Angry Birds in space

An executive of the maker of “AngryBirds” said the latest edition of the world’s most popular mobile-phone game won’t appear on Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows Phone platform, a possible blow to handset maker Nokia Oyj. (NOK1V)
“We’re the No. 1 app in the Windows Phone app store, but it’s a big undertaking to support it, and you have to completely rewrite the application,” Peter unsecured loans Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer of the game’s maker, Rovio Entertainment Oy, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. He said Rovio, which yesterday started selling the new “Angry Birds Space” game for Apple Inc. (APPL)’s iPhone and handsets running Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android platform, has no plans to release the title on Windows Phone.

 

Angry Bird toys are seen on display at the headquarters of the game's developer Rovio Mobile Oy in Espoo, Finland, on Friday, Dec. 3, 2010. Photographer: Henrik Kettunen/Bloomberg

 

March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer of "Angry Birds" maker Rovio Entertainment Oy, says demand for the world's most popular mobile-phone game may reach 2 billion by the end of the year, boosted by the introduction of "Space." Jon Erlichman reports on Bloomberg Television's "Countdown." (Source: Bloomberg)

 

March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Jon Erlichman talks about the release of Rovio Entertainment Oy's "Angry Birds Space" mobile game today, and the company's bird and slingshot display on the Space Needle in Seattle. He speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)

 

March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Jon Erlichman talks about the release of Rovio Entertainment Oy's "Angry Birds Space" mobile game today, and the company's bird and slingshot display on the Space Needle in Seattle. (Source: Bloomberg)

 

Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Rovio Entertainment Oy, speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing conference in Beijing, China. Photographer: Keith Bedford/Bloomberg

Rovio Chief Executive Officer Mikael Hed later told Reuters the company was “working towards” getting “Angry Birds Space” on the Windows Phone 7 operating system. Hed didn’t return calls by Bloomberg News. Ville Heijari, a spokesman for Rovio, said in e- mailed statement that the company is working toward offering its games on “all relevant platforms” and that it will announce “further platforms as soon as more information is available.”
Nokia is betting on the Windows Phone operating system to revive its struggling smartphone business. The lack of “Angry Birds” may make it more difficult for the company, based in the same Espoo, Finland-based office park as Rovio, to attract gaming-oriented users and persuade developers that its platform is growing.

China Push

“This is a worrying development for Windows Phone because it suggests that Rovio does not have much confidence in its future,” Nomura analyst Richard  bad credit loans Windsor said today in a report. “As the standard version is already number one on the Windows Phone app store, it gives a strong indication that no one else will expect to be making money writing for this platform either.”
Nokia Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop has introduced several Windows Phones since October and plans to bring the handsets next to China, where “Angry Birds” took off last year.
“China has been our second-largest market, but it’s actually been the fastest-growing for quite a while, and it could well be that China becomes the biggest market this year,” Vesterbacka said.
Nokia spokesman James Etheridge had no immediate comment when contacted today. The company’s shares rose 0.9 percent to 3.98 euros at the close in Helsinki. The stock has declined 33 percent in the past 12 months.
Elop, who took over at the world’s largest mobile-phone maker in 2010, shifted to Windows Phone last year after determining Nokia’s Symbian and MeeGo systems couldn’t keep up with Android, the fastest-growing smartphone platform, and the iPhone.

Chicken and Egg

Microsoft plans to bring its Windows Phone software to 23 more countries for a total of 63 and put the operating system on less expensive smartphones, it said last month. The company aims to move quickly in developing economies, where Google and Apple are less dominant, before cheaper Android phones can strengthen Google’s position.
“There is a chicken and egg situation here, where no apps means no users and no users means no apps,” Windsor said. “Nokia has tried in the past to get past this by paying developers directly to write applications but it has largely failed to bring any life back to the platform.”
For the time being, it’s too expensive for Rovio to adapt new games to Windows Phones, Vesterbacka said.
“If you look at activations, Apple’s iOS and Android are clearly bigger than any other platform,” he said. “We want to be on all screens, but we have to consider the cost of supplying the smaller platforms. With Windows Phone it’s a lot of work to technically support it.”

Flinging Birds

“Angry Birds” may reach a billion cumulative downloads in the next few months, boosted by the introduction of “Space,” and 2 billion by the end of the year, he said. That compares to just 50 million in late 2010, a year after the unveiling of the original game. Rovio predicts to introduce four more Angry Birds games by the end of the year, Vesterbacka said.
Basic “Angry Birds” game play consists of using a virtual slingshot to fling birds at structures populated by green pigs. The game zoomed to the top of the chart in Apple’s online app store in 2010 before being rolled out for Android phones, desktop computers and e-readers. The Facebook version is approaching 20 million active users, Vesterbacka said.
Rovio, which has more than 300 employees, also sold about 25 million plush toys last year and has started a book division with a cookbook and comics.
Closely held Rovio published 51 games for Nokia phones and other handsets before releasing “Angry Birds.” The game is on Nokia’s current smartphones and some lower-end models.
The new version of “Angry Birds,” which takes place in space with planetary gravity interfering with the birds’ flight paths, is available for Windows personal computers as well as Apple Mac computers.

8 Tricks of Google Gravity

Well guys what kind of  tricks you could play with the Google Gravity?

Trick 1. Move Them Around

If you thought that once the elements fall down, that’s the end of the magic – you are wrong, its the beginning. Try holding any piece. To hold a piece click and hold the element and drag then around the screen. You can grab and move all the pieces.

Trick 2. Drop Them 

In addition to the above one, you will see that once you un-grab the elements (by leaving the mouse button) it falls below. Well its like the real world you see, gravity is acting over here.

Trick 3. Hit Them Hard 

Its the fun part. Grab any piece and use it to hil others. Fun. Also the size of the element you are using has effect on the force it generates. Try using the logo or the search-bar.

Trick 4. The Pendulum

Hold the Google logo by one of its sides and hold it up and shake it, It starts to oscillate like a pendulum. Try spinning it around!!!

Trick 5. Shake Effects

Restore the window to a smaller size. Now hold the window and try shaking it around. Didn’t expected the elements to move around that way? Well it does!!!

Trick 6. Enlarge Effect

While the window is still restored to a small size, maximize the window and see the elements jump.

Trick 7. It’s Alive

If you have not realized it already, all the unsecured loans elements in the screen is actually working. All the links, buttons, radio-buttons work exactly in the same way they meant to be. Try typing on the search-bar,,,

Trick 8. Search Still Working

This is the one which very few people actually know. Try typing any query into the search-bar and click the search button (or if you cant find it in the debris hit bad credit loans the enter button). WOW! Right? The results are dumped into the screen as if by some invisible hands. Again these links are actual results and are working.

data protection act 1998

Overview

Data protection laws exist to strike a balance between the rights of individuals to privacy and the ability of organisations to use data for the purposes of their business. The Data Protection Act 1984 introduced basic rules of registration for users of data and rights of access to that data for the individuals to which it related. These rules and rights were revised and superseded by the Data Protection Act 1998 which came into force on 1st March 2000. This Guide explains what you should know about data protection under the Data Protection Act 1998 ('the Act').

When does data protection law apply?

Data protection law applies whenever a data controller processes personal data. These words are given special meanings by the Act.

Data controllers

A data controller is the person who determines the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any personal data is, or is likely to be, processed. In other words, you will be a data controller if the processing of personal data is undertaken for your benefit and you decide what personal data should be processed and why. A typical example of a data controller is an employer.

Personal data

Personal data means data which relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data or from that data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller. For example, most organisations will process personal data relating to employees, customers, suppliers and business contacts. These individuals are referred to in the Act as 'data subjects'.

Processing

The Act applies when personal data is processed or is to be processed by a computer, or is recorded or to be recorded in a structured manual filing system. There are other types of system covered by the Act, but these are the most common.
Whether or not manual files are covered by the Act is not always an easy question to answer. To be covered:

• there must be a set of information relating to individuals,
• which is structured either by reference to individuals or by criteria relating to individuals,
• in such a way that specific information relating to particular individuals is readily accessible. If your manual files fall within this definition, you will have to comply with the Act.

The term 'processing' covers virtually any use which can unsecured loans be made of personal data, from collecting the data, storing it and using it to destroying it.

What are the obligations?

The data protection principles

In order to comply with the Act, a data controller must comply with the following eight principles:

1. The data should be processed fairly and lawfully and may not be processed unless the data controller can satisfy one of the conditions for processing set out in the Act.
2. Data should be obtained only for specified and lawful purposes.
3. Data should be adequate, relevant and not excessive.
4. Data should be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.
5. Data should not be kept longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed.
6. Data should be processed in accordance bad credit loans with the rights of the data subject under the Act.
7. Appropriate technical and organisational measures should be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.
8. Data should not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

The New iPad Does Not Support FaceTime Over 4G

With Apple’s announcement of the iPad 3, Cupertino took the approach of highlighting the big features of the device such as the much higher pixel resolution display panel that the device will come standard with. However, some of the nitty gritty deals were omitted for a couple of reasons including the fact that they may not highlight the positives of the new tablet.
FaceTime has become a unsecured loans popular feature of Apple products and customers look for wide support of this app. We’re starting to see iPad 3 reviews showing up online and a recent review by The Verge highlights the point that the third generation iPad does not support FaceTime over a 4G LTE network connection. This appears to be blanket policy and takes no account whether you have an AT&T or Verizon data package that provides sufficient bandwidth or not. Users that look to try a 4G LTE FaceTime connection will be blocked and presented with a message indicating that this connection needs to be established over an 802.11 wireless connection.
What makes this even more interesting is the fact that even if you are in a region of your city where you have both WiFi and 4G, with 4G being faster, you will still be redirected to WiFi in order to establish your FaceTime connection. It looks like Apple is concerned about customers that may not be tech savvy going over their bandwidth allotment. What are your thoughts, would you prefer to bad credit loans manage this yourself or do you prefer the blanket approach that Apple has taken?

Rebekah Brooks pawnd

Scotland Yard faces further questions about its relationship with News International after it emerged Tuesday that it had lent a police horse to Rebekah Brooks when she was editor of The Sun.

Mrs Brooks was one of only 12 people allowed to adopt a retired Metropolitan Police horse in 2008, the year after two people were jailed for phone hacking at her former newspaper, the News of the World.

She passed a vetting procedure after officers from the Metropolitan Police's Mounted Branch visited her home in the Cotswolds, where she is said to have gone riding with the Prime Minister.

Although the Met routinely lends retired horses to charities and members of the public, who pay for their upkeep, one MP suggested the arrangement was more evidence of the "intensely close relationship" between the Met and NI executives.

David Wilson, Mrs Brooks's spokesman, said Mrs Brooks had ridden the horse, though the Met's website says it is looking for retirement homes "where the horse will not be ridden".

A Met spokesman was unable to explain the apparent discrepancy. The unlikely twist came a day after the Leveson Inquiry heard that the relationship between the Met and NI was "at best inappropriately close and at worst corrupt".

At the time Mrs Brooks took on the horse, she was editor of The Sun, but had given evidence to a committee of MPs five years earlier admitting that the News of the World had paid policemen when she was editor of the Sunday paper between 2000 and 2003.

By the time she gave the horse back to the Met she was chief executive of News International and the Met was facing calls to reopen its investigation into phone hacking following the disclosure that thousands of names of potential victims appeared in notebooks seized from the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

On Monday, the detective leading investigations into phone hacking and corruption disclosed that a mole had briefed Mrs Brooks on the original investigation into voicemail interception in 2006.

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has been at the forefront of Parliament's attempt to uncover wrongdoing at News International, said: "In the light of the serious revelations at the Leveson Inquiry this week, the saga of the horse may seem trivial, but there is a serious question here of who authorised the loan of the horse and whether it cost any money.

"It is yet further evidence of the intensely close relationship between executives at NI and the Metropolitan Police."

The issue of "horsegate", as it was called on Twitter, was even raised at Downing Street's daily briefing for lobby journalists. Asked whether David Cameron, a friend and neighbour of Mrs Brooks, had ridden the horse, the Prime Minister's spokesman said that information was not available to him.

Lord Blair, who was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner when Mrs Brooks took on the horse, said he was unaware of the loan. Each year around 10 of the Met's 120 horses retire unsecured loans from working life.

Mrs Brooks, who is married to the former racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, kept the horse at her farm in Chipping Norton until 2010. It was then found a home in Norfolk with a serving police officer, and has since died of natural causes.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "In 2008 a retired MPS horse was lent to Rebekah Brooks. The horse was subsequently rehoused with a police officer in 2010."

Yesterday, the Leveson Inquiry into press bad credit loans ethics was told by Simon Hughes, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, that The Sun derailed his chances of becoming party leader by obtaining telephone records revealing he had used a homosexual chatline.

Mr Hughes, who was odd-on favourite to win the leadership election in 2006, said his poll ratings plummeted after The Sun published an article in which he was forced to admit he had relationships with both men and women.

Battle of the Electronic books

Now that the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire has been announced, we thought it would be a good craic to slam its specs up against those of its key rivals.
Of course, this has to include Apple's peerless iPad 2, but instead of plumping for the gorgeous Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, we've chosen to compare it with its new sibling the Galaxy Tab 7.7 because of its size.
And to complete our line-up, we've plumped for the HTC Flyer – another 7-inch tablet that, like the Kindle Fire, is based on a heavily customised version of Android 2.x.

Operating system

The Kindle Fire runs its own special OS. But it's not been developed from the ground up by Amazon – it's based on Android 2.x, rumoured to be Android 2.2 FroYo. The HTC Flyer also has a heavily customised version of Android – it's based on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The iPad 2 runs iOS 4 (soon to be iOS 5) and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 runs the tablet-specific Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
     

Pricing

The Kindle Fire is slated at $199 in the US, which would probably translate to a £199 price point in the UK – although there has been no confirmation of a UK release as yet. As we know, iPad 2 retails from £399 for 16GB, while the HTC Flyer has finally come down to a decent price point for the 16GB version - £329 and up. We don't know a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 UK price as yet.

Thickness and weight

The 7-inch Kindle Fire is 11.4mm thick, substantially more than the 8.8mm-thick 9.7-inch iPad 2. The 7-inch HTC Flyer is even thicker at 13.2mm. The thinnest accolade goes to the Galaxy Tab 7.7 at just 7.9mm thick. As for weight, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 is the lightest at 335g, the Kindle Fire is 414g, the HTC Flyer is 421g, while the iPad 2 clocks in at 601g for the Wi-Fi version.

Screen resolution

The Kindle Fire has a resolution of 1,024 x 600 as does the HTC Flyer. The iPad 2 is next in line at 1,024 x 768 (remember that's a 9.7-inch display too) but top of the pile is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 with a 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution 7.7-inch display.

Screen type

The Kindle Fire and iPad 2 have IPS LCD multi-touch panels, while the HTC Flyer has a capacitive LCD screen. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is the first tablet to feature a Super unsecured loans AMOLED Plus display. It's hugely bright and super clear.

Processor

All the tablets are dual-core aside from the HTC Flyer which uses a still-speedy 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. The iPad 2 uses the Apple A5 (below), while the Galaxy Tab 7.7 uses a (probably Samsung) 1.4GHz model. The Kindle Fire has a 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP chip.

Memory and storage

The Kindle Fire has 512MB of memory, like the iPad 2. However, it only has 8GB of internal memory which by anybody's reckoning is quite poor for a device based around content. The iPad 2 comes in 16, 32 and 64GB variants as does the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. The Flyer comes in 16 and 32GB memory versions. The Samsung and HTC devices also have 1GB of internal memory.

Camera and video

The Kindle Fire doesn't have a mic or camera – something which a lot of commentators believe is a sizeable hole in the Fire's armoury. All the other tablets are capable of 720p HD video and have front and back cameras. The HTC Flyer wins the day here, with a 5MP rear snapper.
     

Connectivity

The Kindle Fire only connects to the web via Wi-Fi, there is no cellular 3G data. All the other tablets are available in Wi-Fi only plus Wi-Fi + 3G versions should you wish. The Kindle Fire is also the only tablet not to support Bluetooth or GPS too. Surely Amazon will need to launch a 3G model at some point.

Battery life

While the iPad 2 and Samung Galaxy Tab 7.7 cite a battery bad credit loans life of 10 hours, the Kindle Fire says its battery life is 8 hours. The HTC Flyer battery life is "from 8 hours".

Summary

Obviously the Kindle Fire isn't out in the UK yet, but if it does come here for £199 or so then it will still be a steal. Amazon's problem is if people buy the Kindle Fire expecting the full iPad-a-like tablet experience - they won't get that. The Kindle Fire is a worthy content device, but surely Amazon will need to top-out its range with a full 3G tablet to truly compete with high-end tablets like the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7.

Sending EXEs in Gmail :/

1. Background

   • Computer files employ file extensions -- the characters after the period in the filename, such as XLS, EXE, and DOC -- to tell a computer how to use the file. For example a TXT file is a plain text document. When you double-click a TXT file, your PC knows to open your default text editor to display the file content.
     Executable (EXE) files are program files that run as soon as they are opened and are therefore easily exploited by hackers to run malicious code on your computer.

   Restrictions

   • Several mail services, such as Gmail, prevent you from attaching EXE and various other risky file types to your emails. Even if your mail service or email program allows you to attach an executable file, such as "setup.exe", it is likely that the attachment will be removed or blocked when the email reaches the recipient. Blocking executable files is a widespread practice.

   Solution

   • You can sometimes work around these restrictions by renaming your executable file to something which is not blocked, such as .txt or .zip, and instructing the recipient to rename it back to .exe when it reaches its destination. However, some email systems unsecured loans scan the content of attachments and will still be able to detect the executable file, resulting in it being blocked or deleted.

   Alternatives

   • If you are still unable to send your file to your destination by email, you will need to use an alternative method of transmitting the file. Various file bad credit loans sharing websites let user upload files to the Internet for later download. If you and your recipient both use the same instant messaging (IM) program, you may also be able to use this to transfer files to your destination.

raspberry pi computer

The ultra-cheap Raspberry Pi computer went on sale Wednesday amid overwhelming demand, crashing the distributors' websites and selling out on one site shortly thereafter.

The $35 Raspberry Pi Model B, which is the size of a credit card and runs on open-source software developed at Toronto's Seneca College, became available for pre-order at 1 a.m. ET Wednesday from British manufacturers and distributors Premier Farnell and RS Components.

Almost immediately, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the non-profit group that designed the computers as a device that young people could learn how to program, was flooded with complaints from customers who couldn't access the distributor websites to place their orders.

Ultra-cheap computers

The Raspberry Pi Foundation isn't the only group that has been trying to develop ultra-cheap computers in recent years:

• Montreal-based Datawind manufactures bad credit loans the Aakash, a tablet computer launched last fall. The Indian government was to buy them for about $47 and subsidize the cost so students and teachers could buy the devices for $35. However, Reuters reported this week that the Indian government is seeking new bids to make the device after user complaints about poor performance and low battery life.
• The One Laptop Per Child Foundation targets underprivileged children aged six to 12, including those in the developing world and Canada's First Nations communities, with its rugged, low-power XO laptop computer. It sells for around $200, pre-loaded with software. Seneca College is involved in adapting software for newer versions of the XO, which use ARM chips.

At 3:08 a.m. ET Wednesday, the Raspberry Pi Twitter account reported that Farnell was sold out of the computers, despite a limit of one per customer. Meanwhile, RS was asking potential customers to express interest on their site.

"With tens of thousands of customers looking to order on the RS website since the launch of Raspberry Pi earlier today, this is the greatest level of demand RS has ever received for a product at one time," Chris Page, general manager of electronics at RS Components, said in a statement.

He added that the company was working closely with Raspberry Pi "to satisfy this unprecedented demand" and expected to begin shipping the devices on a first-come, first-served basis after it gets its first boards late next week.

In Canada, the Raspberry Pi is available through Farnell subsidiary Newark and RS Components subsidiary Allied Electronics.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation said its new partnership with Farnell and RS Components means the computers will be produced in whatever quantity is needed to meet demand. Previously, unsecured loans the plan had been to make them in batches of 10,000.

The Raspberry Pi is designed to be an affordable, easy-to-program device that hobbyists and children can play with and learn from. The goal of the non-profit foundation that designed it is to boost interest in programming and computer science.

The energy-efficient device can run off 4AA batteries, use a TV as a monitor and store data on SD cards. A basic software package developed at Seneca College in Toronto, including a custom version of the Linux Fedora operating system and basic tools like a web browser and word processor, will be available for the devices. Users can also download other software adapted and developed by the open source software community around the world.

In addition to the $35 model that launched this week, the Raspberry Pi will also come in a cheaper, $25 model with one USB port instead of two and no ethernet port.

How To Install Windows 8 With USB sitck

For many enthusiasts there's nothing quite like getting your hands on a shiny new release of Microsoft's Windows operating system. And that's precisely why the web is buzzing with all things Microsoft, as the software giant has made available a Consumer Preview of its next flagship OS, Windows 8.

The Consumer Preview is strictly a pre-release version of Windows 8 and is free to try, but Microsoft is keen to stress that the software is "not the finished product," and states that "you should back up your data and you shouldn't test Windows 8 Consumer Preview on your primary home or business PC."

Food for thought, but if you are intent on trying Windows 8 and you have no intention of donating a blank DVD, here's a brief guide on how to easily install Windows 8 from a USB pen drive.

Here's what you need: a USB pen drive (4GB or greater in size), the Windows 8 Consumer Preview disk image file (64-bit download here, 32-bit download here), Microsoft's Windows 7 USB tool (download here) and a working PC.

Once you have all those, follow these steps unsecured loans:

1. Install and run Microsoft's Windows 7 USB tool. In the subsequent window (pictured below), browse to the 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 8 disk image file you've already downloaded and hit next.

2. With your USB stick plugged in (remember, it'll need unsecured loans to be at least 4GB in size for a 64-bit install), choose USB device as your media type.

3. Select the correct removable device from the drop-down menu, then click begin copying.

4. Sit back, relax, and make a cuppa while the USB tool formats your pen drive, makes it bootable, and copies over all of the Windows 8 files.

5. Once the process is complete, the USB drive can be used to boot a PC and run the Windows 8 setup process.

That's all there is to it. You'll save yourself a blank DVD, the Windows 8 setup process should be quicker from flash-based media, and it's of course a must on netbooks or laptops without an optical drive.