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Silicon Valley loves April Fools' Day. With the number (and surprising detail) of faux apps, products, and website redesigns drifting around the interwebs today, it's a wonder anyone's gotten any real work done at our favorite tech companies.
Google, for example, has several pranks going on at once. Our favorite (of course) is that today you can play Pac-Man in Google Maps. Just open Google Maps, find a spot you think Pac-Man would be (a.k.a. navigate to where you want to start a game), and click the Pac-Man pin. Your map transforms into game board; you can use your computer's arrow keys to navigate. You can also go to com.google for a backwards version of the search engine that serves up your text and results backwards. There's #ChromeSelfie, a gag that lets you snap a selfie to replace the text in a post you want to share. And, in Japan, there's Google Panda: "So brilliant, you can ask it anything, but so cute, you're going to want to hug it."
But, Google is only the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft, Airbnb, Birchbox, Groupon, and even Samsung boarded the April Fools' Day train this year. Click ahead for a slideshow of our favorite pranks this year — if we missed your favorite, share it in the comments.
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