Source: HPI
KAPAA, HI, USA, April 2, 2010: Around the world on April 1st each year, friends, businesses and armies of pranksters enjoy the tradition of creating implausible, if not unbelievable, news.
Yesterday, news were that Google changed its name to Topeka, a town in Kansas, which last week really did change its name to Google in order to be more famous. “The Sun” newspaper in the UK announced its creation of the first flavored newsprint encouraging readers to lick each page to “discover hidden tastes (warning, may contain nuts)”. Google offered storage of real world objects on its vast servers, “up to a metric ton per customer.” Google UK released its Google Translate for Animals app (complete with video) which bridges the communications hiatus between man and beast. Apple introduced a cheap device that docks an iPhone, making it a fully-functioning iPad. Starbucks proudly announced two new sizes for its famed coffee blends: a bucket-sized 128 oz called plenta and a 2 oz size called micra. YouTube revealed a “text-only option for our online videos,” and Gmail, having run out of vowels, sent out e-mails with only consonants. Even the sober BBC editorial staff joins in the April Foolery each year. You can see their clever work (flying penguins?) and a history of this day of follies here.
None of this, of course, actually happened. And none of yesterday’s five HPI stories had more than a glimmer of truth in it (though a few HPI readers fell for them.) Not to worry, it was all tongue-in-cheek. Rupert Murdoch will never get his acquisitive hands on Hinduism Today, or anyone else, for any amount of money (and we will never build that 9-story office in our lush tropical jungle); the value of pi will never be rounded to 3.0 (not even in Texas); hundi money will never be used entirely to do nothing but count money and polish hundis; elephants will not be giving out change in Hindu temples and bacteria will never listen to even the most convincing ad-men soliciting their help to devour indigestible fast food waste (food expert Michael Pollan does suggest in “Food Rules” not to eat things that never rot).
Read them all again and have fun this time. You might then notice that their first lines read “April 1, 2010” in bold letters all along.