April 1 is the day that you either dread or look forward to, depending upon whether you usually prank other people or get pranked by others. This year, a number of Chinese companies contributed to the list of April Fools’ pranks, including big names like Xiaomi, OnePlus, Tencent, and even WeChat. Most of the April Fools’ jokes came in the form of new products and like every year, today we have a bunch of interesting announcements.
So, let’s take a look at some of the best 2019 April Fools’ Pranks from China’s tech world.
1. Xiaomi Rocket
Xiaomi had a bunch of announcements today, including the Xiaomi Mi 9 Roy Long limited edition model. However, among these announcements, there was this weird product, the Xiaomi 1 Rocket.
Xiaomi’s rocket is said to be of 27 meters and 1.6m in diameter. It will come loaded with 3 x 3 panoramic cameras for some amazing panoramic shots (well, its definitely going to be out of this world!). What’s more, the rocket will have a flight capacity of up to 35 kilometers. And to top it all off, you can remotely launch this rocket with your Xiaomi smartphone.
After the Mi drone, this will take your photography skills to new heights!
2. WarpTen Chocolate and WarpCar
Warp seems to be the hot word for OnePlus this year. After revealing the super fast WarpCharge last year, it’s time to extend its Warp lineup with two new products.
The WarpTen charger is your best friend. While your OnePlus flagship has the WarpCharge to top it up, WarpTen is here to charge you up. Basically, it’s a bar of chocolate in the shape of a charger. That’s all we know. We don’t even know whether it’s good. And it’s unlikely that you’ll get a chance to taste it, as we didn’t find it on sale.
WarpCar is a more exciting addition to the Warp family. Powered by 20 WarpChargers, it tops up in just 20 minutes. The car has definitely got Tesla’s attention. And why wouldn’t it?
The WarpCar functions around a OnePlus smartphone, with on-screen gestures and camera flash powering its steering and lighting capabilities, respectively. You just swipe left to turn left, swipe right to turn right, swipe up to go forward, and swipe down to reverse. Well, I hope you don’t have to keep swiping up to keep the car moving forward — after all, that would be a tiring job. Further, the WarpCar comes with front and rear facing cameras to cover your in-car selfie needs.
While WarpCar isn’t a real product, I can imagine Tesla already working on that in-car selfie feature.
3. Special Finnish Handpicked Chicken and Duck Meat Boxes From HMD Global
HMD Global, the Finnish company behind the Nokia brand decided to diversify their portfolio today. They announced a brand new product in China, a Special Poultry Gift box from Finland. This assorted gift box features high-quality, unpolluted Chicken and Duck meat from Finland.
HMD Global adds that they want their customers to get the pure Scandinavian feel.
While I’m sure their Chinese customers are excited to see this, it’s possible that they would rather wish to see the Nokia 9 Pureview on sale in their market.
4. Smartisan OS 6.6.6.6 with Virtual Bubble Wrap Pop
Smartisan decided to announce their Smartisan OS 6.6.6 today, with some really special features. For starters, there’s this virtual bubble wrap that lets you pop the bubbles with the right amount of pressure. It’s a good way to relieve your stress, especially when you don’t have the real thing around.
There were a lot of features mentioned in this update, but some of the best ones include the scheduled salary credit message, Type-C toothbrush accessory, and telemarketer’s calling mode. The scheduled salary credit message allows you to edit the amount and time of your salary credit message so that the ‘right person’ gets to see it.
5. Baidu’s Cupid
If you’ve had trouble figuring out the exact emotions of your partner, Baidu’s Cupid is coming to your rescue. The feature integrates AI interactive technologies such as big data, cloud computing, machine learning — all these fancy stuff to figure out what your partner wants to say. Well, he or she doesn’t even have to say anything because this cool feature uses micro-expression recognition to unravel your partner’s real emotions.
If this was a real product, I’m sure there would have been a lot of takers.
6. WeChat’s Creepy way to prank young lovers
WeChat’s April Fool Prank was rather embarrassing. I mean, not for them, but for young lovers out there. Apparently, anyone who sent out ‘I love you’ or ‘I like you’ on Wechat ended up seeing the creepy New Moon face emoji in their conversation. Of course, today isn’t really the best day to profess your love. But if you did on WeChat, you most likely creeped someone out. And you should thank WeChat for that.
7. Tencent’s AI Gourmet Flavor detector
Nothing in China works without AI these days. Tencent announced a new feature earlier today, AI-powered gourmet flavor detector. But it will not just detect the flavor, but also give out the ingredients used. What’s more, it will also help you to reconstruct the flavor of a particular item. Too good to be true? Of course!
8. Alipay’s Anti-Fraud 5G Smartphone
Alipay released the safest 5G smartphone earlier today. While we aren’t sure whether the phone can keep its data safe, it promises to keep you safe instead. This is done via a host of features like anti-fraud detection, lie detector, spam call detector and so on. Basically, if you get a fraudulent call, the phone will automatically detect it and respond to that call. You just have to sit back and relax. What’s more, you can point the phone’s camera at something and it will identify whether the product and its associated information is fake or not. So, if you are out shopping for some fruits, make sure to take this phone and check whether it’s fresh. Not to mention, all this will be processed in 5G. Well, I hope it will also detect the fake 5G networks out there. Now, that would be a real feature!
Which one among these was your favorite April Fools’ Prank?
