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Tech heavies goof around for April Fool's
Tech companies really love April Fool's Day. It's the one day of the year that they can let their hair down and have a good laugh.
Journalists, however, are less fond of the day. For reporters, navigating the April Fool's news load is a minefield of embarrassing mistakes and gaffes.
The problem is that in covering the tech industry we are so often presented with stories that seem borderline comical. Companies pitch such hilariously bad products and business moves on an almost daily basis that come 1 April it can be hard to tell the jokes apart from the legitimately dumb ideas.
With that being said, let's take a look at some of the more entertaining corporate gags from this year's April Fool's Day:
Google took a spin on a recent proposal from the city of Topeka, Kansas that it would change its name to "Google, Kansas" should the company select it for an experimental broadband trial. On Thursday the search engine returned the favor by christening its search engine "Topeka" for the day.
One has to wonder, however, if Google really wants to associate itself with all of Topeka's residents.
Security specialists in particular had fun with April Fool's Day pranks. Mac security specialist Intego floated a line of edible packaging, while F-Secure vowed to protect users from the scourge of Rickrolling (that one may have actually been a useful product a couple years ago). Sophos also got in on the fun with the introduction of security through distraction.
Analyst firm Gartner got a bit political with their prank, suggesting that the US Government was preparing a takeover of the entire technology business.
Our two favorite pranks, however, are the work of a pair of geek stalwarts. Digital rights champions Electronic Frontier Foundation sent out a binary message of solidarity for robots, while iconic tech comic XKCD replaced its normal page layout with a fully functional command line interface.
Journalists, however, are less fond of the day. For reporters, navigating the April Fool's news load is a minefield of embarrassing mistakes and gaffes.
The problem is that in covering the tech industry we are so often presented with stories that seem borderline comical. Companies pitch such hilariously bad products and business moves on an almost daily basis that come 1 April it can be hard to tell the jokes apart from the legitimately dumb ideas.
With that being said, let's take a look at some of the more entertaining corporate gags from this year's April Fool's Day:
Google took a spin on a recent proposal from the city of Topeka, Kansas that it would change its name to "Google, Kansas" should the company select it for an experimental broadband trial. On Thursday the search engine returned the favor by christening its search engine "Topeka" for the day.
One has to wonder, however, if Google really wants to associate itself with all of Topeka's residents.
Security specialists in particular had fun with April Fool's Day pranks. Mac security specialist Intego floated a line of edible packaging, while F-Secure vowed to protect users from the scourge of Rickrolling (that one may have actually been a useful product a couple years ago). Sophos also got in on the fun with the introduction of security through distraction.
Analyst firm Gartner got a bit political with their prank, suggesting that the US Government was preparing a takeover of the entire technology business.
Our two favorite pranks, however, are the work of a pair of geek stalwarts. Digital rights champions Electronic Frontier Foundation sent out a binary message of solidarity for robots, while iconic tech comic XKCD replaced its normal page layout with a fully functional command line interface.
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