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Angry Birds adapts to Super Bowl, fragmentation

Angry Birds developer Rovio Mobile has released a new version of its popular game that comes with a Super Bowl tie-in and tackles the thorny issue of Android fragmentation.

Version 1.5.1 of the bird-flinging game for Google Android and Apple iOS devices apparently comes with an element to promote an upcoming "Rio" version of the game due to arrive in March. "Watch the Super Bowl XLV, and keep your eyes peeled during the fourth quarter: spot the Rio commercial and you might see a little something to find something special in Angry Birds," Rovio … Read more

Could exec exits accompany Nokia strategy shift?

AllThingsD

Nokia is widely expected to announce some sort of strategy shift when CEO Stephen Elop meets with investors in London on Friday. A new report suggests, however, that several executive departures could also accompany the shift.

German weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported on Saturday that a number of executives may leave, citing company sources. According to a Reuters summary of the German article, among those that may depart are phone unit head Mary McDowell, markets unit manager Niklas Savander, Chief Development Officer Kai Oistamo, and services and solutions manager Tero Ojanpera.

Elop suggested on the company's recent earnings call that a … Read more

Android app released for Google's Blogger

The Google-owned Blogger network has released a free app designed to enable people who have built their blogs on the Blogger platform to easily update them from their Android smartphones.

Unveiled this week, the program lets people bang out copy, and take photos with their phones, from directly inside the app--and then either publish their words and images straightaway or save a draft for later. Posts and drafts can be viewed directly in the app or, by way of a quickly accessible menu, in a browser.

Users can also select their location and include that information with their post, switch … Read more

This week in Crave: The pillow talk edition

Too busy waiting for Robonaut 2's big pregame appearance Sunday to keep up with all matters Crave this week? Here's what went down while you were hoping NASA's humanoid bot is rooting for your team.

• The Verizon iPhone is here--and so are the AT&T and Verizon ads.

• Speaking of the iPhone 4, this is why it takes good low-light photos.

• What to do if you got caught up in Intel's Sandy Bridge oops.

• Donald's verdict following a hands-on with Honeycomb on Xoom: "I'm a fan." What about you?

• Readers' picks for hot bargain TVs. But is now the time to buy 'em?

• Turn your head into a cushy pillow!

• Another week, another iPad 2 rumor... … Read more

Control, play torrents via uTorrent on Android

Bandwidth caps are only part of the reason that torrenting has yet to hit mobile devices in a big way, but that hasn't stopped them from trickling into the portable world. Today BitTorrent, Inc. announced remote control app uTorrent Remote that lets you manage your desktop's torrents from your Android device, and stream completed audio and video torrents back to your device. Originally mentioned last month at CES, uTorrent Remote will only work with the next generation version of uTorrent, currently available only as a rough alpha.

The Android app adds basic torrent remote controls to your phone. … Read more

What should Nokia do?

It's hard to know what to make of Nokia these days. Though it still holds a huge worldwide market share and sells more phones than its competitors, it doesn't quite capture the buzz it once had, and its presence in the United States has dwindled.

Sure, the Finns maintain a healthy business selling low-end handsets in emerging markets, but over the last three years, smartphones are where the action is. And though Nokia still succeeds in that space occasionally--we quite liked the Nokia N8, for example--its strategy has been rather unclear.

To its credit, Nokia is aware of … Read more

Will you see Honeycomb on your Android phone?

Earlier this week, Google offered the first real taste of Honeycomb. Though we'd previously seen short video clips and images, it wasn't until Tuesday's event that we were able to see Android 3.0 in action.

Watching the live demonstrations, I could envision thousands of Galaxy Tab owners glancing at their tablets, wondering if or when it will see Honeycomb. And, of course I'm sure that plenty of Android phone customers are hoping to get the same experience. But will Honeycomb end up on smartphones? Or is it a tablet-only platform? The answer is somewhere in between.

Though a Google spokesman told PCMag yesterday that Honeycomb was only for tablets, he also said that some features from the update "will arrive on phones over time."

Looking at the official Honeycomb features page on the Android blog, we can see that Honeycomb is "specifically optimized for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets." Considering how much data (widgets, folders, and shortcuts) you can place on the desktop, it's pretty obvious you won't be able to do the same on a 4-inch display. Yet, that's not to say we won't end up with the enhanced notifications or a persistent action bar on our handsets.

While a lot of Honeycomb's focus is on getting the overall user experience to feel more natural and intuitive, there are a few features that bring added functionality to Android. For example, it's hard to imagine Google keeping video chat restricted to tablets. And the same goes for the redesigned keyboard and improved copy and paste options. … Read more

The 404 751: Where Peter Ha adds The Daily logo next to his Pepsi tattoo (podcast)

Two days ago Rupert Murdoch announced The Daily, News Corp.'s latest publication built for the iPad platform, and we've been waiting all week to get its tech editor, Peter Ha, in the studio to tell us about the new pricing model and how it'll shape the future of online publishing. Lucky for us, today is that day, but the show starts off with a bit of controversy. Tune in to hear Jeff's fumble!

But Peter's not here to talk about the Korean flag or tattoos, he joins us today to chat about The Daily. The magazine/book/newspaper, or whatever you want to call it, is fielding plenty of comparisons to free news outlets like The New York Times and The Huffington Post that also have their own iPad apps, or even Flipboard, another visually interactive app for the tablet platform.

But from what Peter tells us, The Daily is a different kind of user experience in that it delivers editorial content made specifically for the iPad, whereas those other apps simply pull in RSS-feed versions of their Web-based counterparts.

For 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year, The Daily uses a set of templates to deliver content more in line with a newspaper as a backseat user experience, as opposed to the personalized, curated set of blogs you choose for Flipboard or other "mobile news readers."

The Daily also provides content interactively by way of a floating carousel of categories with 360-degree high-resolution photos, audio clips, and video. Whether or not that justifies the subscription fee is up to the user, although we're all impressed by (and a little pensive about) the ability to record and post audio comments in addition to text.

Stay tuned for the second half where we examine the plausibility of The Daily coming to the fragmented Android Market. Like it or hate it, Android is certainly the default operating system for consumers to turn to after iOS, but Wilson doesn't believe that Android users will accept the idea of paying for apps anytime soon. On the other hand, the guy can barely predict his plans for this weekend, so don't take his words too seriously.

As usual, we have a blast riffing back and forth with Peter Ha, who's not only a hilarious friend of the show but also offers valuable insight into the mobile publishing industry, the ongoing mobile OS wars, and hopefully Rupert Murdoch's to-do list. Check out today's show and let us know what you think about The Daily! Give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET and leave us a voice mail, or e-mail us at the404(at)cnet(dot)com.

Episode 751 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS VideoRead more

Huawei Ideos X5 will please Android purists (review)

We first glimpsed the Huawei Ideos X5 at CES and declared it a good-looking, midlevel Android phone. It runs the standard version of Android 2.2 (Froyo), which means that it doesn't have any of the extra interface graphics that manufacturers sometimes add for visual flare and to differentiate their phones from rivals'. That's sure to please those campaigning to let Android be Android without additional skin modifications.

The Ideos X5 has very solid hardware specs, like a 3.8-inch capacitive touch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, and 720p HD video capture and playback. It also has expandable memory … Read more

Android Market online: If your app never downloads

Google wasn't the first mobile platform provider to introduce an online app catalog, but its Android Market Web store is the first to offer seamless over-the-air installation.

Using the online Android Market is fairly straightforward. Apart from some initial hiccups everyone encountered when the Web store first launched, it takes just a few mouse clicks to wirelessly download both paid and free apps without craning over your smartphone screen or straining your peepers.

However, those early frustrations are telling. Scrambling to test the online Market just after it launched, I had no problems selecting apps to download, but several … Read more