This year’s batch of online April Fools’ Day gags was noticeably superior to those in print. Some people may interpret this as a tipping point between electronic and print publishing. Clearly, it is now easier to poke fun at IT than at any other area of life. Computers and the internet invite universal derision, it would seem.
On 1 April, a copywriter at Google clearly had a lot of fun writing a story about the Toilet Internet Service, which purported to offer an internet connection via your home plumbing. The basic scatological puns were there – “trickle”, “flush” and “brown-outs” – although I would have been tempted to (ahem) squeeze out a few more, such as “dump”, “wipe” and “zip”, in that order.
The day was also cheered by a string of press releases for fake products, complete with realistic pictures. Moixa Energy, the maker of those AA batteries you can recharge from a USB port, announced that it would offer models in designer colours, including tartan for the Scottish market and a camouflaged version for the military.
There was also the “Blu-Tooth” audio gadget from Gear4, which promised a Bluetooth-enabled dental crown that plays audio by vibrations carried through your jawbone – perfect for those hands-free mobile calls.
And then there was the Rock Direct ExpressCard remote for controlling your multimedia laptop from the sofa. Oh, hang on, that last one wasn’t a joke. Gosh, what must it be like to watch DVDs on a laptop while sitting on a sofa at the other end of the room? Perhaps every system comes with a pair of opera glasses.
This reminds me of one of the many occasions when I have embarrassed myself by asking apparently naive questions. A vendor was expounding the benefits of Bluetooth over infrared for printing documents wirelessly. You can do this, he said, without having to walk up to the printer. Inevitably, it was me that asked: “But don’t you have to walk up to it anyway to collect your printout?” I was treated to a frosty stare.
Bluetooth technology emerged several years before anyone could convince me it had any practical use. Today, however, you’d need wild horses to drag me away from my cherished wireless peripherals. Who knows, perhaps in a couple of years’ time I shall be watching video on my mobile phone.
You may laugh, but these things do happen. When I asked my 10-year-old son why he desperately wanted a mobile phone, he could barely disguise his incredulity at sharing genes with such a dimwit as he replied: “So I can take videos, of course.”
