April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

Virgin Mobile announced that it would be offering a left-handed Sony Ericsson LH-Z200 mobile phone: "Designed with a reversed keypad layout, the buttons are switched from right to left instead of standard left to right… This simple but clever design makes dialling, texting and menu navigation quicker and easier for anyone left-handed." A number of technology sites fell for the joke.

Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.). However, the left-handed whopper had "all condiments rotated 180 degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of the condiments will skew to the left, thereby reducing the amount of lettuce and other toppings from spilling out the right side of the burger."

Jim Watkins, senior vice president for marketing at Burger King, was quoted as saying that the new sandwich was the "ultimate 'HAVE IT YOUR WAY' for our left-handed customers." The advertisement then noted that the left-handed Whopper would initially only be available in the United States, but that the company was "considering plans to roll it out to other countries with large left-handed populations." The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

Declaring that "there's nothing looney about the lefties," Toshiba announced the new "Toshiba Tecra F00-LDU" — a portable computer designed for left-handed users:

Mars Inc. ran a half-page ad in London's Daily Telegraph announcing it would be introducing left and right-handed versions of its signature candy bar. It explained that for years left-handed people had been opening the wrapper from the wrong end and consequently were "eating against the chocolate flow on the bar surface." It noted, "this, naturally enough, can impair that unique and delicious Mars taste." Therefore, the wrapper would henceforth come in two different versions, marked "L" and "R", with a "tear here" perforation at the appropriate corner. The ad concluded: "It's a small service to our customers but in this fast-moving, faceless world of ours, isn't it nice to know that someone's lending a hand?"