In an era of fake news, we should probably all be reading things with a more sceptical eye.
That is especially true on 1 April, when newspapers, companies and social media comics try to trick us all with jokes and pranks.
Here are some of the best prank stories that we spotted throughout the morning.
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Did you fall for these April Fools' Day pranks popping up all over the internet? CNN's Natalie Allen and George Howell take a look at some of the highlights.
Today is the day for real fake news. It's April 1, which means companies, newspapers and japesters around the world try to make fools of us with pranks.
And because it's Easter Sunday too, you can expect some of the gags to have a recurring theme.
Here's a round-up of some of the jokes so far.
How the EU trolled Britain
The European Parliament has poked fun at Britain - and, specifically, our new blue post-Brexit passports, with its April Fool's joke.
It claimed that "all EU passports [are] to become dark blue" - which would render our symbolic passport choice useless.
April Fools’ Day is upon us, and like every year, Google is doing its best to outdo itself. The company releases all sorts of jokes, ranging from the ridiculously lame to the very clever, spanning the simple blog post or video to the elaborate gag or new feature. It’s a very Google-specific tradition — even other Alphabet companies don’t really participate in the celebration.
In fact, Google’s various divisions create more practical and impractical jokes for the holiday than any other tech firm, and it’s simply hard to keep track of them all. We have put together our annual roundup — here are all of Google’s April Fools jokes for 2018.
Where’s Waldo? In Google Maps
The Google Maps team tends to have the more intricate jokes — usually playable games — and this year it’s a Where’s Waldo? integration. Waldo is traveling the world with his friends Wenda, Woof, Wizard Whitebeard, and Odlaw. To travel with him, all you have to do is find him. The April Fools feature will be available all week on Android, iOS, and desktop (make sure you have the latest app version or visit google.com/maps on your computer). To start, press play when you see Waldo waving at you from the side of your screen or ask “Hey Google, Where’s Waldo?” via Google Assistant on your phone, Chromebook, or Home device.
Google Cloud Hummus API
There are so many different types of hummus. And not everyone likes the same hummus. This is a serious problem. Google wants to organize the world’s information, and hummus is no exception. What better way than to have a Hummus API? It analyzes your taste using Google’s “advance artificial intelligence algorithm,” “a hummus big data warehouse” stored in the Google Cloud, “a machine learning model,” vision intelligence, and a taste stick.
Gboard Hardware Keyboard
Google Japan was tired of having to memorize where the keys are on a keyboard, so it created a “physical handwriting version” of the Gboard virtual keyboard app. Instead, the team has created a device that lets you swipe over hardware keyboards, just like you do on software keyboards. The physical version of Gboard collects “a ton of scribble data” and uses machine learning to match it with the correct letters. They ended up with 100,000 data points! It works for all ages and not only do you no longer have to remember where all the letters are, but you don’t even need to print the letters on the keys anymore.
Bad Joke Detector
The Files Go team has decided it wants to do more to help you free up space on your phone. Instead of just removing junk files and old apps, Files Go will now delete any bad jokes you inadvertently receive from friends and family. The Bad Joke Detector uses “a custom-built deep neural network” to identify the bad jokes on your phone, which you can then delete with a single tap.
Googz
Google Australia is really embracing its job of adapting the company’s services to Down Under. Google has been rebranded to Googz. The decision comes as a result of analyzing the evolving local dialect — people are already referring to Google as “Googz” so why not just run with it? In partnership with leading Australian designer Jazza, Google went to great lengths to design a new logo, brand identity, and even some swag to go along with the whole overhaul. You can even ask Google Assistant “Ok Google, What’s your name?” on your Google Home, Chromebook, or smartphone to make sure you get the pronounciation down pat.
When it comes to April Fools’ Day, Google seems to have a bottomless pit for a marketing budget. We will update this post as the company launches more jokes.
