April Fools' Day. It's a holiday that doesn't mean much to most people, but in the tech world, it means 24 hours of gags, jokes, and baloney press releases galore.
Last year had some notable highlights, such as the T-Mobile ONEsie and (my personal favorite) Google Gnome, and 2018 is proving to be just as hysterical. Here's our roundup of the best — and more importantly — worst April Fools' Day tech gags for the year.
Honor Toilet Insurance
Honor makes some of the best budget/mid-range Android phones around, and it wants to ensure your gadgets are as safe as can be — even when you're taking the kids to the pool.
With Honor's all-new Smartphone Toilet Insurance Plan, customers have full protection over their Honor smartphones even when they drop them in the throne while doing their business.
The plan is available free of charge (woohoo!) for all Honor 7X and Honor View 10 owners between April 1 and May 31, and it's good for the rest of the year. If urine a hurry and want more details on the plan ASAP, you can check out Honor's website here.
OnePlus Cryptocurrency
OnePlus is no stranger to a challenge, and this year the company is rolling out its own currency. From co-founder Carl Pei:
When we came up with the OnePlus One, we didn't just set out to make a better smartphone. We wanted to change the way people interact with their phones. Now we set our eyes on a even greater challenge. We want to re-imagine one of most fundamental elements of our everyday life – currency.
T-Mobile Sidekicks
T-Mobile is bringing back the Sidekick, and while it is a real product, it isn't quite what you'd imagine. Dubbed the world's first Smartshoephone, it features a patent-pending "Step into Something Amazing" Foot-First design, and T-Mobile says that the Sidekicks are "fully tricked out for speed on the fastest LTE network ever and optimized for unlimited data with T-Mobile ONE."
The Sidekicks also come with several "vintage" features, including a bonus slide-out screen, toe tap to exchange contact info, and a feature that lights up the shoes when you're receiving a call.
The shoes are actually up for pre-order for $65, and if you're wondering, they're just regular sneakers decked out in T-Mobile magenta.
Duolingo introduces craft beers
Language learning app Duolingo is coming up with its own range of craft beers, dubbed Brewolingo:
We get it. Learning a language is hard. Luckily, research has shown that besides frequent practice and cultural immersion, getting tipsy can help. That's right, folks: drinking beer can actually help you get fluent.Enter Brewolingo: four varieties of craft beer brought to you by Duolingo. Featuring a special blend of wheat, hops, water and secret Owlgorithms™, this beer is the only fluid you'll need for language fluency
While the page has a Buy Now button, Duolingo isn't actually setting up a brewery.
