1. It will be named gmarine, simply marine, or some variation thereof
2. It will be both a power, and a “group” power (unless we got this one completely wrong)
3. Ummm.. there is no 3, that’s really all we know which leads us to…

Power 82 – Speculation…

Our initial guess, given the name and the ease at which one could come up with smiley ideas, has us leaning towards a “Marine” (as in aquatic) themed smiley set. This set could include things like a starfish, a jellyfish, an anchor, etc… How this could be both power and group power has us scratching our heads.

That’s all we’ve got so far. If anyone finds any additional information or has any insight, that leans our way or in an entirely different direction, feel free to comment below.

Thanks everyone!

(summer)
(beachbbq)
(cooler)
(efan)
(fishing)
(frisbee)
(goggles)
(kayak)
(laytowl)
(pina)
(sanddig)
(sandplay)
(bands)
(towl)
(waterbottle)
(waterskii)

This morning Xat announced (to testers only) that it is currently trying out a new power called “gcontrol” (short for group control).

If all goes well in the testing phase, this power should eventually allow users to more precisely customize various aspects of their chat box. For example, a user could disallow all moderators the ability to kick. Another could allow only main owners to change the scroller. The possibilities are endless.

Stay tuned for more!

The going rate in the store, when it becomes available, appears to be 400 xats.

Included smileys:

(independence)

(abe)

(bbq)

(flagwave)

(fwlaunch)

(glowstick)

(liberty)

(sparkler)

(starburst)

(starbounce)

(starring)

(tiphat)

(usface)

(usss)

Flag simply allows you to add flag icon to your avatar (waving or still) or single/multiple flags to your nick. This new power supports over 180 country variations and been released just days ahead of the 2010 World Cup (that’s soccer!).

To make the Xat flag use (flag) or (flag#). To make a country flag use (flag#wus) for the animated usa flag. If you’d like to make a still or fixed version add a “1″ between the “w” and country abbreviation as in (flag#w1us).

Although we’re not sure where Xat got their inspiration for this new power, we have been promoting Google’s Word Cup power on both our Xatworld and Mundoxat homepages for some time. Congrat’s to Google for the great idea!

We imagine that after the World Cup people will still find it useful as a nationality power; something that I think many people have been waiting for.

Although it looks like an obvious fake, it did get our wheels turning and once again we turned to Google.com to see what we could find. I’ll paraphrase from a Wiki article on G-line:

“…A G-line or global kill is a global network ban applied to a user.

Whenever a G-lined person attempts to connect to the network, either the services or the daemon will automatically disconnect the client, often displaying a message explaining the “reasoning” behind the ban.

G-lines are normally applied to a user who continues to abuse the network by connecting to a different server. G-lines are often regarded as an extreme measure, only to be used in cases of repeated abuse when extensive attempts have been made to reason with the offending user. Therefore, especially on larger networks, often only very high ranking global operators are permitted to set them.

G-lines are typically set as *@IP or *@host, with the first being the better option. G-lines do still wait for an ident response from the connecting user but immediately close the socket once the user’s IP is compared to the G-line list and a match is found…”

It might be a bit too techy but in short, Gline is looking like it may be a banning feature of some sorts. Maybe a more extreme extension of Stricter banning or, if one reads between the lines and looks at it in more general terms, maybe a way to have more precise banning control over your own chat. We still don’t know for sure

We’ve decided to turn our attention to our good old friend URBAN DICTIONARY and have come up with the following:

A quick read over options 1, 2 and 3 leaves us feeling pretty confident with only one option (hint: clearly it isn’t option three). We feel that Gline MAY have something to do with banning a troublesome user across more than one chat. Have you ever had to deal with someone so bad, obnoxious or otherwise that you’ve had to ban them from each of your chats, one-by-one? We have and it’s not fun! Could Gline possibly make it easier to do just that? :S Again, we aren’t sure.

We’ll just wait and see what Xat has in store for us

Off topic: Has everyone had a chance to either view or vote for Google’s World Cup Flag power?

Today Xat announced that the next power will be the SILLY power. With little to go on right now, it *looks* to be a Smiley power.

Here are some (all?) of the SILLY smileys:

(bonk)
(burp)
(crazy2)
(dopey)
(impact)
(irked)
(itchy)
(mischief2)
(silly)
(nose)
(raspberry)
(rolleye)
(spit)
(string)

Those who already have the power can go test it out on the Xatworld.com xat_test chat.

Credit goes to Hean for getting us the screenshots and the list of Smileys. Thanks Hean!

“…When someone clicks on you, you will be notified in a new user list…”

Puzzled, we headed straight for the Xatworld xat_test chat and with HEAN’S help  (thank you Hean!), and a few users in Xat’s own xat_test chat, we were able to gather the following information.

What Tickle does:

The new Tickle power activates a new user list (denoted by a white triangle) to the right of the traditional VISITORS and FRIENDS tabs. When another user, regardless of where they are on Xat, clicks on your nick, that triangle changes to green; alerting you to the fact that “someone” has clicked your nick. Want to know who would dare do such a thing? Easy, just click the green triangle and you will gain access to a new user list showing exactly who and/or how many people have clicked on your nick. That’s it!

Screenshots:

No news on pricing, availability, or when it might be released.

Update 1: Thanks ACK, Ziggy… typo corrected!
Update 2: Tickle eventually to be free for those that have activated ACCOUNT LOCKING

According to Wiki:

“Kaoanis are little animated smilies that usually bounce up and down to look like they are floating. Kaoani can take the form of animals, foodstuffs such as rice balls, colorful blobs, cartoon characters, etc”

So why Gkaoani and not just Kaoani? We think the “G” is the biggest clue here. Although we’re not 100% sure, we figured that it could be a Group power. Either that or maybe a sneaky ploy to avoid “Kaoani” licensing fees (we’re kidding!). We’ll have to wait and see!

This is the official Gkaoani power smiley:

Here are SOME of the Gkaoani related smileys (which now that we look at them are really just regular yellow Xat smileys preceded by a “k”) and their respective Xat codes and animations. Try and find others!
(kbiggrin)
(kclap)
(kconfused)
(kcool)
(kcrying)
(kdizzy)
(keek)
(keyerub)
(kfit)
(kfrown)
(kglare)
(khehe)
(khello)
(khug)
(kkiss)
(klove)
(kmad)
(kmischief)
(knod)
(krant)
(kredface)
(ksad)
(ksleepy)
(ksmile)
(ksmirk)
(kstraight)
(kstruggle)
(ktongue)
(kun)
(kwink)

Feel free to share these with other people:

Part I
(kbiggrin)(kclap)(kconfused)(kcool)(kcrying)(kdizzy)(keek)(keyerub)(kfit)(kfrown)

Part II
(kglare)(khehe)(khello)(khug)(kkiss)(klove)(kmad)(kmischief)(knod)(krant)

Part III
(kredface)(ksad)(ksleepy)(ksmile)(ksmirk)(kstraight)(kstruggle)(ktongue)(kun)(kwink) – from Xatworld.com