The five best online April Fools' pranks

2. Opera reads your facial expressions

Also in 2009 – a good year for tech pranksters – Opera rolled out a browser that promised to read your facial expressions, and respond accordingly. Which sounded awesome, because let's face it – who doesn't want to click to the next blog with only a smile and a wink? Of course, as Opera reps noted, the software was by no means perfect.

"Face Gestures is compatible with most types of facial hair and haircuts. But if your face is covered with more than 25% of facial hair, recognition errors may occur. Please note that handlebars and goatees are compatible independently but if combined recognition will decrease," read a blog post introducing the browser. "At the moment soul-patches crashes the browser and it refuses to relaunch, we are looking into this problem."

2 of 5
You've read 3 of 3 free articles. Subscribe to continue.
CSM logo

Why is Christian Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Explore values journalism About us