Rovio and CERN teaming up on education: hopefully the Angry Birds help us this time

Rovio and CERN teaming up on education hopefully the Angry Birds help us this time

The last time CERN and an angry bird met, it didn't end so well: the Large Hadron Collider overheated after a feathered creature reportedly dropped its breakfast on outdoor machinery. Things should go much more smoothly this time around, with CERN and Rovio partnering on an educational initiative that will be unveiled in full at the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 12th. Although the two are shy on just what's entailed beyond the presence of some Angry Birds material at the event, the union will mark the start of Rovio's learning brand and likely represent more in the long run than another Angry Birds Space tie-in. We're mostly wondering if subatomic physics research will explain why we still can't three-star some levels in a physics-based game.

Continue reading Rovio and CERN teaming up on education: hopefully the Angry Birds help us this time

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Rovio and CERN teaming up on education: hopefully the Angry Birds help us this time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feel the Force: Angry Birds Star Wars coming November 8th to iOS, Android, WP, Kindle Fire and computers

Feel the Force: Angry Birds Star Wars coming November 8th to iOS, Android, WP, Kindle Fire and computers

Rovio teased a certain film-inspired Angry Birds picture a long, long last week, and as expected, it's another new game -- Angry Birds Star Wars. Our furious feathered friends are assuming the likenesses of characters from the epic saga, with the trusty Red Bird taking on Luke Skywalker's role. It wouldn't be the Rebel Alliance without a dark side to fight, which is where the Pigs fit into the storyline; even the music and levels for gravity-based play will hark back to the film franchise. In addition to the software, details of related merchandise have also been uncovered, including table games, toys and costumes. The game is out on November 8th for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Kindle Fire and computers, and if it follows the original storyline, we wonder how Red Bird's going to feel about his porcine family history.

Continue reading Feel the Force: Angry Birds Star Wars coming November 8th to iOS, Android, WP, Kindle Fire and computers

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Feel the Force: Angry Birds Star Wars coming November 8th to iOS, Android, WP, Kindle Fire and computers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 06:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  sourceUSA Today, Idle Hands blog  | Email this | Comments

Rovio hints at Angry Birds tie-in with Star Wars on October 8th, Red Bird Five standing by

Rovio hints at Angry Birds tiein with Star Wars on October 8th, Red Bird Five standing by

The green pigs have had their moment in the sun: it's time for the Angry Birds to come back. Rovio Mobile has posted a teaser of a collaboration between its frustrated avians and Star Wars that will get a grand reveal on October 8th at Toys R Us' Times Square location in New York City. No clear giveaways exist as to what's coming, although Rovio is promising animations, comics and other material in the weeks ahead -- we imagine it means more than a toy line, as unique as that can be. But does it mean an Angry Birds Space add-on that goes well beyond the Martian landscape, an entirely new game or something else altogether? We've asked the company for more details and will let you know if we're given more information. In the meantime, get ready for what's likely to be a geek culture explosion.

[Thanks, Jaakko]

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Rovio hints at Angry Birds tie-in with Star Wars on October 8th, Red Bird Five standing by originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Oct 2012 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Rovio Mobile (Twitter), Joystiq  |  sourceAngry Birds (Tumblr)  | Email this | Comments

Gartner: Free apps dominate market, iOS App Store accounts for 25 percent of all content

Gartner Free apps dominate market, iOS App Store accounts for 25% of all downloads

If you'd just put down Angry Birds Space for a moment, maybe we could tell you that mobile apps are kind of a big deal. How big of a deal? How's about 45.6 billion downloads just this year -- that's a serious amount of birds lost in space! All of those downloads weren't just Angry Birds venturing into the final frontier, of course. Gartner, Inc's latest mobile report doesn't actually break down how much of that enormous number pertains to Rovio's hit franchise, but it does note that "free apps will account for nearly 90 percent of total mobile app store downloads in 2012." That means of the nearly 46 billion apps downloaded this year, approximately 40.6 billion were free. Additionally, an entire quarter of the apps downloaded in 2012 were via Apple's iOS app store -- but that isn't what's driving app growth, necessarily. "The number of apps available is driven by an increasing number of stores in the market today," Gartner research director Brian Blau notes. "These stores will see their combined share of total downloads increase, but demand for apps overall will still be dominated by Apple, Google, and Microsoft."

And the growth doesn't stop there. Blau predicts that 93 percent of all apps downloads will be of the free variety by 2016 -- also, we'll be downloading over 300 billion apps worldwide by the same year. Like we said, kind of a big deal.

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Gartner: Free apps dominate market, iOS App Store accounts for 25 percent of all content originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  sourceGartner, Inc.  | Email this | Comments

Rovio takes Angry Birds Space for a spin with NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover, teases Red Planet for fall (video)

Rovio takes Angry Birds Space on a spin with NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover, teases Red Planet for fall video

It was almost as inevitable as gravity, really. Rovio has teamed up with NASA to offer a special, Curiosity-themed episode inside Angry Birds Space. The trek has the avians scouring 20 levels of the Martian landscape with a few bonuses thrown in for good measure. Just like your favorite childhood breakfast cereal, there's even a token healthy ingredient -- in this case, a chance for gamers to learn about Curiosity's exploration whenever they're not busy smashing pigs. Android and iOS users can dip into the new chapter right after they update, but that's not even the full extent of Rovio's plans. If the environs of Gale Crater are too limiting, you'll be glad to hear that the game developer is teasing a full-scale Red Planet variant for the fall.

Continue reading Rovio takes Angry Birds Space for a spin with NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover, teases Red Planet for fall (video)

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Rovio takes Angry Birds Space for a spin with NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover, teases Red Planet for fall (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rovio makes a Mighty Eagle’s $68 million in profit in financial squawk

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Rovio has announced that in 2011, it made a huge $106.3 million turnover and a whopping $67.6 million in profit (before tax), showing that flinging feathery fowl is a very serious business. Fueled by the success of Angry Birds, Seasons and Rio, the company grew by a factor of eight in the last year, from 28 employees all the way to 224. The company adds that the three games were downloaded 648 million times and are now used by 200 million daily users, while sales of merchandise contributed to around 30 percent of the total revenue. The report adds that the only barrier to future profits is if people stop buying new smartphones, but we're not sure that's likely to be the case for a while.

Continue reading Rovio makes a Mighty Eagle's $68 million in profit in financial squawk

Rovio makes a Mighty Eagle's $68 million in profit in financial squawk originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 May 2012 15:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Angry Birds Space hits 50 million milestone, smashes it, crushes pigs in the process

Angry Birds Space hits 50 million milestone, smashes it, crushes pig in the process

It helps to be free on the fastest-growing mobile platform, but that shouldn't draw all the attention away from Rovio's latest announcement. It's space-based reinvention of Angry Birds has now topped 50 million downloads in under 35 days, breaking its (and presumably everyone else's) record for mobile game downloads. In Rovios's own way, it recently thanked eager gamers for their consistent downloading support by slathering ten additional levels on both the iOS and Android version last week.

Angry Birds Space hits 50 million milestone, smashes it, crushes pigs in the process originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Playbook joins the Angry Birds Space bandwagon

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To the surprise of no one, Angry Birds Space has ballooned into a casual gaming phenomenon -- a feat that Rovio has somehow managed without the aid of a BlackBerry PlayBook audience. RIM announced today, however, that fans of its deeply discounted tablet can now hop on board the train to space pig payback, for the low, low price of $3, that is, unless you're saving up for that 4G version we've been hearing about...

BlackBerry Playbook joins the Angry Birds Space bandwagon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Pocket Gamer  |  sourceInside BlackBerry, App World  | Email this | Comments