April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

Kodak debuted a new addition to its product line: an "eye camera." The camera featured a "what you see is what you get" viewfinder, Facial Recall Assistant (handy for parties and reunions), Image Stabilizer (perfect for taking pictures after a glass of wine or two), Digital X-Ray Vision (developed in partnership with the Superman Corporation located in the Fortress of Solitude), and a SuperZoom attachment.

Candy shop A Quarter Of announced it would soon be selling the Chokle, a chocolate bar filled with helium gas.

YouTube flipped its videos upside-down. The effect displayed for visitors who opened the home page and then went to a video from there. It was also possible to activate the effect by adding the code &flip=1 to the end of a youtube URL. YouTube wrote that it had introduced the new format because, "Our internal tests have shown that modern computer monitors give a higher quality picture when flipped upside down—kind of like how it's best to rotate your mattress every six months." To see the new format, it advised viewers to either 1) Turn your monitor upside-down; 2) Tilt your head to the side; or 3) Move to Australia.

Yachting Monthly inserted a joke item in its April issue about the Ocean Youth Association, an organization that supposedly allowed children to compete in wold sailing stunts. What Yachting Monthly didn't realize is that the name of their fictitious organization was similar to the names of several real organizations, Ocean Youth Trust and the Association of Sail Training Organisations, both of which subsequently began to receive inquiries from people seeking clarification about the Yachting Monthly article.

The Japan Times profiled a new social-networking service that would provide people with instant virtual friends. The service, called TomoToday, had been created to complement sites such as Facebook and MySpace. The service claimed to "provide a short cut to a substantial social-media presence."

The virtual friends were recruited from the ranks of unemployed temp workers.

On March 31 a mannequin was found chained to the doors of a Bank of America branch in Boston. The mannequin wore a sign, "The real dummies evict people & fund climate chaos." A group calling itself Mannequins for Climate Justice took responsibility, saying it was getting a head start on Fossil Fools Day, an initiative to use April 1st as a day to mock and resist the fossil fuel industry.

Microsoft announced the release of a new game for the Xbox: Alpine Legend. It featured the tagline, "Join the Global Yodel." Players competed online by yodeling and blowing on an alpine horn:

The Daily Mail revealed that Walkers Crisps had designed noise-free crisps, to be marketed as "Ready Silent Cri-sshhp." They would allow people to "eat loud snacks in the cinema without disturbing the person next to you." The crisp was said to have "the same flavour and crunchiness, except it comes already crushed."

BMW unveiled a new feature for its cars: Magnetic Tow Technology.

Drivers were invited to email uve.vollenvorit@bmw.co.uk for further information.

Expedia.com announced it was offering flights to Mars for only $99, which it calculated to be a savings of $3 trillion for travelers. "In this economy, you can't afford NOT to go!" it declared.

An advertisement that appeared on page five of the Australian newspaper claimed that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had volunteered the use of the electorate offices as a child-minding service: "Each MP's electorate office will today be accepting newborns for a free child minding service. This is another example of Labor's commitment to working families." The advocacy group Get Up later claimed responsibility for the ad.

The website smellr debuted, describing itself as "like Flickr, but for your nose":

The American grocery chain Whole Foods Market revealed a new product on its website: organic air. It came in .02 oz bottles in four varieties: original, sea breeze, mountain wind, and salt & vinegar. The grocery chain also announced that it was opening a new store in Antarctica, and that it was offering a free spider with every purchase of 50-lbs of organic bananas.

The Democracy Center, an organization founded to advance global social justice, posted on its website that Bolivian President Evo Morales had accused the United States of engaging in a clandestine effort to force Bolivia to adopt Daylight Savings Time. The article quoted Morales as saying, "We have seen the government of the U.S. try to undermine our democracy, block us from the lawful export of coca products, and smuggle in munitions. But now we see that these conspirators also have their sights set on changing our clocks. We denounce this before the world community." The news was initially reposted as fact by a few blogs, including the Huffington Post, before it was identified as an April Fool's Day joke.

The Swiss Tourism Board announced it was seeking volunteers to join the Association of Mountain Cleaners. It claimed, "The Association of Mountain Cleaners... makes sure that our holiday guests can always enjoy perfect mountains. Using brooms, brushes, water and muscle power, they clean the rocks of any bird droppings." Visitors to myswitzerland.com were invited to take a Mountain cleaner aptitude test and submit their name for a chance to win a week's holiday in Switzerland. (YouTube video)