For several years I wrote an April Fools' column for newspapers in which I proposed preposterous tech products. I tried to come up with the most idiotic products I could think of, and then describe them in Sharper Image-style marketing language.
As an example, I described a flatbed trailer for extended battery power for laptop users in pup tents:
"Tenting is great, but not if you're working off a three-hour laptop battery. Luckily, the good people at Mycrad have come up with The Acid Test ($1,999, 800.555.6212), a unique mobile energy system capable of keeping your system up and running up to 22,000 hours! The Acid Test is a trailer-based 'motherbed' socketed for 10,000 parallel-processing 'C' batteries. Attaches to any heavy-duty pickup with a standard ball hitch. Turn signals really work! (Batteries not included.)"
Another was a product that could capture electrical power from lightning strikes: "Converts even a 486 into a real screamer!"
I didn't tell readers the columns were a spoof until the final paragraph, and even then I was oblique about it. ("For more information, visit www.aprilfool.com.")
The problem was, newspaper readers encompass the entire spectrum of human intelligence, and I got dozens of complaints from readers that:
The products sounded like a terrible idea, bad engineering and reprehensible marketing;
The 800 number didn't work; or
The 800 number worked, but people found themselves talking to a telemarketer selling subscriptions to High Times (honest) magazine.
So, even though ComputerUser readers routinely score among the top quartile of tech mag readers for IQ-whereas newspaper readers can find Ann Landers and Word Jumble biting and incisive-I have suspended the April Fools' column.
To paraphrase Chief Joseph of the courageous Nez Perce tribe, which fought the United States long after every other Indian nation had lain down its arms, "I will fool no more forever."
But here's the thing.
Going back over several years of those columns, I am astounded that many of the products not only came to be developed, but succeeded in their markets. This is no April fool. Really!
Here's a "product" from 1995 that I felt would never be produced.
"Why allow drive-time to cut into your vacation productivity? With PC-Steering, from AxiDent, ($895, 800.232.7744), it just isn't necessary. Simply disconnect the horn and emergency light from your steering column and plug the unique semicircular keyboard into the center of the steering wheel. LCD display fits right over your speedometer for easy reading. Presto, your car is a 'horseless workstation.' Smart shoppers will spring for the optional dimmer mirror ($69.95) that eliminates the glare of oncoming cars."
But last week I came upon a steering-wheel workstation product at a local retailer. It was really just a platform for setting a laptop on a driver's lap, with an AC power switch and reading light. Marked down from $79.99 to $9.99, each package had a deer-orange after-thought label slapped on: "USE ONLY WHEN VEHICLE IS PARKED AND BRAKE IS ON."
They must have sold some to newspaper readers.
Contributing Editor Michael Finley is no Herrington.
