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YouTubers have been rickrolled over a billion times
Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' video finally cracked 1 billion YouTube views, marking a milestone for rickrolls.
Raspberry Pi helps old school pinball machine spew internet cliches
Pinball machines have been created from a single meme, so why not base one on, say, all of them? Liberty Games decided to refurbish an old and busted "Baby Doll" machine with all the cats, doges and "winter is coming" memes they could wedge in, while giving it a tech spit-shine with a 3D printer and Raspberry Pi. First they spiced up the play field with 3D-printed Grumpy Cat, Doge and Actual Advice Mallard figurines and new graphics. All the old mechanical relays were then wired to a Pi to to play meme videos on an LCD screen for certain actions -- like a Rickroll if you lose. We're not sure if the experimental game is actually for sale, but if so, shut up and take my money!
Prank your friends with a Camera RickRoll
Rickrolling is almost as old as the world wide web itself, but filling someone's iOS Camera Roll with photos of the beloved Rick Astley is something I've never seen done before. This new take on the rickroll requires you to gain access to your friend's device, which might be a bit tricky, but the eventual payoff will definitely be worth it. [Photo via Brownpau]
Pranksters can hijack your Chromecast to show whatever they want
It's easy for someone in your home to interrupt your Chromecast stream and play something of their own, but you can always retake control... right? Well, don't count on it. Analyst Dan Petro has built the Rickmote Controller, a proof-of-concept device that hijacks Google's media stick to play everyone's favorite Rick Astley video (and theoretically, any media) on loop. The Raspberry Pi-based box simply floods the Chromecast with WiFi disconnection requests, kicking the adapter into its setup mode; after that, it's easy for the Rickmote to make its own connection and deliver non-stop '80s pop.
Google and the accidental mystery of Webdriver Torso
A series of 11-second videos have been driving the internet crazy. There are over 80,000 of them, and all they show are a series of blue and red rectangles moving around on screen in seemingly random directions. The soundtrack is equally obtuse, comprised of a series of varying sine wave tones. The mysterious videos, posted by YouTube user Webdriver Torso, have become something of an infuriating web phenomenon. Why? Well, the internet can't resist a good mystery (or a bad one for that matter). Are they encoded spy messages? Contact from aliens? Or, just plain, old test videos that have caught the collective imagination? A lot of internet man-hours have gone into figuring out what, or who is behind them, and we can exclusively confirm the answer. If you're impatient you can skip right to the end for the reveal, but lets take some time to recap the story so far.
Siri's inexplicable rickroll
TUAW received an email this afternoon from Brett M. who noted that under iOS 7, the query "What is today going to be like?" ends up displaying the WIkipedia page for "Never Gonna Give You Up". In case you missed it, that's a 1987 pop song by British singer Rick Astley that was used for rickrolling other people... As Brett mentioned, "If my query had a sly connection to one of the lyrics, I could see this, or if my query was so outrageous that I deserved to be rickrolled. But this? Very strange." If any of our readers can figure out the link between the query and the oddball response, please let us know. By the way, this does not work when asking Siri the same question under iOS 6 -- in that case, the answer is always today's weather. A TUAW hat tip to Brett M.
Apple rickrolls the world with iOS 7 knowledge base article
Perhaps Apple's getting a sweet bit of revenge for the unjustified criticism of iOS 7 over the last day, or maybe there's just a person in the Apple Support department who has a really good sense of humor. Regardless of the source of the fun, somebody slipped in a humorous screenshot on knowledge base article HT5858, titled "iOS: Understanding Control Center". As you can see in the image above, Rick Astley's "classic" tune "Never Gonna Give You Up" is playing on the iPhone belonging to the wag who wrote the KB piece. And that, my friends, is a classic rickroll.
YouTube launches education-only site, won't teach evolution of dance (video)
The bandages are barely off after a recent nip-tuck and the internet's biggest time sink is going under the knife again with its new YouTube EDU initiative. Imagine your favorite video site with all the fun stuff stripped off -- it's essentially that. Gone are comments and related videos, and all the non brain-enhancing stuff, leaving just what's good for the grey matter. Why? Well, in the VHS era teachers had control, but now it's a minefield. With its wealth of knowledge, YouTube is an obvious choice for educators, but with so many ways to get RickRolled, or catch-up on the latest keyboard cat, pupils' attention can be lost in seconds. The project has content provided by over 600 educational outlets such as TED and the Smithsonian, with subjects broken down into more than 300 teacher-friendly playlists. We're not sure if "national constitutions"is going to be one of them, but hit the promo video after the break to find out more.
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite MMO soundtrack?
It's commonly said that MMO players eventually turn off the game's soundtrack in favor of their own tunes, voice chat or even silence. Most MMO tunes are forgettable the first time you hear them, nevermind the 1,000th, so scores are dumped in the trash and forgotten forever. Except that's not always the case, now is it? Sometimes there's an MMO with a gifted composer who crafts tunes so ear-catching that you even listen to them (gasp) outside of the game. Sometimes there are MMOs in which you consider the soundtrack to be an essential part of the game experience, and refuse to ever disable it. For today, we want to hear about your favorite MMO soundtrack. Which is your favorite? Are you in love with any particular track? Have you ever gone to great lengths to obtain a particular piece of music for your MP3 player or a CD? What score will you refuse to mute, even when a cute elfish vixen or lad comes up to chat? (Bonus points to commenters who provide a YouTube link to their favorite scores -- and to the genuis who thinks that this is a great time for a Rickroll, well, call this a preemptive strike.)
iPhone worm author really goes to work
While you have to go to quite some lengths to be vulnerable to it, jailbroken iPhones have been under fire for susceptibility to a particular SSH-based type of worm that has seen a lot of press lately. One of the developers, Ashley Towns, who helped to get the "rick" rolling, as it were, has just announced his employment at an iPhone game firm. Sophos is reporting that he'll be taking up shop at mogeneration, the developer responsible for such hits as Xumii [iTunes link], a cross-social networking communication app, and Moo Shake! [iTunes link], a farm-based activity game for kids. It is an interesting turn of events given that mogeneration even reported on the topic of Ashley's now-infamous rickrolling iPhone worm. I personally think that there is a lot of potential for coders of malware to embark on legitimate careers as developers coding for good. However, I don't favor the thought that malware developers are essentially getting 'rewarded' for their dangerous work. There is nothing from mogeneration to imply that Towns was hired based on the notoriety of his SSH-based worm, but I can't help thinking that there are other, more talented iPhone developers who have stayed below the radar by not writing malware. I want to know what you think. Should developers of intentionally malicious software be given a clean slate and a new life? Or perhaps should they be feeling the effects of the law's very long arms? [via Techmeme]
First iPhone worm rickrolls jailbroken phones
We sort of knew this would happen as soon as we heard about that iPhone wallpaper hack in the Netherlands -- a hacker named ikex has created what's apparently the first iPhone worm, and it's currently infecting jailbroken iPhones across Australia. The "ikee" worm, as it's being called, takes advantage of the fact that jailbroken iPhones with SSH installed all have the same default root password of "alpine," and once in the system it changes your wallpaper to an image of Rick Astley and then tries to install itself on other jailbroken iPhones on the network. Sophos says it hasn't confirmed any infections outside of Oz, and to be clear, this worm can't get to stock iPhones or jailbreak owners who haven't installed SSH -- but if you're running a hacked phone we'd say you should change that root password just to be safe right away. Get to it, kids. [Via PMP Today; thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Breakfast Topic: Never Gonna
World of Warcraft does have a decent variety of things to do. Arenas, Battlegrounds, Soloing, Professions, 5-mans, raids, the list goes on. Some may focus singlemindedly on one or two aspects of the game, while others dabble a bit in most or even all of them. All this variety also ends up meaning that some people just won't like certain aspects of the game, and will generally shy away from doing them. This can also be true of classes, of talent trees, of playstyles, and all the rest. Of course, sometimes we swear we'll never do something in game, then do it anyway.
Video: You've got your Rick Astley in my Gears
There's this little known internet meme the kids referred to as "Rickrolling." You may have heard of it in the past. All right, it's about as old as the internet is but that doesn't mean we can't have fun with it, right?! Well, the guys at Pixel Flix Studios have taken their love of Rick Astley and married it with their love of Gears of War 2 for a little mash-up they call "GearsRoll'd." Around the office we're calling it Gears of Roll'D. We don't want to ruin the surprise but all we can say is ... poor Baird and "it never ends."
Anti-Spore website was, in fact, a hoax
We suspected it might be a gag, (that's why we put it in the headline) but we went ahead and treated this "anti-Spore blog" as the real thing. We were victims of Poe's Law and that's something that we're going to have to live with. So why aren't we angrier about getting hoodwinked? Well, the way that the blog's creator revealed it was just ... transcendent. Check out the second from last paragraph in this post and see if you don't agree.
WoW Moviewatch: EPIXX, or Too Fast For Love
Back in July, I wrote about the Warcraftmovies Synergy contest. Machinimators were given the choice between two unintentionally horrible scripts and were asked to follow them to the letter. In honor of that contest, Baron Soosdon, half of the winning duo, decided to create his own imba machinima contest. Offering up a top prize of being uuiU'd by Soosdon himself, he cranked out a script in just 15 minutes!It's been a while since I wrote about Kilh, of Rock 'n' Troll fame. He noticed the contest with a little over three days left until the deadline. Of course, being the talented filmmaker that he is, he decided to give it a go -- with amazing results. When asked for comment, he stated that the script made no sense, so he just followed it as if it were step-by-step instructions. Featuring a voiceover by yours truly, EPIXX - Too Fast For Love is ... something else. Try to imagine toilet gnomes, a ruined PR campaign (a nod to one of my Moviewatch posts), an epic purple Wand of Not Burning Books (the part that I voiced), a Titanic spoiler, and a bad 80s song in the credits that isn't a Rickroll. Those are just some of the highlights of an intentionally awesome script![Thanks for the laughs, #machinima on Quakenet IRC!]If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ...
Astley DS-10 just wants to tell you how it's feeling
The above video proves the old saying -- where there's a will, there's a Rickroll. With the release of Korg's DS-10 synthesizer software in Japan, naturally, someone has composed a track recreating Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," the meme that launched a thousand prank Youtube links. Half of the hilarity is missing with the singer's sunglasses and dance moves absent, just as any rendition of Europe's "Final Countdown" suffers without Gob, but that's what homebrew application RickRollDS is for!%Gallery-27318%[Via NeoGAF]
WoW Moviewatch: Healer parody
Before there was Nyhm, there was a guy, sk3uled, and his Avril Lavigne CD. What did he come up with? A parody video, Healer, to her song, Girlfriend. You can thank (or curse!) Baron Soosdon for this submission. At least it wasn't a Sir Mixalot Rickroll.The lyrics are probably the best thing about the video. The "singing" is monotone and the aspect ratio isn't consistent. Believe it or not, this is the better version. His previous attempt, made over a year ago, was recorded with a bad microphone and what looks like a bunch of pictures thrown into a slideshow program.If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ...
Widen the horizons of the DS
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Widen_the_horizons_of_your_DS_with_homebrew_applications'; Homebrew on the DS isn't all emulation and old movies. Clever programmers have been able to write programs to make the DS do ... well, things that seem beyond the ability of a game system. Nintendo definitely never had some of the extended uses of the DS in mind when they designed the system. In terms of DS-extending software, DSOrganize stands alone in its class. It plays music, it runs files, it (of course) functions as an organizer. It has a web browser and can download demos. It even has a voice recorder. But it's not the whole world of applications designed to make your DS do amazing things.We've rounded up some apps that make your DS into more than a DS. Ever wanted to use your DS to find networks? Or to play PC games? Read on and find out how you can do those things, and more! Well, we'll just tell you right now how to do it, in general: by downloading stuff and running it on your DS. But read on for specifics.
This homebrew release is never going to let you down
Months after we'd thought this "rickroll" meme had died from overuse -- a recent survey showed that an estimated 18 million American adults have been rickrolled -- homebrew programmer Madcat1990 has brought it back, porting the popular prank to the DS.We downloaded the application and loaded it up on our DS just to see if it really worked, and, wouldn't you know it, we rickrolled ourselves. How hilarious would it be if someone tried to run a pirated game on their DS, only to find themselves greeted with Rick Astley's sensuous, soulful voice? Expect to see flashcart manufacturers put out firmware updates with rickroll protection and anti-measures soon.
World of Rick Roll
I don't know what it is about the WoW community, but every link I see I'm forced to double check its authenticity just so I don't get Rick Rolled. What is this cultural phenomenon of Rick Rolling you ask? No, it's not some sort of new drug, it's just a YouTube video of Rick Astley singing "Never gonna give you up." When you watch the video for the hundredth time it gets a tad annoying. And you do have to watch the whole video, because let's face it, if you don't the tune is just going to sit in your head for the rest of the day. Then you'll be dreaming of Rick Astley, and that's...well... just unsettling.Often times in the official forums people will post a link to some WoWWiki article or something, and instead of the link actually going where it is advertized to go, it'll go to the Rick Roll video instead.I personally am rather tired of always having to check the link to see if the video ends in uuiU, which seems to be the most common YouTube video used to Rick Roll people. There are some browser addons out there that'll stop you from being Rick Rolled, if you're so inclined to install them. But as always, be sure that you're getting these addons from a reputable source.Have you been Rick Rolled lately? Share your tales of horror.
