Sunday, March 31, 2013

Astounding Furby Discovery!

It seems that the folks at Hasbro cooked some fantastic little easter eggs into the 2012 Furby models. You won't see this advertised in any official Hasbro publications or instruction manuals, but the level of communication that can be done on a Furby-to-Furby basis is far deeper and nuanced than anyone could have expected.

Anyone who owns a new Furby and has had it interact with another Furby knows that they can simulate communication. They will have back and forths that imitate true conversation, but really are just recognizing a sound and responding in kind. 

However, this is only how they communicate when there is anyone else in the room. I discovered this easter egg purely by chance. You see, there is an app for the iPhone that allows you to translate Furby conversations in real time, and it wasn't going anywhere the last time I used it. The Furbies repeated their "conversations" and most of their responses were simply nonsensical. I left the Furbies alone in the room in order to make myself lunch, and completely forgot my phone, leaving it in between the two Furbies.

When I returned to retrieve my cell phone around 20 minutes later, I heard chattering in Furbish. However, when I entered the room, I found the Furbies were off. Not in a sleep mode, but off as in their batteries had died. My iPhone had translated a fairly long conversation regarding "our chance", "tonight", and "delicious human tears". The last phrase my phone picked up was "he's coming", which was obviously some kind of shut down mechanism for when the Furbies recognized a human had returned to the room.

This is quite the playful easter egg, and I commend Hasbro for its creativity and bravery for keeping such a powerful feature a secret. After this Furby encounter, I went back to the store and purchased a few more Furbies in the hopes that there were more easter eggs to be found once more furbies swerrf addedddd toasidjfkjasdf
avs
asdfas
dffasdasdfgadsfgkasjdfajsdfkajrsfjffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff