April Fool’s Day is upon us, and in the age of the internet, that means the search engines and other resources we know and love, have been reprogrammed to screw with us. Google, the most notable offender, has given us such classic pranks as last year’s “Google Nose,” which would allow users to search for smells, the “YouTube Collection,” a best-of YouTube DVD set for home viewing, and Google’s “MentalPlex,” which would do searches for you by reading your mind.

Isn’t that great? Our future technological overlords have a sense of humor.

But for this year’s prank, Google’s taken their new Explorer Program to a new level, announcing the “Pokemon Challenge,” a program which would have you use your Phone’s built-in Augmented Reality function to go out into the world and find, capture and battle Pokemon, in a game that I would completely and 100% play every minute of every day if it were real.

Google went all-out in creating a trailer for this fake program. Check it out:

Of course it’s not real. But as a consolation, if you go to Google Maps in your iPhone or Android Phone, and click on the “Search” bar, you’ll see a blue Pokeball icon next to the word “Start.” Touch that, and you’ll be able to actually catch Pokemon on your phone. There goes my productivity for the rest of the week.

[via The Verge]