The Most Imaginative Tech Products All Launched Today

This is said to be the tech industry's annual festival of wild ideas and bad jokes, and the companies have gone all out for a moment of your attention.

April Fools' Day has always been a publicity day for tech companies and the media. On this day, whether you are a giant like Google or Microsoft, a news organization or a startup, if you fail to come up with a few outlandish fake announcements to show how cool and funny you are, your marketing department has not done its job.

The latest wave of wild ideas (read: self-promotion) has now reached China too, and we have scrolled through so many April Fools' gags in WeChat Moments that our smile muscles ache. Bad jokes should not be enjoyed alone, so we rounded them up:

Google: The Bigger the Company, the More the Jokes

Google is an April Fools' heavyweight every year, because each department puts out its own fake announcement. This year was no exception. They went for quantity, though there were few gems.

The Maps team's Easter egg is the most lovable: “Play Pac-Man on Google Maps”, the only April Fools' Easter egg you can actually play! Open Google Maps and the real world instantly turns into blue-and-black virtual roads, and you become Pac-Man. It even works in Ingress, Google's augmented-reality game;

Another very funny new product is Dial-up mode from Fiber, Google's high-speed internet service. Switch it on and your connection slows 376-fold, so you can't even load images or videos. You can breathe fresh air again and do whatever you like, except work. Use it during a video call with your boss and you need not worry about being yelled at until you cry.

The other gags, however, only earn a facepalm. They include:

• Smartbox, a physical mailbox: it opens with a palm scan, sorts letters and postcards automatically, and has a screen running Android so you can call friends through your mailbox... It kills any desire to use it!
• Google Japan's voice-controlled panda falls just as flat: a new voice search engine called Google Panda, shaped like a cuddly panda plush toy. Its biggest selling point, Google claims, is cuteness, and strapped to your wrist it doubles as a wearable;
• Oh, and there's this reversed domain name: com.google;

Baidu: A Whole Year of Every Employee's Creativity, Packed Into One Day

Baidu is probably the large company that released the most April Fools' jokes, covering smart hardware, finance, wearables and more. It gives the impression that Baidu employees' creativity for the entire year burst out at this one moment:

Baidu Magic Lamp: Rub, rub, rub the surface of your phone

Er, that is, once you rub your phone, your search results appear as a hologram. Here is the official description, in all its over-the-top glory:

Rub the edge of the “Baidu Magic Lamp” and the “Magic Lamp Search” function wakes up automatically. After the user gives a voice command, the “Baidu Magic Lamp” projects the search results as a hologram above the phone screen, and the user can interact with the holographic results directly, carrying on a dynamic, multi-turn conversation.

You can also watch the official promotional video, which looks remarkably real.

Baidu Heart Pay: Pay according to your heart rate

This is a built-in feature of Baidu Wallet. It measures the user's mood and condition each day, then recommends the most suitable shops and their coupons based on what the user needs. Every merchant has a matching payment system; connect a wearable device to it and you get a discount.

Pick-Up Fund: Get paid to chat up girls

This is basically the dating app Tinder with cash thrown in, and to our surprise we rather like it. Here is the official description:

“When you see a girl on the street you'd like to chat up, just walk past her close enough to brush by, and Baidu Wallet will send her the user's ‘Pick-Up Fund.’ If she accepts the ‘Pick-Up Fund,’ Baidu Wallet will open a temporary chat window where the two can text or talk by voice.”

And if the two of you hit it off, Baidu Wallet will give you a coupon to eat at a restaurant together.

Baidu Bead Ring: What if it comes true?

Sorry to quote the official description again, but none of our reporters could write copy this smooth or this funny:

“The Baidu Bead Ring borrows its look from the traditional Chinese bead bracelet, reworked in today's popular materials and colors. Every bead of the Baidu Bead Ring can be detached and rearranged freely, and each bead carries a different function module, offering novel features such as health monitoring, workout tracking, beauty-filter photos, real-time search and translation, smart-home control, couple interaction and holographic projection.”

More astonishing still, Baidu says it might become a real product. Good news for bead-bracelet lovers everywhere.

Tmall's “Traffic Cats”: Every Stray Cat on the Street Is Your Wi-Fi

Tmall and the Chinese voice-technology company iFlytek both used pets as their selling point.

Tmall's “Traffic Cat” plan sounds rather good: fit a Wi-Fi transmitter around the neck of each stray cat in the city, and when you walk up to one you can connect to its Wi-Fi and get online. Once connected, you can also see how many stray cats are nearby and what condition they are in (the collar also checks the cat's health). Tmall hopes you will carry cat food when you go out, so you can attract cats and get online at the same time.

A New Take on Beauty Filters, the Ugly Camera: It Makes Everyone Around You Ugly

Meeting someone you know only online is always a nerve-racking experience, especially when they are good with Photoshop and Meitu Xiuxiu. Smartisan, an idealist phone maker, naturally wants users to present themselves as they really are, and so has always refused to add a beauty mode.

But many female users pushed back. One of them, Xianmo from Zhongshan, said: “Since I started using Smartisan I haven't dared post to Moments, because I had no confidence to begin with.” To meet users' demand, Smartisan has launched an “Ugly Mode” that raises the user's attractiveness while keeping the photo real and credible.

“Ugly Mode” is very simple to use: just select your own face in the viewfinder, and everyone you did not select turns ugly. QDaily interviewed Zhang Xiaomei, who heads the “Ugly Camera,” and she said the idea came from an experiment by a Stanford professor showing that people's looks are rated higher when they are with people who are not good-looking.

According to feedback from the 520 Smartisan T1 users who received the feature, after using the “Ugly Camera” they got far more declarations of love today than ever before.

The No More Regrets App Generator, Plus an Electric Shock Series...

Many people lament choosing the wrong major in college: if only I had studied computer science back then...

But code is far less magical than people imagine, and Wandoujia is determined to lift the lid on how apps are made and give ambitious non-coders a second chance at life. It has released the “No More Regrets App Generator,” which generates apps automatically from big data.

And so... the first app is a WeChat Moments spin-off called the Moments Image Builder. It is very easy to use: one tap gets you a full-service image makeover on Moments. Say you want to look like a workaholic: after midnight it will automatically share taxi-fare red envelopes in Moments and your work group chats. If you want to be a young prince of luxury goods, it will post all kinds of bags and shoes to Moments, and sigh about how boring life is.

Close behind is Boom!Watch, which QDaily dares not report on, because electric shocks and the like are just too brutal. Shopaholics should think twice before downloading.

Asus's Belt Says: Time to Go to the Bathroom

QDaily once reported on a company called Airpnp, which copies Airbnb's home-sharing model to share toilets. As Airpnp spread around the world, an Asus executive is said to have used it and developed a passion for caring for his backside.

So this time Asus has released the ZenBelt, which offers personalized care in a private form. It is a smart belt that does much the same as the Apple Watch, but is stickier: you may forget your phone or your watch, but you never forget your belt.

That makes the ZenBelt well suited to be your family doctor. If you sit too long, it reminds you to get up and move. It also predicts your bathroom breaks with an internal algorithm and vibrates to make sure you head straight for the restroom.

There is no doubt about it: with this smart belt and Airpnp, Mom no longer has to worry about me having an accident.

Cheetah: A Robot Vacuum That Cleans With Lasers and Infrared

Worried about smog, plenty of companies have launched all kinds of air purifiers, but few people ask one question: once the dust in the air has settled, how should I handle my relationship with the dust all over the floor? Worse, some of it hides shyly in the corners, which leaves me even more at a loss.

Fortunately, Cheetah Mobile has not forgotten you, even on this magical day. Today Cheetah Mobile released the CM Cube smart robot vacuum, and as the name suggests, it is like a magic cube: endlessly transformable, with limitless functions.

The CM Cube can change its shape using magnetic levitation, pivots that reach every angle and other technologies, so it can get into oddly shaped spaces around the home to clean. While cleaning, the CM Cube uses infrared sensors to identify objects and spots that need cleaning, and for the tiniest gaps and corners, it extends a smart brush head about three times its own length.

The CM Cube also works as an air purifier, ultraviolet sterilizer, kitchenware cleaner and more, and users can control it with Cheetah's phone app, Clean Master.

It is said that once the CM Cube goes on sale, home-cleaning services such as Ayibang plan a collective protest. QDaily contacted Cheetah Mobile's public relations department but received no reply.

360's Affordable-Luxury Jewelry: The Mermaid's Tear

This is a sexy product, even though it comes attached to another name: 360.

It is unclear how 360 persuaded Pia Mariani to design this product with it. Pia Mariani is a goddess of jewelry design, who back in 2009 designed the platinum “Perception” collection aimed at the Chinese market. Perhaps she agreed to work with 360 because she prized its remarkable promotional reach in China.

Let's look at Pia Mariani's latest work. The Mermaid's Tear is made mainly of Swarovski AA-grade crystal and precious Kashmir sapphire. As an object it oozes luxury, and at the very least looks a good deal more precious than that watch. But like Pia Mariani herself, the Mermaid's Tear clearly does not want to be merely a pretty vase; it is packed with technology.

The Mermaid's Tear has a built-in camera, a positioning module and Bluetooth 4.0, and backed by powerful cloud computing, it proves very useful in several situations women often face. If you spot a piece of clothing you like at the mall, tap the Mermaid's Tear and it tells you where to buy it for less. When you put groceries in the fridge, a tap lets its scanner record everything inside. When you are about to exercise, its infrared and visible-light LEDs help you monitor your heart rate.

And just when everyone assumed this was an April Fools' product, 360's product manager denied it last night.

We shall see.

Humble Bundle's April Fools' Game Bundle

Humble Bundle, the charity site that sells video games in bundles, has also put out a special holiday bundle called “ballyhoo,” which roughly means hype or a publicity stunt.

Normally the games come in three price tiers, from low to high: what you get for paying anything at all, what you get for paying more than the average of all buyers, and what you get for paying more than a fixed price. This time the site broke with custom and set the fixed price at ten cents, so for the first time the average price was higher than the fixed price. As of press time, players had to pay US$1.84 to get every game.

But this time it is not selling video games at all. It is selling real childhood games such as horseshoes, hoop rolling and Frisbee, with the rules for each laid out in videos. Buyers receive an official document assuring them that these games are fully shareable, printable and completely cross-platform, and all the money raised goes to charity.

Watch a fun video, remember the games of your childhood, and give a little to charity. Being fooled like this on April Fools' Day is rather lovable.

Hungry While Driving? Audi Has You Covered

Driving along and craving a bowl of white rice? No problem: Audi has launched the new Audi A8 5.5 with a built-in rice cooker. The car has an all-new 5.5 drive system, 425 horsepower and 600 newton-meters of torque, and the intense heat convection it generates on the road cooks the rice in the pot instantly. A touchscreen in the back seat lets you adjust the cooking mode and how soft the rice comes out.

Just like the rice cooker at home.

Don't Want to Register Your Real Name to Buy a Kitchen Knife? Samsung Has You Covered

Samsung is another tech company with its eye on the kitchenware market. Not content with tinkering with curved phone screens, it has now launched the Galaxy Blade Edge smartphone kitchen knife, also known as the “Chef's Edition”.

The whole body is made of a patented “ergonomic ceramic,” its design was inspired by “diamond cutting,” and it is “equally adept at slicing lobster tails or soft, juicy foods like tomatoes.” Like the ceramic kitchen knives now in fashion, it is plenty sharp, and like the Samsung phones people know, it cannot survive a drop.

The Blade has the KNOX security system built in: scan your fingerprint on the Home key to switch on the anti-cut protection and virus detection systems. Come to think of it, apart from its pointless phone functions, this knife might even hold its own on a list of must-have kitchen gadgets.

This year's best joke may have to go to a piece of real news from last night. Samsung held a launch event in Beijing and officially released the China editions of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, and at the same time Galaxy got an official Chinese name: Gai Le Shi.

Whatever happened to the cosmic mystique? Whatever happened to the high-end feel? Did Sun Wukong conjure that “Le” out of thin air? Word is that LeTV CEO Jia Yueting is about to cry.

Haier's “Diu Diu Pants” for Women

What people have always wondered most about the “Haier Brothers” is this: they traveled across five continents and four oceans, through 56 countries and 238 hardships, a journey of 190,000 kilometers, yet the brothers' two little pairs of underpants were never changed and never wore out.

Haier has finally open-sourced production of this magical underwear, and in the spirit of serving women customers, it is first launching Haier's “Diu Diu Pants” for women. The Diu Diu Pants have a double-layer design (you know why it needs two layers) and a built-in chip, and when the wearer's body temperature rises, the Haier Brothers logo appears on the underwear. QDaily interviewed Zhang Xiaomei, an early wearer of the Diu Diu Pants, who said that when her heart races and her temperature climbs, seeing that familiar logo takes her back to her early teens, with the feeling of first love.

We wonder whether your eyes are tired after all this. After a day like today, there is only one thing we want to say:

Congratulations on the successful conclusion of the National Marketing Copywriting Contest!