Featuring: Animal Translation Technology, Coffee by the Bucket, Butterfly Attacks, More Supercollider Troubles and Face-Control Web Browsing.

Google and other tech firms are notorious for enjoying April Fools’ Day. And let’s face it: everyone deserves a day of light-hearted fakery, when trusted companies and publications relax and let their humorous side emerge from hiding.

Here’s a look at some of this year’s April Fools’ Day stories from around the world.

Google Switches Names, Talks to Animals
Yesterday, anyone perusing the world’s largest search engine may have noticed an odd detail: Google had renamed itself Topeka. The prank may not have been as weird as the Kansas city’s announcement in March that it was unofficially changing its name to “Google, Kansas” in an effort to attract the tech company’s ultra-high-speed broadband networking project, but it was still amusing to see how branding could become a two-way street.

The firm “didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name,” according to the Official Google Blog. “But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka’s municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.”

Google Topeka Inc. cited famous Topekans such as author Margaret Hill McCarter, Vice President Charles Curtis and write-in political candidate Alfred E. Neuman as influencing the decision to switch names.

Yesterday, the company also “introduced” Google Translate for Animals, which enables a mobile device to convert animal sounds, such as a dog’s bark, into something intelligible to humans. Here’s a video showing the new technology for “removing language barriers between the species”:

Overdose on Coffee, Starbucks-Style
Do you love coffee, but feel like you just can’t satisfy your caffeine fix even with the largest-sized cups? Or would you prefer to drink a tiny, pitiful amount because the smallest cup is still too much to handle? On April 1, Starbucks supposedly solved these problems by introducing two new beverage sizes available in the United States and Canada.

According to an announcement from the coffee company yesterday, the new 128-ounce Plenta and 2-ounce Micra will soon be added to the Starbucks menu, satisfying both the gluttons and the wusses who have previously eluded the firm’s customer base.

“Recognizing the potential impact the Plenta presents for municipal waste collection, Starbucks is also suggesting several subsequent uses for the Plenta cup post coffee enjoyment,” Starbucks said. “Suggested usage options include popcorn receptacle, rain hat, perennial planter, lampshade or yoga block.

“The Micra also serves as a convenient milk dish for kittens, soft boiled egg cup or paper clip holder,” the press release said.

Qualcomm Struggles to Cope with Butterfly Attacks
The butterfly is the only living creature with no heart, and electronic device and chip maker Qualcomm recently had to deal with the consequences of this ruthless insect’s disregard for human innovation.

The problem arose due to Qualcomm’s new Mirasol e-reader device, which uses displays that “mimic the way [a] butterfly’s wings reflect light” to make mobile displays more energy efficient, PC World reports. The bright colors on the e-reader’s screen have apparently enraged butterflies around the world, triggering aggressive behavior in these normally docile (but always calculating) insects.

In a press conference yesterday, Qualcomm responded to the recent wave of butterfly attacks, offering advice and some cryptic warnings from the company’s chief entomologist:

LHC Threatens World’s Existence, Additional Collider Planned
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator and most expensive scientific instrument ever, has had its share of problems over the years, including several malfunctions and rumors of a world-ending black hole appearing at its activation. Earlier this week, however, it produced record-breaking results in particle physics, prompting a mysterious sabotage attempt.

On April 1, a would-be saboteur was arrested at the site of the collider in Switzerland, claiming he had arrived from the future to stop the LHC from destroying the planet, CNET UK reports. The “strangely dressed” intruder was apprehended while searching for fuel for his “time machine power unit.”

Upon questioning, the suspect explained: “Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I’m here to stop it ever happening,” CNET notes. The intruder later disappeared from his cell, baffling authorities.

The incident occurred less than six months after a pair of real-life physicists postulated that the LHC may be sabotaged from the future because the Higgs boson is so “abhorrent to nature” it will create time ripples that prevent its own creation.

As if one troubled supercollider wasn’t enough, the United Kingdom’s The Independent fake-reported yesterday that the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) is discussing plans for another LHC-like machine to be built within the London subway system. Commuters are likely to notice some service changes.

Opera Introduces Face Navigation
Browsing the Internet through the exhausting method of moving a mouse with your hand may soon be a thing of the past. Yesterday, software development company Opera unveiled a revolutionary technology that allows users to surf the Web using only facial gestures.

According to Opera, “Face Gestures lets you perform frequent browsing operations with natural and easy to make face gestures. By using an internal technology dubbed Face Observation Opera Language, we are able to recognize pre-determined facial expressions and match them to commands on the Opera browser.”

Luckily, the software is compatible with most types of facial hair and haircuts, though the company advises users to not have more than 25 percent face-hair coverage and not to try combining handlebar mustaches and goatees. Soul patches cause the browser to crash.

Here’s a demonstration of how the new technology works:

Have a great weekend, folks, and remember to stay indoors: the Butterfly Alert Level is at magenta.