Easter

Two Easter eggs hatch in Chrome for Android

A day after Google released its Chrome browser for Android, enthusiasts are finding the Easter eggs tucked away into the software.

One draws attention to the fact that the browser doesn't have the eight-tab limit of Apple's Safari on iOS. The browser shows a button showing the number of tabs; tapping the button takes a person to a page with all the tabs showing. But there's only room for two numeric digits in the button.

So what happens when you open your hundredth tab? The 99 turns to a smiley emoticon. Yes, I tried it, and yes, … Read more

Google's holiday Easter Egg frosts your screen

Google has hidden a special holiday "Easter Egg" that turns your screen into a winter wonderland.

Simply search for "let it snow" on Google and prepare yourself for an HTML5 blizzard--actually, it's more like a few flurries. The cool part comes after a few seconds, when your screen "frosts over" and your cursor can be used to trace messages or doodles like a finger against a window on a chilly day.

It might not quite have the wow factor of Google's famous "barrel roll" bonus, but it's bound to … Read more

The 404 940: Where we go down on Siri (podcast)

Don't forget to update your Facebook status update for the last time before Anonymous nukes the whole site tomorrow. Remember, remember the fifth of November. Leaked from today's 404 Podcast episode: Siri goes down, Google does a barrel roll, Kevin Rose goes Oink, and who are the 35 million people still using AOL dial-up?… Read more

Beyond the barrel roll: Google's Easter eggs

The Google "do a barrel roll" search caught plenty of attention this week--but it's only one of many Easter eggs the Internet giant has hidden around the Web.

The company has been doing things its own, often nerdy way for years--basing its IPO price on e, the base of natural logarithms, for example, or showing pi in the sky at 3:14 a.m. with the right iGoogle theme. Also popping up are references to classic video games, science fiction books, and Lego.

It's a nice touch that gives a bit of personality to a company … Read more

Google's 'Do a Barrel Roll' captivates humanity

Some people are, today, actually sitting at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco listening to someone drone on about how cell phones are now a sense more important than smell to today's youth.

Anyone sitting in that conference who still has a pulse will surely already have heard of Google's "Do A Barrel Roll." I know this because someone from the conference sent me a text and said: "Do it."

Might I therefore merely pass on this suggestion, as by doing it you might just have the most mindlessly enjoyable four seconds of … Read more

RIM apologizes for BlackBerry outages

New Facebook interaction added to eBay, Siri has some quirky answers, and BlackBerry service is restored, but will there be compensation for down time?

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

BlackBerry back to normal, but will RIM do anything to make it up to customers? Report: AOL considering merge with Yahoo eBay adding new Facebook interaction Stanford develops Braille tablet app Siri, who's your daddy? Subscribe:  iTunes (MP3) |  iTunes (320x180) |  iTunes (HD) |  RSS (MP3) |  RSS (320x180) |  RSS HD

Angry Birds through the seasons

Angry Birds Seasons lets you play the popular birds vs. pigs game, but with themes that match every season. You can play among jack-o'-lanterns and white-sheet ghosts in the fall; snowmen and Santa-capped pigs during the winter; or brightly colored eggs and bunny hats when it gets close to Easter. You can play whichever season you want right away--you won't need to unlock every level in order to unlock new themed worlds. With that said, the gameplay is no different than you've come to expect with Angry Birds, but maybe that's a good thing--most people love … Read more

Cr-48's Chrome OS Easter egg: Blue screen of snark

A couple of months after Easter itself came and went, the Easter egg Google shipped with its Chrome OS prototype laptops has finally been discovered.

Brad Wells found the Easter egg. Aided by a little Google searching, he found out how to activate a fake blue screen of death--one of the "legacy" leftovers from the PC era Google hopes to banish with its browser-based operating system. Then, with an ASCII code converter, he found a parody of the legalese that causes me a lot more heartburn these days than BSODs.

Wells dug up the egg after Chrome … Read more

Fun challenge: Find this in OS X

Every now and then we find amusing details in OS X that Apple's programmers have included in the OS. One that we discussed a while ago was the letter to someone named "Kate" from "John Appleseed" that praising the Apple community and Mac users that is in the TextEdit icon, but there are others in other locations of the OS. Take a look at the following text to see if you can locate it somewhere in OS X:

A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 00:28:C0011E36 in VXD VMMM(01) . 00010E36. The current … Read more

Angry Birds gets a free Easter update

There's a major holiday approaching, and that can mean only one thing: a new Angry Birds Seasons update! Sure enough, version 1.4.0 just roosted in the App Store, bringing with it 15 new levels for everybody's favorite chocolate-infused holiday (besides Halloween): Easter.

As Angry fans know, this is becoming a regular happening. After Angry Birds Halloween made its debut last year, developer Rovio followed up with free Christmas-themed levels--and changed the app's name to Seasons.

In February, things turned romantic with new Angry Birds levels for Valentine's Day. In March, the Birds celebrated St. Patrick's Day … Read more