoji number plates

In 2016, Honda showed off the world’s first emoji number plate. The product was presumably made for its younger buyers.

Honda also claimed that it was speaking with the UK’s Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) over plans to have its emoji plates on the roads by 2017.

 

5. Samsung ExoKinetic

In 2016, Samsung unveiled its ExoKinetic device on its Twitter page. It was a kinetic charging device that could attach to its phones. They made customers believe that they could charge their phones using movement alone.

 

6. Google Chrome Emoji translate for Android and iOS

In 2014, Google Chrome team claimed they had added Emoji support for the Chrome browser experience on Android and iOS. It added that Google will now translate web pages into Emojis to make them faster to read.

This prank never happened. They even went as far as telling users to “tap on the menu icon and select the ‘Translate to Emoji’ option”.