Yep, it’s that time of year again, that very special day when the world’s tech companies try to outdo one another with outlandish pranks and jokes. Here are a few of our favorite April Fool’s 2012 jokes and stunts from the tech world.

Google announced a deal to bring its self-driving car to NASCAR, featuring an “I’m Steering Lucky!” decal on the bumper of the test car. “I can’t imagine a more exciting challenge for our team than to race our autonomous vehicles against their carbon-based competitors,” writes Google co-founder Sergey Brin in a blog post.

That’s just one of many April Fool’s jokes from the search giant. Others include the introduction of Google Maps 8-bit for the NES, and a new multi-mouse Chrome feature that’s actually very similar to a real Microsoft product for schools called MultiPoint Mouse.

The Next Web has a big roundup of Google’s jokes.

Big Fish Games looks to top the blockbuster game Draw Something with a new entry in social mobile games, Mime Something. “Feeling like life has you trapped in a box? Need something to lean on? Mime Something leverages FaceTime and Android Video to let you express yourself to all your friends – without saying a word! Test your stamina as you compete in mime-off marathons.”

Findwell takes real estate apps to a whole new level with “xHome.” The company explains in a blog post

xHome also uses a new patent-pending, low-impact x-ray attachment to peer through exterior walls. Similar to a camera flash, the rays emitted by the attachment are reflected to the iPhone camera interface, which allows the iPhone to render interior photos with surprising depth and clarity.

“Home shopping can be a frustrating experience,” says findwell CEO Kevin Lisota, “Homes listed for sale often have misleading photos and arranging a home tour with your agent for every home that you’re interested in is just too cumbersome. Compounding these problems is that there are so few homes on the market right now, so it is difficult to find comparable homes to gauge an accurate value for the home you are buying. xHome solves this problem by allowing you to view the inside of any home at any time with just a click of a button.”

Another real estate company, Redfin, introduces 2-click home purchasing. “For one day only, our devil-may-care customers can make potentially the most important financial decision of their lives without the need to secure financing, see the home in person, write an offer, negotiate the deal and complete title and escrow,” the company explains in a blog post.

The best part: Redfin has actually put a two-click button on all its listings in Seattle, such as this one. It leads to an e-commerce checkout page, which leads to another page explaining the joke.

Seattle-area online sales tax startup Avalara launches “AvaSlacks,” the first pants that calculate sales tax. “AvaSlacks’ cutting-edge technology even turns spills into bills by calculating the taxability of whatever you drop on your pants, whether it’s pizza, beer or medical equipment,” the company explains.

But that’s just the start: “Coming soon AvataxHat: The first and only hat to give you auditor protection everywhere that you wear a hat.”

And games company Z2Live replaced one of the planes with a horse in its air combat game MetalStorm on iOS (see image below) and “had the evil Cthulhu break free from his sunken prison to rain destruction” in Trade Nations.

Those are just a few of the April Fool’s jokes from the tech world today. If you have any favorites of your own, share them in the comments.

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