It wouldn’t be Easter here at RealTechnews.com, without a round-up of all the great Easter Eggs hidden in your favorite applications, games, and even DVDs. In case you thought an Easter egg was dyed and placed in a basket (say it ain’t so!), here’s a digital update from our pals at the Easter Egg Archive:

“An Easter Egg is a hidden feature or novelty that the programmers have put in their software. In general, it is any hidden, entertaining thing that a creator hides in their creation only for their own personal reasons. This can be anything from a hidden list of the developers, to hidden commands, to jokes, to funny animations. You’d be surprised just how many things contain Easter Eggs.”

Great Egg Resources:

–The Easter Egg Archive (Over 7,800 Eggs)
–Egg Heaven 2000 ( Name sounds out of date, but good info)

There has been a boatload of controversy on the “supposed “upcoming iPod cell phone. Is it real, is it imagined? Motorola announced it would have a demo available and then suddenly pulled the announcement in a way that said “smacked down by Steve Jobs in another scary lawsuit threat.”

Left in the wind, some people are simply bypassing reality and posting pics of what an iPod phone would look like. Silly, interesting, and as we saw with the imagined Sony placated 3, far better than what you’ll eventually get in reality. Sigh..

Source: Business 2.0

PVR Blog has done a round-up of ways ot get TiVo and other videos onto the new Sony Playstation Portable. Speaking of which, I finally got Tivo to Go to work on my network and now I am happily loading shows onto my laptop to enjoy while travelling. (I am writing this from Palm Springs as we speak and have three episodes of Seinfeld and one South Park, which also makes me a complete geeky loser….) Anyway, here’s the scoop:

“Sony’s first handheld console, the PSP, is finally out in the US and people are doing whatever they can to cram whatever media they have on it. First up, Zatz Not Funny has updated their TiVo To Go guide with a guide to put .tivo files on a PSP. Short version: strip the DRM, convert it to MPEG4 and stuff it on a memory stick.

“Then we have the case of PSP Video 9, which bills itself as “a free PSP video conversion and management application.” Sort of like iTunes for PSP media. The cool thing is that when you combine it with Videora (previously mentioned on PVRblog) you can subscribe to BitTorrent feeds and automatically download videos to your PSP. Obviously the first priority for this amazing amalgam of technology is PSPr0n.”

More from PVR Blog

This ties into my upcoming series on SLI (stay tuned) but here’s what you can do with a little know-how and some nitrogen (and being bored in Finland):

“Two Finnish overclocking gurus broke the 3dMark world record using a special liquid nitrogen cooling system and two XFX Nvidia cards in SLI-mode. Their system, which included a special liquid nitrogen cooling system, utilized XFX’s NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT SLI card. As a result, they were able to increase the power supply to the memory modules and achieve a core clock of 575 MHz with a memory speed of 1300 MHz to produce a screaming 3DMark Score of 12,483.

“The two XFX GeForce 6800 GTs with NVIDIA SLI technology were pitted against imposing opposition — including SLI enabled GeForce 6800 Ultras and, against all odds and mind-boggling improbability, they were able to surpass the competition by leaps and bounds.

“To accomplish this great benchmarking achievement, XFX and the Finnish overclockers utilized a pair of XFX’s multi-award-winning GeForce 6800 GT cards featuring 256MB of 256-bit GDDR3 memory, PCI Express Bus Architecture and NVIDIA’s SLI Technology.”
Source: Designtechnica

Google loves surprises and pranks, and April 1 seems to be their favorite day of the year. The Web is buzzing with expectations on what surprise will be unveiled this April Fools Day?

“With all the mergers and acquisitions flying around recently, maybe there’s something to the guesses that Google is planning something for April Fool’s day this year. GMail launched last April 1st, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Google has anything planned for this year (other than another cute logo). But Google could have an instant messenger ready to be pulled out of a hat (ie. Hello from Picasa), though that’s probably not going to happen since IM doesn’t really seem to fit with Google’s mission statement of “organizing the world’s information.” Still, Yahoo’s blogging & social networking service is about to launch at the end of March, so it might make sense for Google to take the wind out of those sails with a new product launch. A while back, wild speculation suggested a Google VoIP solution was in the works. With Skype getting some attention, the idea of a VoIP-portal is also getting pinned on Yahoo to complete some kind of SBC-Yahoo and AT&T triumvirate. However, the odds for collaborative software from Google that ties in with GMail might be a better bet for what’s on the horizon. Though, Google has been a bit behind with all the hub-bub surrounding RSS (where’s Google News via RSS?), so an RSS product could be another April Fool’s trick. I could go on and on rattling off a wishlist, but maybe I shouldn’t tempt Google’s April Fool’s day surprise into becoming a cease and desist message from the Googleplex.” Source: Tech Dirt

Further proof that the blogging world is getting more and more tied together and more and more “open source” in nature, Yahoo this week released a beta search for Creative Commons material. Not up on what CC is?

“This is Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons content. It will help you find content on the Web - text, books, educational material, etc. - that is free to share or build upon. Why is this important?

“Copyright applies fully and automatically to any work - a photograph, a song, a web page, an article, pretty much any form of expression - the moment it is created. This means that if you want to copy and re-use a creative work you find online, you usually have to ask the author’s permission.

“This search engine helps you quickly find those authors and the work they have marked as free to use with only “some rights reserved.” If you respect the rights they have reserved (which will be clearly marked, as you’ll see) then you can use the work without having to contact them and ask. In some cases, you may even find work in the public domain — that is, free for any use with “no rights reserved.”‘ Source: Yahoo!

Try the Search Beta Here

I am fascinated by this low tech love of chalk. I am sure some social scientist will be able to decipher why people today are combining chalk scrawls (as in War Chalking)with high tech tie ins, but today there’s word of another Chalk and Bits combo called Grafedia. Sounds like an art stunt to me, but read on:

“Like graffiti artists, grafedia practitioners get out their messages in the usual way, by chalking, marking or spray-painting text in public places. Unlike graffiti, however, grafedia messages allow viewers to interact with authors using cell phones or e-mail accounts. As Geraci puts it, grafedia is chiefly concerned with the idea that the direction media moves in is preordained, but it’s up in the air as to who can control it.

“Today, companies with big advertising budgets are the main players in interactive media, engaging in activities like online ad campaigns or billboards encouraging some sort of viewer involvement. Geraci would like to change that. “Grafedia is the option for the little guy to get involved in that dialogue,” he said.”

“The little guy is definitely catching on. Since the project launched in late December, instances of grafedia have popped up stateside in places like New York City and San Francisco. Outside the United States, the project has gained fans in Brazil, France and England, Geraci said. So far, several hundred images have been uploaded to the grafedia server.

“Anyone with the right tools — a phone that supports picture messages and is under a T-Mobile, Verizon Communications or Cingular Wireless contract — can view grafedia. You can also view it on a computer through an e-mail program.” Source: Wired News

Back in August 2004, I wrote about an innovative new product called the Slingbox and filed it under the heading “Why Is This Not Here Already?” The Slingbox connects to your satellite or cable box and your WiFi network and will stream your TV shows to other devices, including your laptop while you are on the road.

I do not crow over products that are “almost” here (well, OK sometimes!), but I have a tip that this is going to ship in the next week or so, and for $249, it’s a great add-on to your network if you travel lot and want to take your TV with you. The idea that TV itself will be personal and portable is a major new trend, so even if you’re a homebody, this is something to keep an eye on if you like staying up on things.

“The Slingbox enables a consumer to watch their live TV programming from wherever they are by turning virtually any laptop or Internet-connected device into a personal TV.

“The Slingbox redirects, or “placeshifts,” the TV signal from any cable box, satellite receiver, or personal video recorder (PVR) to a viewer’s location and device of choice, whether in another room in the home or anywhere in the world with a high-speed Internet connection. An elegantly designed compact box that fits neatly into a user’s existing TV setup, the Slingbox will retail for $249 with no additional monthly service fees. The product is due to ship in the first half of 2005.”

More On the Slingbox