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ChromeOS Laptop-Smashing Ad Equation Solved

Posted by Soulskill on from the geeks-are-nothing-if-not-reliable dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google's latest marketing video for Chrome OS is interesting to watch for the laptop-smashing amateurs or the slow motion fans, but the real fun may be at 2:24 in the video where a X=G/(CHROM-3) equation is displayed on a chalkboard. Only 20 hours later, it has already been cracked by Jamendo founder Sylvain Zimmer and his team. They posted details on how they did it and won a Cr-48 netbook, which may not even be delivered because they are not in the US."

4 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. I solved it too! by jkmartin · · Score: 5, Funny

    To: alicethesurfer@gmail.com
    From: alf@nbc.com

    I found your cat. It was delicious.

  2. Re:cracked? by zach_the_lizard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I have to guess, what they first did is solve for the various letters; in the video, each letter is given an equation, which resolves down to a number. Then they plug those into the equation at the bottom, resulting in X = 900.91/191605050401140404051920181525. Someone then had a flash of insight, noticed the 900.91 is similar to goo.gl, and thought that it could be a URL. But, just typing that in by itself would yield nothing. They had to get the random string of numbers to mean something. So they split it into 2 digits per character, 19 16 05 05.... and made the realization that those corresponded to a position of a letter in the alphabet. 19 is S, 16 is P, 5 is E, and so on. The final URL becomes: goo.gl/speedanddestroy. It's not impossible, it just takes some careful thought and attention to detail. I would have probably made it to the 900.91/number here stage if I had seen this beforehand, but the 900.91 is goo.gl insight probably would have eluded me, let alone dividing the numbers up like that.

    --
    SSC
  3. Re:Structual integrity by kimvette · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First look at the CR-48:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/213168/google_cr48_first_look_at_the_first_chrome_os_laptop.html?tk=rel_news

    Working on the CR-48 can feel like walking a tightrope without a net (pardon the pun). If you're not connected to the Internet on this laptop, you're dead in the water. I wrote this article in Google Docs on the CR-48 during my commute. I should have been fine, because I had a Verizon Mi-Fi card for connectivity (our CR-48 arrived without a SIM card, so I couldn't test out the built-in 3G connection). But halfway through my commute, Chrome reported that it couldn't reach Google Docs. On any other laptop, this would be no problem. I'd copy my existing text into Word and continue working there. But on the CR-48, my options were severely limited. I pasted my changes into an Evernote note instead and hoped that I wouldn't lose my connection to that service.

    That's the problem with the cloud. Any problems on your end, at google, or anywhere in between, or if you forget to pay your cellular bill, you're not getting that proposal out to clients, you're not getting your tax returns in on time, you're not getting your paper in on time, etc.

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  4. Re:cracked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why did solving this come with an award?

    Because publicity. There's no point in requiring a significant contributions to the sciences for a giveaway.

    Though I was hoping for something a bit more interesting when I clicked the link, I don't see the point in criticising Google for lack of originality here. It may be a familiar setup by this point, but it's still a cool thing to do. It's just a small bonus, it's not like we're entitled to have everything they do be completely awesome.