April 1, 2002

April 1, 2002 was an April Fool's Day falling on a Monday. Hoaxes for this year included:

  • The Register: reported AOL buying up weblogs (AOL actually later bought Weblogs, Inc.)
  • The Open Directory Project re-brands itself as the 'Microsoft Directory Project' (screen shot)
  • Kuro5hin acquired MetaFilter, renaming it to met4filter.org
  • Slashdot announced that it would start posting advertiser-sponsored news stories, and disable anonymous posting.
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly said Sonic and Tails were playable characters in SUPER Smash Bros. Melee. Interestingly, Sonic will be a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the sequel to SSBM.
  • Google described its PigeonRank system.
  • The Guardian profiled Harmony Cousins
  • CPAN renamed itself the 'Comprehensive Java Archive Network'
  • The annual spoof Linus Torvalds post on the Linux kernel mailing list announced his resignation from the Linux effort
  • IETF published April Fools' Day RFCs RFC3251 (Distribution of electricity over IP) and RFC3252 (Encapsulating IP in XML).
  • MIT changed its home page to a spoof of the Google home page.
  • a spoof Yahoo News story was circulated stating that PK Interactive had received funding from Idealab! 1 (note: check the URL above closely)
  • The TidBITS newsletter offered a spoof issue
  • The Tom's Hardware website reported that AMD and nVIDIA were to merge. Interestingly, in 2006, AMD merged with nVIDIA's closest rival, ATI.
  • The BBC reported more April Fools' pranks including the announced 'floatation' of Harrods.
  • CNN reported that two Montreal disk jockeys managed to phone Bill Gates on the pretext that one of them was Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien wanting to set up a meeting with Gates. What CNN didn't mention is that these two have a reputation for their audacious prank calls. Previous recipients of their attention have included Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II.
  • Blizzard Entertainment, the computer game company that produced Warcraft III, announced they would be adding a fifth playable race to the game: the Pandaren, a race of bamboo-eating, sword-wielding warriors (later, one Pandaren character was actually added).
  • Anime Boston announced that Samuel Adams and Paul Revere would be guests at Anime Boston 2003.

ja:4月1日 (2002年)