Top 10 technology announcements that should have been April Fools

Ah, April Fools Day, a chance for technology vendors and their PR friends to let their hair down and have a bit of fun by releasing wacky and zany press releases that have everyone in stitches. However, more often it's genuine announcements within the tech community that cause scratching of heads and checking of calendar dates.

So here we round up 10 examples of when reality was stranger, and possibly funnier, than fiction.

10. People waste 30 hours of their life queuing for iPad 2
The iPad 2 is a nice gadget, don't get us wrong, and it's clearly changed the world, but the idea that people would start queuing for one a full 34 hours before it goes on sale is the stuff of nonsense.

No human being should be allowed to spend that many hours of their life - their one and only life on this planet - queuing for a piece of technology. Just wait and pick it up on Saturday morning, or Sunday, or even the following week.

That people really did turn up and queue for that long is something that should have been dreamed up by some bored 'creatives' within Apple's marketing team, or even better a spoof story by The Onion, not a genuine piece of news.

9. Palm invents the smartphone that's actually a laptop
Back in 2007, Palm came to the conclusion that smartphones were the future of mobile computing, but that users sometimes needed a larger keyboard and screen for particular applications.

The company's solution to the problem was the Foleo, a laptop-like device with a 10in display and full-size keyboard, weighing in at just over 1Kg.

Palm had almost invented the netbook, but instead of a standalone system, the Foleo was designed to be a companion device, tethered via Bluetooth to one of Palm's Treo smartphones.

Actually, the Foleo could run some proprietary applications, but it was set to cost almost as much as a full laptop, and this is where the idea fell down. If you had to carry around a laptop-size device to run applications, why not just use a laptop?

The Foleo was mocked by the press, and Palm canned development after just three months, citing financial pressures on the firm. Ironically, Motorola has now come up with a similarly awkward concept in the shape of the Lapdock for its Atrix smartphone.