Angry Birds Downloaded 30 Million Times On Android

The smartphone phenomenon that is Angry Birds has clocked up more than 30 million downloads on the Android platform according to Rovio's head man Peter Vesterbacka.

Angry Birds is undoutedly the most popular smartphone game of the moment, probably ever to be honest, and so the gargantuan download figures shouldn't come as any real surprise. Mr Vesterbacka also noted that those downloading the game tended to keep playing it with around 80% of users coming back to download updates for it.

Angry Birds is soon to arrive on the Windows Phone 7 platform and is already available, as mentioned, on Android as well as iOS and Symbian.

Editorial #1 by TechGuru - About Nokia, Microsoft and iPhone

This week has brought us many surprises. Namely Microsoft's Ventura platform and delay in Microsoft's update to name a few. We will tackle them one by one but first a few words about this new part of our blog. This is a part of our blog where TechGuRu will discuss the impact of the news and happenings that have taken place during the past week. Hopefully you will get a balanced and complete idea of what's happening in the Technology world through this. Any additions or comments will be welcomed by our readers to make this section better. For previous series of Editorials, you can click on Editorial in out labels section on our homepage.


Microsoft's Ventura


So lets come down to Microsoft's Ventura platform. Since HTC is pushing heavily in the Cloud and offering numerous services, other companies feel compelled to follow suit as HTC is gaining an edge over them. We believe computing we further shift towards the cloud and as the trend is going, maybe one day it will completely be carried out in the cloud. So the Ventura platform can allow users to keep their music and videos in the cloud. No need to save on the computer or the smart phones memory. This takes care of the limitation that smartphones have right now of memory capacity. We must keep in mind that this solution is only applicable in places where widespread wireless Internet or WiFi coverage exists. As in out country of Pakistan, this is not an option for now and GPRS charges are too much to allow for usage of such a service for the average user. Although in the future we see wireless Internet fees going down as more and more data friendly smartphones storm the local market, thanks to people like our friends at Homeshopping.pk.


Windows Phone 7 update


Mircosoft's all new OS was not a huge hit as we all know by now. It has taken a big gamble to increase its subscriber base by exposing itself to the huge amount of consumers that Nokia enjoys as loyal customers but there are many obstacles in this path and both the companies have to be very careful. It seems Microsoft knows what its doing and is making sure that the OS will be completely free of bug (as much as possible) before they push another update to their smartphones. This seems to be a good strategy but they should try to do this in as less a time as possible if they want to come anywhere close to the blazing trail of Android!


Nokia's launch of cheap phones and might be preparing a new UI for Symbian


With the absence of a true leader in the high end range. Nokia is trying to keep its loyal customers at the lower end of the market happy by offering new devices. The only problem is, these devices don't offer much that is new and pale in features to competitors devices in the same price range. Nokia really needs to get its head back in the game. We are all rooting for you Nokia, its time you come and take back your lead.


Now we also heard that Symbian might be getting tweaks to its User interface, this sounds like a good option since Nokia needs to keep loyal symbian users hooked till 2013 before the close the platform for good. Although the absence of apps will cause fatal damage sooner than that in my view.


Concerns over LTE interfering with GPS


We have been repeatedly getting warnings and concerns from the launch of LTE. This seems to be a genuine problem. Hopefully carriers in Pakistan will jump directly from 2G to WIMAX rather than LTE. Please let us know in comments what your views are regarding this.




Buzz about the iPhone 5


Just like all other product launches from the master of marketing Steve "Marketing" Jobs, there has been a huge amount of rumours circulating the web about the iPhone 5 and its specifications. What we can say for certain is that, it will be a dual core smartphone with a newer design and possibly a bigger screen. The move to a bigger screen will mostly be because of the popularity of  other manufacturer's large screen devices and the general acceptance of such screen by the public. Also it could be because a smaller screen iPhone is also rumored to be under the wraps!


Let us know how you feel about our editorials in the comments section!

Microsoft's Ventura could be a cloud music / video platform, have something to do with Zune

We have already told you what cloud computing is. Here is another application of the concept!  Zune hasn't gotten much love from Microsoft as of late, but that might change over time -- ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley noticed that the company is staffing up for a cloud-based multimedia project (by a group known as "Ventura Media Services") directed at PCs, TVs and mobile devices. "The team is a tight group of music and video lovers that create services and experiences revolving around music/video discovery and consumption," read a series of job postings that date back at least as far as July of 2010, calling for software developers in Beijing and Redmond who are familiar with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. (Two of them have "Zune" in the job title.) While it's hard to say if this project is a major focus for Microsoft no matter how often the job posting says "large scale" (we count four times) it'd definitely be nice to have some competition for Google and Apple when they start drawing the multimedia-streaming battle lines.

Samsung attempts to acquire disgruntled Symbian developers for it own Bada operating system

We can't help but feel like this is one sinking ship coming to the aid of another, but for what it's worth, Samsung has apparently started emailing Symbian developers in India with a very simple message: "if you're unhappy about what's going on, give Bada a shot." Sammy, of course, is referring to Nokia's decision to slowly phase out Symbian over the course of roughly 150 million additional shipped handsets -- not a small quantity, granted, but the platform's still got a definitive expiration timeline attached to it now that's undoubtedly going to sour devs who want a mobile platform that they know will be around for the long haul. Though Bada doesn't have the global traction that Symbian enjoys, it's definitely geared to target some of the same low-end market segments Symbian was starting to gun for over the past couple years... so we suppose we see some synergy. Still, if it were our engineering dollars, we'd be hard-pressed not to target a platform with a little more multi-manufacturer support and worldwide reach -- Android, for instance. Can't blame Samsung for trying!

PlayStation Suite coming to Tegra 2 devices

NVIDIA's Tegra Zone app, freshly launched this month, has become the source for a nifty little bit of Sony-related news: the PS Suite that is currently slated to deliver PlayStation One games to the Xperia Play is coming to Tegra 2 devices. Of course, if you're keeping up with your Sony tablet exclusives, you'd already know that the company's expected to unveil a Tegra 2 slate this year, so don't go assuming that your Xoom will necessarily get the PlayStation Certified badge. Those are clearly not on the immediate horizon and we suspect Sony might be waiting for quad-core mobile chips -- such as the one within its upcoming NGP -- to hit the market before rolling the last-gen console's wares out to pockets and messenger bags across the world.

Update: Upon further investigation, we've been unable to confirm the claim about PS2 games being on Sony's PS Suite roadmap. Android and Me reports it to have come from NVIDIA, but the original Tegra Zone post makes no reference to PS2 games. We've updated the post to reflect this.

INFINITI UPDATES EUROPEAN-SPEC G FOR 2011

Infiniti has updated its European-spec G range for the 2011 model year. Although the new models don’t receive any styling changes, the G line has been enhanced with more features for the 2011 model year.

For 2011 all G models – sedan, coupe and convertible – now come standard with Infiniti’s seven-speed automatic gearbox. Steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters are also part of the package, giving driver’s a bit more control.

In order to simplify the ordering process Infiniti has reduced the number of available options for 2011 while making more content standard. G models now come standard with such features as 18-inch wheels, Xenon headlight and power front seats. Hit read more for details and pictures!