Portal:Current events/2005 April 1
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April 1 2005 was an April Fool's Day that fell on a Friday.
Hoaxes in 2005
Hoaxes for this year included:
- Microsoft to Release Visual Studio 2005 for Unix/Linux (TheServerSide.Net)
- AskJeeves debuts the Jeeves9000
- CollegeHumor sold to Philip Morris USA. CollegeHumor.com
- Booble.com has become Biible.com, an anti-sex site.
- Star Trek had several hoaxes on their website StarTrek.com including a bogus "Potucker" episode ad, funny clips, and various other articles throughout the home page.
- Telecom New Zealand published a full-page advertisment in the New Zealand Herald publicising the reintroduction of the first-generation cellphone, the brick.
- New Zealand's Otago Daily Times newspaper announced a breakthrough link between an additive in printing ink and obesity, urging its readers to soak their newspaper in water and wrap themselves in its pages to test the results for themselves.
- The Sunrise breakfast show on Channel 7 Australia broadcast a redo of the BBC's smellovision april fools day joke.
- The BBC report that a think-tank has suggested that disabled people should not appear on television until after the 9pm watershed.
- Discovery of "extinct" butterfly
- Whirlpool in Australia report that Former Senator Richard Alston will be Telstra's next CEO (original article) .
- SpaceDaily reports that President Bush has cancelled the Space Shuttle Program and EADS SPACE falls for it.
- 2005 Britannica takeover of Wikimedia
- GamesBids announces that IOC Could Involve Public In Future Olympic Bid Decisions
- Google releases "Google Gulp"
- The Sydney Morning Herald reports the new SMEGmail service, offering 1 terabyte of e-mail storage space (original article); and the recruitment of Paris Hilton to increase the exposure of Linux (original article)
- PlanetKDE and PlanetGNOME switched places. GNOME announce a new feature where users are forced to donate to GNOME to use their desktop.
- New RFCs:
- Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
- Gentoo to drop x86 LiveCDs
- Nature.com reports that bacteria from the Apollo missions is destroying the moon.
- Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
- [1] The Times of India says Dan Brown reveals that Kashmir actually belongs to the US in his new upcoming book.
- The DARPA Grand Challenge 2006 to take place in Athens, Greece
- Interplanetary spam responsible for crippling the onboard computer of the Spirit rover
- NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" featuring a picture of "Water on Mars"
- The Independent: Jamie Oliver is to be the new Conservative candidate of the Arundel and South Downs after the saga of Howard Flight.
- Ubuntu Linux users who ran an apt update had their normal gdm login screen replaced with a picture of three people, presumably Ubuntu employees, replicating the original picture.
- Dropline GNOME announced SlackLine, a new SRPM based Slackware distribution with 1000 GNOME packages .
- King Arthur Pendragon claimed that English Heritage had handed ownership of Stonehenge to the Druids, as part of a project to place a roof and restore the ancient temple to its former glory [2]
- The BBC's Newsround website reported that brainbands help children pass exams.
- Opera Software announced Opera SoundWave, a "platform-independent speech solution for short- and medium-range interpersonal communication".
- GMTV reported on "Fruitshakes", milkshakes produced by feeding cows fruit.
- Malaysian radio station Hitz.FM's Morning Crew, Rudy and JJ, announce that they have been fired for coming in late the day before, and take hostage of the station. The drama went on for their entire morning shift. Malaysian newspaper The Malay Mail was in on the joke.
- LiveJournal's Brad Fitzpatrick announced his departure and new corporate policies, including the introduction of banner ads.
- GMail launches Infinity+1 space for all users.
- The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 reports that, as a result of an obscure 19th century rule succession of the House of Saxe-Coburg, Camilla Parker-Bowles's son, Thomas Parker-Bowles, who is older that Prince William, will become second in line to the British throne following the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla on 8 April 2005
- The danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet reports that the film Indiana Jones IV, will be filmed this year in Denmark, partly in Copenhagen and partly on the island of Bornholm. [3]
- OCRemix.org states that is taken over by Electronic Arts.
- Teamlaiset announces that spies have been removed from the discussion group. Mr. Baldani is one victim. [[4]]
- Virgin Group's Australian Finance Division announced the introduction of a 'scratch and sniff' sausage credit card. Website link
- In football, Bayern Munich announces on its website that it is set to sign Real Madrid and England superstar and cultural icon David Beckham. Weblink (in German) Weblink (in English) (Reuters/Yahoo!)
- Homestarrunner.com displayed a hoax message purporting that the popular (and free) animation website would begin charging money for access. A comically mediocre "tour" of pay-site features was also presented.
- Ambrosia Software invited its mailing list subscribers to visit their site and download "Screen Cleaner Pro!," a hoax application which seems to brighten the user's computer monitor with an animated graphic of a cloth being dragged across the screen- the effect is achieved by gradually darkening the monitor before executing the animation.
- IGN carries Microsoft's announcement of World of Wordcraft
- BeyondUnreal announces Epic Games' latest project: Unreal 3: Slug Saga - The Adventures of Ne'Ban
- Clockcrew.net was completely replaced with the text: "Kill kill kill kill, kill the Clocks. Hunt them down, there shall be no clemancy"
- ThinkGeek listed a number of strange and unique items for sale, including a USB Desktop Fondue Set, iCopulate, and XBOX 2.
- Duck Hunt coming to Nintendo DS with special edition stylus! [5]
- Fark.com had several different pages rotating as index.html, including fake hacker attacks, and a control panel that appeared to log visitors in as Fark's owner Drew Curtis.
- Scientific American "gives up" on science and vows to give equal acknowledgement to Creationist theories. (full article on Slashdot)
- Planetcricket.net reported that Swordfish Studios had annouced a new game officially licenced by New Zealand Cricket & Rugby Union international Jeff Wilson called "Jeff Wilsons International Rugby versus Cricket 2005". Features included playing cricket with a rugby ball and rugby with cricket bats. (full article)
- Several comic strip cartoonists make Ouija Board jokes at the same day, with roughly the same dialogue. Strips involved include FoxTrot, Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine.
- Tibia (computer game) is searching for players to make game events. They will get a special character with power to summon monsters and create items, of course they will get money for that job.
- 2600 requires meeting attendees to wear formal attire.
- Blizzard Entertainment announces the Pandaren Xpress, a service in World of Warcraft that allows you to order Chinese Food by typing /panda!
- Everything2 bought out by Google; the new owners rebrand it Google Communities
- Discovery of "extinct" butterfly
- The Code Project is now concentrating on VB6 development
Events mistaken as April Fool's Day hoaxes
Genuine events that had been interpreted as April Fools included:
- Mitch Hedberg's death
- The announcement of the tea tablet
- Zinedine Zidane playing again with the France national football team
- Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 64-Bit Versions are RTM and can be downloaded from MSDN
- British Home Secretary Charles Clarke is being asked to pardon Anne Boleyn for the crimes of adultery, incest and witchcraft for which she was beheaded in 1536. [6]
- [7] Google doubles Gmail disk space quota to 2Gb.
See also
- April 1, 2004
- M1126A Fryker Armored Combat Deep Fryer