Christmas downloads for Angry Birds: 6.5 million
The mobile gaming phenomenon that is Angry Birds showed no signs of slowing down over the holidays, with Rovio’s Ville Heijari telling the Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD blog the series racked up 6.5 million downloads on Christmas Day alone.
The number, which includes paid and free downloads of the original "Angry Birds" as well as sequels "Angry Birds Rio" and "Angry Birds Seasons," is well above the 1 million download a day average Rovio reported in June, but just a drop in the bucket compared to over 500 million total downloads for the series since the first game was released just over two years ago. Read more...
Practical tips for working over the holidays
Our work lives are creeping into our holiday time as mobile devices become an extension of our offices. More than half of office workers are planning to crank out some work over the winter holidays this year, according to a recent survey by presentation app maker SlideRocket. If you're one of them, use these tech tips to keep your life organized away from the office and maintain your sanity.
1. Plan your time in advance
Don't plan to work during certain hours each day, unless you absolutely must be on call. Instead, schedule the time that you need for your tasks, and do them when you can find the time. Family members may want to go shopping, old friends may want to catch up over a coffee, and just about anything else can happen over the holidays. To help you organize your time, Gtask syncs with Google Calendar and brings the power of Gmail Task to Android phones. While pricey compared with similar apps, Omnifocus comes highly recommended for the iPad and iPhone as an extremely useful, task-based productivity app. If you need a ticking clock to help, check out a software timer. Read more...
‘Tis the season for ‘ambient hangouts’
In the future, widely distributed consumer technology will enable your family and friends to be right there with you during the holidays, even if they're on the other side of the world.
Technology will open a virtual window from your living room directly into the homes of your loved ones. Everyone will be able to open and close this window whenever they like. Families celebrating Christmas at the same time but in different homes will be able to unite and celebrate together.
Grandparents will watch their grandchildren open presents. Your New Year's Eve Party in San Francisco will feature a virtual window to parties in Chicago and New York as well. Holiday dinners will be shared across continents. People in the military will be able to open a window directly into the homes of their families back home.
When I say "in the future," I mean over the next few days. The technology is here. It's free. In fact, you've already got it. Read more...
House committee to push ahead on SOPA
The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will continue its hearing on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on Wednesday, not until after Congress' holiday break, as originally believed.
Late Friday, Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and committee chairman, scheduled a continuation of the hearing to amend the bill for this Wednesday at 9 a.m., even though many members of the committee may be out of town for the holidays. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and opponent of the bill, tweeted the hearing announcement late Friday.
At the urging of some SOPA opponents, Smith said Friday he will consider a hearing or a classified briefing on the bill's impact on cybersecurity. More than 80 Internet engineers and cybersecurity experts have raised security concerns about the bill, which would require Internet service providers and domain name registrars to block the domain names of foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. Read more...