Shake things up with Google Hangouts Easter Eggs

Google just won’t be Google without its Easter Eggs. We get another dose of some pretty whacky ones added into their new unified chat service, Hangouts—ponies, pitchforks, or the KONAMI cheat, anyone? However, these codes work only with Hangouts on Google+ and not in video calls, the Chrome Extension, or the mobile version. 

If you’re bored at work and want to add some quirky fun to your day, you should try these out. Just make sure you don’t use it on your boss or someone you have a professional relationship with, unless you know they are into that sort of thing.

Stitcher wants you to drive safely with new Car Mode for the iPhone

You don’t need to drive a BMW to enjoy Stitcher Radio in your car. The app has introduced a new Car Mode for the Apple iPhone featuring a simplified interface for easier and safer control while driving. You just need to tap the Stitcher logo on top of the screen to get started.

Stitcher can be used in both landscape and portrait orientations and have new features such as being able to listen to the archive of your favorite shows and the sleep timer is accessible via the player screen. Other improvements include a redesigned Front Page that shows breaking headlines from your favorite media sources, easier one-tap access to shows using search, and faster playback start up. If you want to give the new features a try and don’t have Stitcher yet, you can download it from the iTunes Store. 

New version of MiniPlayer and more with Apple iTunes update

You can call it bloatware but this latest Apple iTunes update might be just what you need. The revamped MiniPlayer on the iTunes version 11.0.3 now lets you appreciate album art even more. You also get a progress bar built right into it and you can view songs in the album or playlist or search through your library all from that little square player.

Other incremental updates for this iTunes version include being able to see album art in Song View as well as support for multiple disc albums. There are also said to be search performance and sorting improvements, particularly to help those with large libraries.

‘Haunting Melissa’ app to spook you on your smartphone

If Sadako of the Japanese film Ringu fame were brought into your mobile devices, this might be what this new app is going to look like. Haunting Melissa, an iOS app from Hooked Media and co-executive producer of the US version of The Ring and The Ring 2, is going to deliver a ghost story to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in a new way in hopes of keeping up with how technology has altered the way stories or movies are consumed today.

It’s like you’re watching a TV show on iTunes with the film broken into segments of varying length. The app can be downloaded for free and you can opt to purchase per episode (no word yet on the amount of episodes) or get a season pass at $6.99 for SD and $14.99 for HD. You’ll then get to find out what happened to Melissa and her mysterious disapperance after warning her friends about the ghostly presence in the isolated farmhouse where she lived.