April 1st is famous all over the world as April Fool’s Day – the day when playing tricks and hoaxes are welcomed with open minds and paid with laughs.  Well, that goes for most pranks.  The tradition of playing tricks on people on April 1st doesn’t have a clear beginning.  Some say it originated in the Canterbury Tales, some say it’s because of a certain nobleman who, on April 1st, sent his servants about doing foolish deeds, while some say it’s a way to mock those people who still celebrated the New Year on March 25th.  The festivities lasted a week ending on April 1st.  But the tradition lives on, even in the tech world.

Nokia Ice

The Finnish phone maker announced Nokia Ice, a Windows Phone-based smartphone that’s made from ice in order to “reduce material costs and the environmental impact, too.”

“Nokia dedicated much of the Tampere R&D unit to work on a solution for how to keep a phone made out of ice charged up,” said the bogus Nokia announcement.  “The solution was simple. They came up with a way of charging the Nokia Ice by placing it in a freezer. This unique technology uses a chemical energy transfer called an endothermic reaction, only it captures the cold instead of heat.”

Google Maps Quest

Internet search giant Google is notorious for April Fool’s pranks.  Remember in 2010 when they “changed” their name to Topeka in honor of Topeka, the capital city of Kansas, which changed its name to Google?  Yeah, that was just a hoax.  And yesterday, Google was at it again.  Since fanbois are so happy about their new iPad Retina Display, Google decided to go old school and bring 8-bit back.  If you went to Google Maps yesterday and clicked on the quest button, the whole map transformed into low resolution images.  And if you searched Google HQ, you would’ve seen a giant Android robot, a dinosaur, pink flamingos and a couple of Googlers wearing beanies with propellers, which indicated that there’s an easter egg waiting to be found.

Apple bought Microsoft

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that they bought Microsoft as CEO Steve Ballmer threw in the towel, saying there’s no point in competing with a giant like Apple.  The deal cost $300 billion dollars but it’s still waiting for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval.  If the deal goes through, they will be trading under the ticker MICRAP.

But here’s one that’s not a prank. Ashton Kutcher will be portraying Steve Jobs in indie biographical movie project titled simply as “Jobs.”  It will be directed by Joshua Michael Stern.

Toshiba announced Shapes

Apple is battling Samsung over tablet design and this spurred rivals to come up with a tablet that doesn’t resemble the iPad.  And Toshiba might be the winner in the tablet design category.  Shapes is Toshiba’s line of tablets that comes in various, well, shapes.  You can choose from Oblong, Rhombus and Amore which is heart-shaped.