Xat’s latest release, which comes in less than 4 hours, took me a bit by surprise. Many of us, I think, were expecting a Hearts release. Instead we are getting a KFOX release; presumably another “Kaoani” style group smiley power . Per Xat, the KFOX release will take place in 2 batches of 2500.

The 12 the KFOX smileys are (kfox)(kfoxbino)(kfoxcry)(kfoxd)(kfoxggl)(kfoxinl)(kfoxpsy)(kfoxshades)(kfoxsleep)(kfoxtant)(kfoxtwag) and (kfoxwhat). They can be previewed on our xat smiley generator and or our xat power search.

In addition to the smileys, KFOX also brings us two Xat pawns. They are fox (hat#hf) and fox2 (hat#hw), seen here:

 fox (hat#hf) pawn 

fox2 (hat#hw) pawn

Now it’s your turn. Comment below and tell us:

Do you like Xat’s Kaoani type powers?

A few weeks ago, Tom2 was at Xat’s test chat testing what a few suspected was the next power. Confirmed today, that power has been slated as (HEARTS), Xat power 224. Xat will be testing it throughout the day.

The only information we have so far is that HEARTS will be a game power (think spacewar, snakerace, matchrace, and doodlerace).

While we now wait for more details, you can take a peak at the HEARTS power smiley on our Xat smiley generator. We will update this post as we get more information.

Comment below and tell us:

Does anyone else see a resemblance to a playing card?

The three pawns include the Earth pawn (hat#hE), the Lantern pawn (hat#hL), and the Light pawn (hat#hl) – see respective images below.

No news on whether the pawns will be available until April 22 (the date that Earth Day is officially celebrated) but I suspect they will be.

Comment below and tell us:

Which is your favorite Earth pawn?

Per Xat, EGGS is limited and one power will be released every day; assuming here that they mean until Easter (March 31, 2013), that means we can expect roughly 9 smileys. We will update our Xat power search with the newest EGGS smileys as they are announced. Update: (eggs)(chickwalk)(eggnod)(eggbroke)(stripegg)(eggsleep)(bunnyears)(eggtounge)(basket2). Here is the EGGS power smiley:

With EGGS comes two three new Easter pawns (both requiring HAT and EGGS powers), they are: Egg2 (hat#he), Egg (hat#hg) and Eggbroke (hat#hb); see images below.

 Egg2 (hat#he)

 Egg (hat#hg)

Comment below and tell us:

Of the two, which EGGS pawn do you like the best?

HANDS2 includes limited pawn (hat#hh) pictured here…

…as well as 12 HANDS2 smileys (check them out using out power search).

No news yet on pricing or availability.

What do you think of when I mention the word Spring? Spring in is the air and with it comes Xat’s latest power, SPRING a.k.a. power 219.

Still unreleased at the moment, Xat’s LIMITED, SPRING power includes 14 smilies that visibly capture the arrival of a new season. Included are (spring) (bees) (birdy) (butterflys) (flohat) (flohide) (flowers) (floshow) (flowerbed) (inflower) (rainbow2) (springhat) (watercan) and (watercan2) and will be released for 250 xats – see below.

Xat’s SPRING power also brings with it a Spring Kiss and 4 limited pawns. They are: Bee: (hat#hb) Butterfly (hat#hu) Flower (hat#hf) and Rainbow2 (hat#hr)

Comment below and tell us:

What’s your favorite SPRING smiley?

The VOTE power gives you (chat main owner) the ability to create your own group chat polls. You currently have some reasonable control over said poll. You can for example, create your poll question with up to 8 answers, change the background image (a 425 x 320 jpg seems to work the best here), select who can vote (think of this as “rank and above”), and  customize a few other text fields. Note that at the time of this post Xat is still working on bugs and possibly a few improvements so some things may change.

Here’s is the current admin for Xat’s VOTE power:

Also, this is a group power so you will first have to assign it to your chat then activate it in your chat administration panel. From there you will be able to access the VOTE dialog shown above.

This is the VOTE power smiley as well as the associated pawns:

Xat VOTE pawn: (hat#hv) – I think that’s a voting booth

Comment below and tell us:

Do you think this will be a useful power?

Pssst… *looks both ways*… psst yeah you… over here… You know about Xat’s widgets don’t you? Have you seen Inception?…*uncomfortably long pause here*…What if YOUR reality was really… nevermind… What if I told you that you might be able to poll your own chat users using some of the same functionality found in Xat’s own poll widget? I mean it’s already there… wouldn’t it make sense to be able to use it? Ahhh… interested are you…Now I’m not saying that it is going to happen, and I’m not saying that it isn’t but I think it actually may happen!

Word on “the street” is that Xat *might* be working on a new power or function featuring their own integrated poll widget. No solid info on how such a thing would work, but my educated guess is that it would resemble something like this:

These are my own mock-ups so you should take them just as rumor for now…  or maybe not….

Comment below and tell us:

Do you think this will happen or am I crazy?

Comment below and tell us:

Seriously, have you ever heard of a Polaroid before today?

Just in! A bit of light has been shed on Xat power (218). STYLIST, a set of new hair style effects, has been announced on the Xat wiki and is now viewable on our Xat smiley generator.

Here are the current smileys for STYLIST: (stylist) (barber) (mirror2) (shave) (shair1) (shair2) (shair3) (shair4) (shair5) (shair6) (shair7)

Here’s the graphic from our Xat power search

Still no news on power pricing or status. I’ll update this post when I get more info.

Update1: STYLIST power also includes two new pawns, scissors (hat#hs) and dryer (hat#hd)

Comment below and tell us:

What do you think of the STYLIST power?