April Fools Day Round-Up 2012
Live Blog:
16:26 Westjet introduce childfree travel – allowing customers to travel on child-free flights, creating a quieter and more relaxing inflight experience, while children travel in a’ special VIP area’ of the aircraft – the baggage hold.
16:20 According to The Economist it will soon be possible to design and build household animals to order
16:12 Assassin’s Creed for Kinect
16:03: BMW have developed new technology that will help customers lose weight and increase their fitness.
Their new driverless Running Coach technology ‘allows your BMW to follow you at a safe distance, pushing you to run further’. To help motivate you, the system offers integrated exterior speakers that play encouraging words like “keep it moving fatty.”
15:00 Mini (Australia) invite customers to build their own car – one new part per month only 95c plus postage and packing.
10:42: The whole of YouTube to be made available on DVD. The promo video promises ‘the complete YouTube experience, offline’
10:26: Richard Branson launches journeys to the centre of the Earth through Virgin Volcanic.
A press release issued on the Virgin blog states: ‘Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks to join first expedition..Only 500 people have been to space, only three people have been to the bottom of the ocean, but no one has ever attempted to journey to the core of an active volcano. Until now.’
10:18 Sainsbury’s introduce the world’s first non-slip banana
“We’re thrilled to be the first supermarket to introduce a non-slip banana. We strongly believe in giving customers what they want and for years they have been telling us they want to enjoy a delicious banana without having the danger of slipping on the skin at the back of their mind!”
10:08: The Independent On Sunday is reporting that people are to be given the opportunity to surrender garden hoses at local police stations in return for an ‘I’ve piped down’ badge.
10:00 Ever wondered what the fresh, sweet taste of mangoes and passion fruits would be like mixed with the distinctive, savoury kick of Marmite? Innocent have created a brand new limited edition recipe, mangoes & marmite. (via @MrIainDavie)
09:51 Google bring back morse code ‘the future of writing emails on the go’ (via@gregjames)
09:43 The England and Wales Cricket Boad announce that British Bulldogs will be shrugging off their lazy reputation this summer, as they take up a fetching role in the new cricket season (via @hesterormerod)
09:11 Photobox have emailed their customers announcing new service for photo printing on toast (via @hollowspy)
09:06 Walkers announce via Twitter that they will be launching DIY Crisps (via @matt_simpson and @Nicpatdaw)
08:57 Peugeot’s latest innovation is car paint that changes colour with your mood, giving you a car or all occasions (via Telegraph and @adamt69))
08:25: The Mail On Sunday reports that The Government is planning to mitigate the damage caused by adding VAT to pasties by introducing a new ‘green’ tax on chilled champagne.
“A Green Paper leaked today proposes a ‘Thermal Reduction Initiative’ that would add a nine per cent duty to all chilled champagne sold in public places.”
But the sight of ten crates of champagne being delivered to No 11 Downing Street ahead of the ‘bubbly tax’ is unlikely to convince voters that ‘we’re all in this together’. (via@adamt69)
08:13: The Sunday Telegraph reports that ‘The Government is to turn to reality television in an attempt to “reconnect” with the public and find a successor to Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister’s blue skies thinker.”
‘Contestants would have to come up with radical but workable policy ideas which could withstand the rigour of Whitehall scrutiny. They would be grilled by an expert judging panel made up of ex-civil servants and ministers, such as former defence minister Michael Portillo and Baron Jones of Birmingham.’
07:54 The Sunday Mirror have some sensational pap-pictures of Simon Cowell and David Walliams fooling around in the park.
The paper reports “As the pair took to the boating lake in a giant plastic white pedalo swan for an afternoon of fun, it’s good to see they’ve finally put those rumours to rest…they had a couple of hours relaxing together and when Simon cheekily teased David, he playfully whacked him with a daffodil.”
07:31 The Sun is reporting that Arsenal are launching their own fragrance — and it smells like their Emirates Stadium. “The £23 perfume includes a whiff of oils in the players’ massage area, the fresh-cut pitch and leather from boss Arsene Wenger’s dugout seat.’
Experts who blended the scent also included a hint of matchday food prepared in the posh Diamond Club by celebrity chef Raymond Blanc — and even a touch of striker Robin van Persie’s hair products.
07:14 Mini have launched a caravan and roof tent. A press release sent to Motoring File informs that ‘while sleeping on the foothills of Kilimanjaro. the elevated sleeping position will keep passers-by from the animal world at arm’s length’. (via @rakey)
07:05:David Cameron has appointed the controversial Happy Mondays star Shaun Ryder as a special adviser on social class, following a series of political missteps since the budget. reports The Guardian
06:55: Ideas Man Shed Simove has created Google Nigeria – you’ll just need to pop in your bank account number before searching for your inheritance.
06:45 Lynx brings you the latest in fragrance technology – as an app (via @themarkcarroll)
06.38: Ikea Australia have issued a product recall on left-handed allen keys (via @SportyMuslimah)
7.30pm: Our live blog for April Fools day 2012 opens and Google are first out of the traps..announcing that Google Maps is to be made available for 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment Systems.
“In our pursuit of new digital frontiers, we realised that we may have left behind a large number of users who couldn’t access Google Maps on their classic hardware,” the tech giant said in a blog post.
You can try it on your browser by going to http://maps.google.com and clicking “Quest” in the upper right hand corner of the map.