birds

We had the pleasure of sitting down in CNET's San Francisco offices on Wednesday with Finnish developers Mikael Hed and Peter Vesterbacka from Rovio, makers of hit iPhone and iPad game Angry Birds (download for iPhone/iPad).

Angry Birds has become the most successful paid iPhone app to date, selling more than 5 million copies of the 99-cent game in the past six months alone. Did it get there overnight? No, but in the world of App Store development, its ascension was brisk.

So how did it all start? Toward the end of last year, the Rovio developers said … Read more

No longer a fledgling upstart, Firefox is the gold standard of alternatives to the still-dominant Internet Explorer. This browser is full-featured, secure, and lightning fast--although competition is strong and it can no longer be said that Firefox is the fastest browser available. Its killer selection of add-ons remains strong, however, with built-in support for the next generation of themes, called Personas.

Several notable improvements in recent updates keep Firefox abreast of current browsing tech. In addition to improvements made to the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine so that it renders Web applications faster, there have also been other significant under-the-hood changes. These … Read more

With the undeniable popularity and success of the iPhone 4 (despite the antenna debacle), iPad, and ever-increasing Mac sales, Apple is gaining customers faster than ever. If you're thinking about making the switch, this could be your perfect setup.

Component one: iPhone 4 Now in its fourth iteration, Apple's iPhone has forever changed the mobile phone landscape by thrusting touch-screen technology to the tips of every tech geek's tongue and every consumer's wish list. Despite its early and somewhat overblown issues, iPhone 4 has had record-setting sales. With the exception of the complaints from a vocal minority regarding its antenna, … Read more

Good news, everyone! Twitter's getting its own servers and Skype will now run in the background on an iPhone. But beware: The IPocalypse is nigh, Apple now has more software insecurity flaws than anyone, and robots can now move faster than you can blink.

Forget electric cars: could the car of the future be one fueled by Coke and Mentos candies?

The idea is the brainchild of Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, founders of EepyBird.com. They're the same two guys who became an Internet sensation after creating some incredible Coke and Mentos geysers a few years back.

And on CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday, they made their latest venture a reality, firing up a vehicle fueled by Coke Zero and Mentos on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan--with "Early Show" weather anchor and features reporter Dave Price at the helm. … Read more

With all the iOS 4 news today, both good and bad, you may not have seen the major update to one of the most popular games at the iTunes App Store. Angry Birds just received a bunch of new tweaks including 15 new levels, a new theme, enhancements to the interface menus, and new golden egg levels.

The press release we received mentioned that both Angry Birds (for iPhone) and Angry Birds HD (for iPad) were updated to 1.3.3, but at the time of this writing, only the iPhone version seems to have updated in the iTunes Store. … Read more

Did you know you could get a refund for your purchase of an iPhone app? I didn't until I watched a new CNET TV How-to with Brian Tong. In the video, Brian details the process for getting a refund on an app he wanted to buy for the iPad, but chose the iPhone version by mistake. It's a bit complicated to explain the process here, so you'll want to check out the video linked above to get a detailed visual how-to for getting an app refund.

As Brian points out, though you have the ability to get … Read more

Angry Birds Lite is a free, 12-level preview of Angry Birds, an addictive physics-based puzzler with a lot of personality.

You're helping a bunch of birds, as they wreak vengeance upon a crew of smug little egg-stealing pigs. Basically a one-player, turn-based artillery game, Angry Birds has a dead-simple interface: you just pull back on a slingshot to launch birds one at a time, with your finger position determining the speed and trajectory of each bird. The only other interaction comes when new birds (essentially, different ammo types) are introduced: a tiny, MIRV-like bluebird and a speedy yellow bunker-buster, … Read more

Ever tried to share a Twitter account with someone else? Probably not, but there are a growing number of businesses that do it on a daily basis. And until Twitter's own "contributors" service is available to the general public, there's room for companies that have come up with solutions that don't require sharing your log-in or e-mail credentials with others.

BirdHerd, which is opening up to a large group of beta testers Wednesday, does just that. As an account owner, you simply give BirdHerd the OK through OAuth to send out messages to your account. … Read more