April Fools’ round-up: Tinder height tool, Google plant talk and BBC skips the sex

April Fool’s Day has become a major event in the digital calendar, with many brands and media owners creating elaborate pranks to show off their funny side (and get plenty of social media shares and column inches in the process). We’ve put together some of the best hoaxes from 2019’s pranksters for your viewing pleasure…

Tinder gets height verification

Tinder claims to have finally solved the problem of men lying about their height on the dating app, with a new height verification feature they promise is coming soon. Men are instructed to post a picture of themselves in front of any commercial building. From this, Tinder promises to calculate your true height and give you a verification badge on your profile.

Google maps brings back Snake

Following on from its Pac-man and Where’s Wally pranks from recent years, Google is bringing back another gaming icon. Snake, the Nokia game first introduced on the Nokia 6110 in 1997, has been reimagined for Google Maps, playable on iOS and Android versions of the Google Maps app. Just touch the sidebar option on the left side of the search bar and you’ll see the “Play Snake” option. Instead of a snake, you play as a public transport vehicle, like a Tokyo bullet train, San Francisco cable car or a London double decker bus, and pickup passengers on an 8-bit map of their respective cities. There are six cities to chose from: Cairo, São Paulo, London, Sydney, San Francisco, Tokyo. There’s also a “World” option, where you pick up passengers from all over the map.Snake will be playable in Google Maps for roughly a week after April Fool’s day.

Roku Press Paws remote

Roku’s entry this April Fools’ Day is the Press Paws remote. Many of us that own cats and dogs alike leave a radio or the television on while we are out, and so why not give them a way to change the channel when they get bored?

Duolingo gets pushy tutors with real life notifications

Language education platform Duolingo is well known for its passive aggressive Owl character, who sends reminders to students to brush up on their online studies. Here are some examples. This has has already been retweeted 175k times in the last 24 hours. https://twitter.com/monadoboii/status/1112210937493291009. Duolingo Memes were also top of Reddit four times this week. This year they are playing up to this with a new feature called Duolingo Push – an in real life visit from Duo for those that need that extra push. Duo will turn up at your work, when you are on a date, or when you are at the Gym, to make sure you practise your French, Spanish, Korean, Klingon, High Valyrian or Chinese. It’s the green glove treatment from Duolingo.

Shutterstock builds world’s largest bricks and mortar image library

Shutterstock announced plans to build and open its first brick-and-mortar stock library. The library will house over 250 million volumes of imagery, a full floor showcasing over 14 million reels of film, and a listening bay where visitors can enjoy over 20,000 music tracks. All content will include the renowned Shutterstock visual and audio watermarks. The structure will be designed by the world-renowned Belgian architect, Alexandria VonPixel, who is known for her extravagant cathedrals including the Citadel de Fotografia in the Maldives. If you plan to visit, make sure you take a look at their popular “Portraits of Disgruntled Ostriches” collection.

Of course it’s all an April Fools, similar to the Fyrestock video they did in January (see below).

Google Tulip lets your plants talk back

Google Tulip launched with an extremely detailed technical spec and glossy promotional video, this development allows you to talk to your tulips, and discover just what it is they are thinking about.

Aperol fools: Drinks brand release perfume

Aperol Spritz-Spritz is a divine new scent to be enjoyed all day long! The fruity herbal spirit has been transformed into an aroma that is truly irresistible and inspired by Aperol’s complex mix of herbal and fruity flavours and which smells delizioso!

BBC iPlayer skips the sex

The BBC’s iPlayer is getting a valuable update – a “skip the sex” button for those awkward moments when you are watching a programme with your parents or your children and it is about to get steamy.

The Telegraph bans April Fools’ due to Brexit panic

In a rather meta April Fool’s joke, UK broadsheet newspaper The Telegraph suggested that parliament was reviving an Oliver Cromwell-era statute to prohibit April Fool jokes, for fear they would spark panic-buying. The paper wrote: “The statute from 1653 states that the issuing of false reports is strictly prohibited and punishable by the splitting of an offender’s ribs.” A statute that would possible be useful all year round.