Reg Hardware's April Fool's Day round-up

So April Fool’s Day is upon us once more and the web’s full of stories about talking fish, invisible cars and a fruit that sits somewhere between a banana and a pineapple (thanks, Waitrose). But, instead of trying to fool you with news that Apple today gave away 1000 free iPhone 4G phones to passing punters, Register Hardware …

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfair...

The thought that any one of those stories might be true is enough to have me praying a lump of rock the size of Mount Everest is heading our way.

[Sillyfellow]

i'll have a guess

all funny things, most not believable. i thought it might be the satnav shoes, until i read the lightbulb SWAT team story...

knowing how rediculous our various worldwide governments are, i say the real story is:

the Lightbulb Swat team story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta be Pizza Hut

... marketing gimmick to by more pies ...

[Stevie]

Dammit!

I thought the entire Register Hardware site was the April Fool's gag. Always have.

[Duncan Watts]

My money's on the iphone app

Doesn't sound all too complicated

[Stu]

Truth from fiction...hmmmm

Nice roundup! Pidgeon base stations indeed! I'm sure some fewl will believe it I suppose.

.

Okay I'd say the iPod controlled car is the real one - simply because I bothered to watch the video long enough to see the running PC motherboard and bits n pieces in the boot. And the rather hit and miss control system! Thats far too feasible to be an april-fools joke - besides most of the others aren't even feasible technically, or just make no sense at all!

.

Someone should tell the chap who came up with that car system that even the stupidest of thieves would be able to figure out how to put that tracking system out of commission - sledgehammer thru that rather suspicious collection of circuit boards in the boot! Sorry, trunk!

[Hombre sin nombre]

I'd be willing to bet

the Mazda one is the real one, if any of them are.

[Caff]

lightbulb

I'm guessing the lightbulb one could be real given the recent race to rid us of incandesents

[Andy Bright]

Autostart

Unfortunately I reckon the real device is the iPod Autostart. Mostly because it's the most boring.

In Alaska we use autostarts pretty regularly - you try getting into and driving a car at -30C every day without a 20 minute warmup and you'd understand why. They can do a lot more than the simple set of functions you described and the remote is no larger than the old ipod shuffle. Actually most are smaller. It costs about $200 to buy the hardware and have it installed, unless you want something really fancy.

Mine can start the car for 25 minutes at a time or it can keep the car at a constant temperature. It controls the locks, the alarm and it will automatically shut off the engine if you use the accelerator without the key in the ignition. If I go shopping and for some reason brought the dog with me, I can keep the car toasty warm instead of returning to a dogsycle.

Yes we could just bring a second set of keys, start the car and lock it (our laws and insurance allow us to do precisely this) but the cost of the autostart is pretty low so many of us go that route.

Of course for about 10 seconds I really wanted the last one to be real, except we'd not only be forced to hear about the "really weird dream I had last night" we'd also be required to watch it, like some sort of devil-spawned slideshow of the future.

[Bassey]

Don't care

I don't care which is true, I just want those trainers!

[Anonymous Coward]

dial a phone...

...went to the extreme length of writing April backwards on the handset...

hmm now if they had left out the coin slot out it could have actually been believable.. top up by credit card easy! I suppose that typing the card number into a mobile web browsers is to hard for some..

My money is on the autostart..