Here are Five of the Best April Fools’ Tech Pranks of 2017

By
Saruni Maina
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Saturday was April Fool’s day, if you did not get the memo. As usual, tech companies did not let the opportunity pass them by.

You may have come across these pranks, or maybe you didn’t come across them but here’s a list of five pranks that were worth talking about:

 

  1. Safaricom’s SafariOil


    Safaricom decided to troll Kenyans with all the issues they face when it comes to fuel. With their product “SafariOil”, Safaricom would offer affordable fuel, coupled up with other services such as Okoa Fuel – which would work the same way Okoa Credo works, but now with fuel, thus offering customers fuel on credit. SafariOil would also offer fuel delivery with their “Dial-A-Ngata” service and Sambaza Gas would allow customers to buy fuel for others.

  2. Crown Paint’s DIY-FI


    Ever wanted paint that could boost your Wi-Fi signal? Well, our editor, almost fell for this one. That’s how much we love good internet. Crown Paints, decided to put their creativity to work and developed a paint that, well, boosts your router’s Wi-Fi signals. Dubbed DIY-FI, the paint would have an “advanced electromagnetic Wi-Fi conductive technology”, thus boosting the router’s signal by up to 20 times. Something any person would love to have. Crown Paints, why don’t you actually stop trolling us and develop this paint for real? Jokes on you, we actually want this product.

  3. Sendy’s Votes Delivery


    The Kenya General Elections are fast approaching and Sendy want to make it easier for you to vote. At a fee of only Ksh.500, Sendy would deliver your vote to your polling station through their drones. All one has to do, is request an “Election Ballot Delivery” through Sendy’s app. Sendy would then dispatch a drone your way. For you to be eligible, the user would be required to upload a picture of their ID and voter’s card, which Sendy would review against an registered voter’s list. What are your thoughts? Would you want to vote from the comfort of your house?

  4. Snapchat’s Instagram Filter


    Seeing that Facebook and co have been replicating Snapchat’s features all over their platforms, it was about time Snapchat hit back. Considered by many to be one of the best pranks this year, Snapchat included a new filter that looks a lot like Instagram. The filter would make any Snapchat look like an Instagram post. To troll Instagram further, the filter also makes it look like your photo was liked by three people, “my_mom and 2 others.” Literally a polite way of showing the demography that uses Instagram.

  5. PornHub’s Share Scare


    Disclaimer, I actually didn’t try this one out. I read about it 🙂
    Last year, PornHub pulled one of its visitors by turning their site to be about Corn. This year, they out did themselves by creating a pop-up message thanking users for automatically sharing the sites videos on Facebook. Captioned, “No need to manually share your video to your friends and family ever again because this new revolutionary feature does it for you!”

BONUS:

Huawei’s Luxury Body Care




This one sucked. Sorry Huawei Kenya but the implementation of this prank was poorly done. Armed with a hashtag, #HuaweiLuxury, the company introduced a line-up of luxury body care products that included lotions and perfumes. The items were up for pre-order and once you clicked on the pre-order link, you would be redirected to a Google Form. The irony is, the form was funnier than the prank, have a look.

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