Stuff.tv’s top 10 tech hoaxes for April Fools

1. Star Wars Tauntaun sleeping bag

www.thinkgeek.com

?Snuggle up Skywalker-style in the warm, stinking, white guts of a Tauntaun. Thanks to “extensive movie viewing research and analysis”, its makers have found the exact synthetic compounds needed to re-create Tauntaun fur, so when you’re nestling in its intestines you know it’s as close to the real thing as possible. Also sadly fictional on Thinkgeek today – Squeez Bacon.

2. Google Brain Search

This new mobile service from search-meisters Google looks deep into your cerebrum to dig out memories, eliminating “tip of the tongue” syndrome at a stroke. Press your mobile phone to your forehead, think your query and hit the “Try Now” link for your results.??

3. Carphone Warehouse underwater phone?

Cameras and MP3 players have been underwater-friendly for years, and now mobiles have gone the same way. You can now chat to your buddies whilst submerged, with cutting-edge TAP (Translate Audio Process) software picking up vibrations from the bubbles that exit your mouth and converting them into understandable speech.

4. Hotelicopter

This one has been building up over the past few days, and it’s a cracker: apparently a man called Alvin Farley (initials “AF”) has bought up a 137ft long Soviet Mil V-12 helicopter and converted it into a flying luxury hotel over five years. There are 16 cabins, jacuzzis, heated toilets etc and, well, it’s clearly nonsense – but that didn’t stop a lot of our rivals falling for it last week. Ha!??

5. Guardian drops paper edition for all-Twitter service

After 188 years of using ink and paper, the Guardian has decided to switch to a Twitter-based news service, delivering all its stories in 140 characters or less. The paper has already reworked its archives to include the likes of this entry from 1940: ‘W Churchill giving speech NOW – “we shall fight on the beaches … we shall never surrender” check YouTube later for the rest’.

??6. Qualcomm plays God to offer expanded Wi-Fi network

With the range of Wi-Fi hotspots painfully limited to just a few metres, Qualcomm has come up with a novel solution: implant miniature routers into pigeons. Sadly, the company didn’t stop there, and has tried to improve performance by splicing together pigeon and wolf genes. Check the video to see the terrifying results…??

7. Amazon launches cloud computing – in the clouds

Amazon promises to change the way we think about the cloud by literally sticking a load of computers in the sky. Floating Amazon Cloud Environment (or FACE) uses unmanned helium-filled blimps that will automatically travel around to bring the cloud right to you. Well, right above you. It communicates via WiMAX or laser, with the latter able to double up as a defence mechanism against hazards and, er, competitors.??

8. Reddit gets radical redesign…

…which makes it almost identical to its biggest rival Digg. You cheeky devils. Fark has also delivered the New Fark Experience, which looks surprisingly similar to the much-maligned new version of Facebook, complete with massively irritating adverts for terrible movies on the right hand side…

??9. Streetview Panda  ??

Google Map’s service, newly launched in the UK gets a bit of a makeover, with the usual anonymous little man being replaced with a lovely, amiable panda. No, we don’t know why either.

10. Nokia debuts 5800 Sauna Edition

Ah, those Finns do love a good sauna – and thanks to their compatriots at Nokia they can now take their mobile phone into the steam room with them. The Nokia 5800 Sauna Edition shares the same looks and touchscreen as the regular XpressMusic version, but comes with an anti-humidity coating and thermometer/hygrometer adjustment app called Nokia Löyly.?