List of April Fools' Day Announcements
Instead of cluttering the front page with fake product announcements, let's just post them in here instead. One thread where each top-level comment is just a title and a link.
538 comments
MSDOS is the new mobile OS from Microsoft
Announcement: http://lumiaconversations.microsoft.com/2015/04/01/microsoft...
Product page: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/ms-dos/
Edit: Even an app http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/ms-dos-mobile/85...
Wow, the app is really well done. SPOILERS: Can cd into a programs folder, and launch programs like sms.exe, where I get a blue DOS-style window asking for input. Can use "phone <nr>" to call someone, send e-mails. If i launch "internet" it plays an old modem sound before launching the stock OS browser.
CDing into C:\GAMES\RPS and launching RPS.exe first gives you a question about using "PC Speaker" or "Sound Blaster", and then how many colors you would like. Then the game crashes with "Error! Not enough memory, RPS needs 641KB conventional memory (...)" and then a quote "---Cortana: That's odd, 640 K ought to be enough for anyone", haha. After that, it guides you through using mem and loadhigh to get the game to run. And of course, RPS is Rock-Paper-Scissors in 8-bit glory.
The camera is an ASCII-camera, using letters with only a few colors, or CGA mode. Here are two selfies I took http://imgur.com/a/deajM
The command help gives all useable command: CD, CLS, COLOR, DATE, DIR, ECHO, EDIT (edit autoxec.bat for instance), EXIT, FORMAT, HELP, LOADHIGH, MEM, PATH, TIME, TYPE, VER.
Announcement: http://lumiaconversations.microsoft.com/2015/04/01/microsoft...
Product page: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/ms-dos/
Edit: Even an app http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/ms-dos-mobile/85...
Wow, the app is really well done. SPOILERS: Can cd into a programs folder, and launch programs like sms.exe, where I get a blue DOS-style window asking for input. Can use "phone <nr>" to call someone, send e-mails. If i launch "internet" it plays an old modem sound before launching the stock OS browser.
CDing into C:\GAMES\RPS and launching RPS.exe first gives you a question about using "PC Speaker" or "Sound Blaster", and then how many colors you would like. Then the game crashes with "Error! Not enough memory, RPS needs 641KB conventional memory (...)" and then a quote "---Cortana: That's odd, 640 K ought to be enough for anyone", haha. After that, it guides you through using mem and loadhigh to get the game to run. And of course, RPS is Rock-Paper-Scissors in 8-bit glory.
The camera is an ASCII-camera, using letters with only a few colors, or CGA mode. Here are two selfies I took http://imgur.com/a/deajM
The command help gives all useable command: CD, CLS, COLOR, DATE, DIR, ECHO, EDIT (edit autoxec.bat for instance), EXIT, FORMAT, HELP, LOADHIGH, MEM, PATH, TIME, TYPE, VER.
Double bluff in today's New Zealand Herald:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
The "April Fools' Day special" promised a new BMW to the first person who took their car and the front-page coupon to the dealership.
Ms Marsh was first at the Newmarket car dealership this morning, arriving in her 15-year-old Nissan Avenir.
She was swiftly rewarded with a new BMW 1 Series worth almost $50,000 in exchange for the old station wagon.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
The "April Fools' Day special" promised a new BMW to the first person who took their car and the front-page coupon to the dealership.
Ms Marsh was first at the Newmarket car dealership this morning, arriving in her 15-year-old Nissan Avenir.
She was swiftly rewarded with a new BMW 1 Series worth almost $50,000 in exchange for the old station wagon.
CERN researchers confirm the existence of the Force
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/04/cern-researche...
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/04/cern-researche...
https://com.google - Google showing off their new gTLD in a silly manner.
April fools I wanted the most:
- NSA announcing they were dropping all illegal activities,
- Water allowed on board of planes,
- ISIS converting to Christianity,
- Apple patenting the patent,
- Snapchat releasing a payment system
Note that April Fools is on December 28th in Spannish culture. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day#Comparable...
- NSA announcing they were dropping all illegal activities,
- Water allowed on board of planes,
- ISIS converting to Christianity,
- Apple patenting the patent,
- Snapchat releasing a payment system
Note that April Fools is on December 28th in Spannish culture. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day#Comparable...
Google Actual Cloud platform
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp10_PygJ4o
https://cloud.google.com/actual-cloud/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp10_PygJ4o
https://cloud.google.com/actual-cloud/
Gentoo website makeover.
https://www.gentoo.org/
Clippy is open source on Github - http://thebeebs.github.io/OfficeAssistant/
Smartbox by Inbox: the mailbox of tomorrow, today
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/smartbox-by-inbox-mai...
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/smartbox-by-inbox-mai...
Support for negative number of CPUs is implemented in the Linux kernel.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/3/31/994
https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/3/31/994
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/01/jeremy-clarkson...
Jeremy Clarkson joins campaign for fossil fuel divestment
Jeremy Clarkson joins campaign for fossil fuel divestment
Systemd is forking the Linux kernel: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150330#community
Motorola Selfie Stick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=584qPWzfhHY
The german newspaper FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) claims that there is an inititiative to block cat images from the web due to excessive bandwidth consumption (article in german):
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/die-digital-d...
The other content to be blocked are 'theses concerning the future of journalism' ...
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/die-digital-d...
The other content to be blocked are 'theses concerning the future of journalism' ...
Bashing Haskell: Reimplementing Haskell's Parsec library within the unix shell
SIGBOVIK2015 paper: https://github.com/mikeizbicki/parsed/raw/master/sigbovik201...
github repo: https://github.com/mikeizbicki/parsed
SIGBOVIK2015 paper: https://github.com/mikeizbicki/parsed/raw/master/sigbovik201...
github repo: https://github.com/mikeizbicki/parsed
Minecraft snapshot 15w14a – The Love and Hugs Update
https://mojang.com/2015/04/minecraft-snapshot-15w14a-the-lov...
"We’ve thought long and hard about this, but we finally feel happy to announce that we are now changing the general direction of the game Minecraft. Starting from the next update we will be focusing on the things that make life worth living, promoting healthy relationships with the environment and its inhabitants."
https://mojang.com/2015/04/minecraft-snapshot-15w14a-the-lov...
"We’ve thought long and hard about this, but we finally feel happy to announce that we are now changing the general direction of the game Minecraft. Starting from the next update we will be focusing on the things that make life worth living, promoting healthy relationships with the environment and its inhabitants."
http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned
Today eeryone's comments are being auto-edited to include conspiracy theory claptrap (added to end of whatever they wrote), and they've got an illuminati theme
Today eeryone's comments are being auto-edited to include conspiracy theory claptrap (added to end of whatever they wrote), and they've got an illuminati theme
TeslaMotors: No more parking tickets for Model S owners. Today we’re introducing: ticket-avoidance-mode. Here’s how it works:
https://amp.twimg.com/v/cdad704b-5167-42bd-9fd7-a5c39fabf1f9
(c) https://twitter.com/teslamotors/status/583339439759310848
(c) https://twitter.com/teslamotors/status/583339439759310848
The CSS working group has published a draft of proposed extensions to the CSS specification, which include dedicated units for denoting lengths on astronomical scales (lightseconds, attoparsecs, etc.) as well as extending the CSS gradient syntax to grant first-class support to the generation of double rainbows.
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-egg/
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-egg/
Tinder for Uber*
http://tinderforuber.com/
*I'm praying this is a joke
http://tinderforuber.com/
*I'm praying this is a joke
I may be accused of being a curmudgeon, but most of these aren't funny anymore. Companies are rarely funny, not sure why they keep doing this. /rant
You can play Pac-Man in Google Maps right now
http://www.sciencealert.com/you-can-play-pac-man-in-google-m...
http://www.sciencealert.com/you-can-play-pac-man-in-google-m...
Popcorn Time, Now part of Netflix
https://blog.popcorntime.io/popcorn-time-now-part-of-netflix...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/5200...
An Australian and UK study has reported that increasing temperatures will result in an explosion of fire-breathing dragons around the world.
An Australian and UK study has reported that increasing temperatures will result in an explosion of fire-breathing dragons around the world.
QANTAS to become QUANTAS, to end decades of orthographic confusion.
http://www.ausbt.com.au/australia-s-best-april-fools-day-avi...
http://www.ausbt.com.au/australia-s-best-april-fools-day-avi...
Crypto pranks:
The winner of the Password Hashing Contest was announced to be, LM Hash!
https://twitter.com/veorq/status/583175725206892544
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.phc/2658
libsodium added ROT13, fast, keyless, powerful cipher
https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium/commit/23f1c90c682484f...
The winner of the Password Hashing Contest was announced to be, LM Hash!
https://twitter.com/veorq/status/583175725206892544
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.phc/2658
libsodium added ROT13, fast, keyless, powerful cipher
https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium/commit/23f1c90c682484f...
http://www.reddit.com/r/android and http://www.reddit.com/r/apple swapped their CSS.
Retro amazon,
http://www.amazon.com/
KSP now stands for Kerbal Submarine Program
https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/310j26/...
https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/310j26/...