Mysterious Portal Update!

[Chalex4]

Yesterday, you may have noticed a Portal update: "Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations."

Of course, this makes no sense. But as we know, nothing stops the internet detectives over at the Steam Forums!

Here's what's happened so far (thanks to ModernLR's post on Steam Forums):

-Portal gets surprise update March 1st
-People see new mystery achievement
-People play and see the radio in the beginning room now has a green light
-Carry it around and notice it makes strange broadcast interference noises in certain places
-Locate and place all 26 of these mystery radios for achievement
-Smart people yank .wav files out of game content folders and run them through SSTV programs [http://i49.tinypic.com/s4b7zn.jpg] (darker so it's easier to see)
-Produces 22 cryptic image files in a numbered sequence, 4 morse code
-Somebody runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number
-Internet traces it to Kirkland, WA (near Valve HQ)
-People find out its not a phone/fax line but a data line hosting a BBS and telnet it
-Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info [backup/backup]
-End up with a bunch of weird ASCII artwork:
http://www.imagebanana.com/img/sdl9h...P3ARGcolor.gif http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2801/...b95fd393_o.jpg

Other threads/places to go:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1168990 [General thread, mostly for theories and puzzling things out]
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1169096 [How to get each radio]
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1169218 [The radio sounds]
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1169929 [The radio sounds decoded, a bit]
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1169084 [The morse code translations]

Other summaries:
http://pugsoft.info/radio/index.php?title=Wave_Dump
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...eases-Portal-2 [Cogent but very incomplete.]
http://netshroud.wordpress.com/2010/...ission-update/
http://goonlinegames.net/2010/03/02/...-clues-so-far/

And here's the latest finding!
New messages from the BBS! It looks like...Chell with the portal gun? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/116597/Portal/human.png


So, could have anything to do with episode 3?
Much of the evidence above would suggest so, but here's the deal breaker for me!

It may well be that the end of Episode 2 predicted this! [The guy who found this]

Skip ahead to 1:42 seconds to hear:
"We have coordinates, blueprints, hailing frequencies. Quite ingenious of Dr. Mossman to hide it all in the carrier wave."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM9QoP3ghlo

This is exactly what the people over at forums have been doing, and there's still more information being uncovered hourly!

Post your findings here . What do you guys think?

[Bloo]

Typical Valve, this is brilliant. My friend thought it was for Portal 2, but your theories make more sense.

My own info on Episode 3 is much more limited, but there is a new weapon, and a potential act structure. Which is probably gone now, because it was on a whiteboard.

[Colonel Mitch]

Somebody runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number

The MD5 string was actually "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog". not a phone number according to the valve forum.

EDIT: there are 2 checksums.

This is fucking crazy....

[Colonel Mitch]

http://i8fhosting.com/portal.png

Mind = blown...

[Mr.Big]

shitbrix

[Isphera]

This is awesome. So when is everyone guessing for Ep. 3 - My money is on Christmas 2010 or early 2011

EDIT - scratch that, just realised that we've already been told Ep. 3 isn't out this year. Portal 2?

[Calneon]

Epic.

[Chalex4]

I'm really looking forward to the announcement now, whenever it may be . All of this investigation has reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk


EDIT: Mitch, your image isn't working. What was it?

[Chalex4]

This guy explains his theory on the update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHhmIiG3UfQ

Hear him out, it actually makes perfect sense.

[Bloo]

That guy makes me want to kill myself with his nerdiest.

[Trigger]

This would be like a geekorgasm if i cared

[Chalex4]

Updates to Portal have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.

Portal

• Added valuable asset retrieval

Interesting...

EDIT: Oh look, a new ending!

<object width="425" height="305"><embed src="http://media.xfire.com/swf/embedplayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="305" flashvars="videoid=2393cf"></embed></object>

Also, new sounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVH75XVu5Go

Maybe...

Dragging robot = called 'Dinosaur'.

Cave sends it back from the future to save Chell. She's that important, hence 'valuable asset'.

NEW STUFF:

Thanks AlphaFox!

There has basically been a confirmed match for one of the dino images to the apollo program.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6657/dino22.png
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twoseve...7623315938604/
http://i49.tinypic.com/24llpap.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twoseve...7623315938604/
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/9044/apollor.jpg

[Target]

This is like a sextape for nerds...although it is pretty fucking kool

Chalex clearly had a good fap!!!

[D_K_Head]

oh nice...

[Isphera]

Thanks for the nightmares Chris.