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Tag: Games

  • Flappy Bird Creator Returns with Another Impossible Game

    Flappy Bird Creator Returns with Another Impossible Game

    Dong Nguyen, the guy who created one of the most addictive and polarizing mobile games in recent memory and then yanked it out from under everyone, has just launched his follow up effort.

    Swing Copters is now available on iOS and Android, and it borrows some of the same look and feel of Nguyen’s crack-like offering, Flappy Bird.

    Swing Copters is a lot like Flappy Bird, in that you must tap on your screen to control a rather hard-to-control character, guiding it through gates without touching the sides. While the motion in Flappy Bird moves side to side and your taps make the character fly up or down, Swing Copters scrolls vertically and your taps affect the little guy’s horizontal motion.

    I sucked at Flappy Bird and I also suck at Swing Copters. Like its predecessor, Swing Copter is kind of tough to get the hang of.

    Let’s be real – Swing Copters is nearly impossible. Like Flappy Bird, there is a very steep learning curve.

    But will it prove to be as addictive as Flappy Bird? When Nguyen yanked Flappy Bird from the App Store earlier this year, he said that its “addictiveness” was one of the reasons he decided to pull the plug – even though he was reportedly raking in upwards of $50,000 a day in revenue (thanks to in-game ads).

    In May, Nguyen said he would bring back Flappy Bird, with multiplayer, in August. Well, it’s August and instead we have a new, Flappy Bird-esque game. Go play it now, but don’t expect to feel anything but frustration.

    Image via Swing Copters, iTunes

  • Over 1 Billion Online Usernames, Passwords Reportedly Stolen

    Wow, this is a big one.

    A first reported by The New York Times, Hold Security discovered that a Russian crime ring has stolen 1.2 billion user name and passwords combinations and over 500 million email addresses from 420,000 websites “including household names and small Internet sites”. The Times reports:

    Hold Security would not name the victims, citing nondisclosure agreements and a reluctance to name companies whose sites remained vulnerable. At the request of The New York Times, a security expert not affiliated with Hold Security analyzed the database of stolen credentials and confirmed it was authentic. Another computer crime expert who had reviewed the data, but was not allowed to discuss it publicly, said some big companies were aware that their records were among the stolen information.

    Compromised sites include some here in the U.S. as well as some based in Russia itself. According to Hold Security, most of the sites involved are still vulnerable.

    A message on Hold Security’s site says:

    You have been hacked! Over the past 18 months, this was our conversation starter with many companies and individuals. Helping our clients prevent breaches or find their stolen data is our business. If you have been following information security, or even if you haven’t, you have probably heard of Hold Security and our work. In October 2013, we identified a data breach with Adobe Systems. Later in December that year, we independently identified and tracked the Target breach and in February 2014 we identified over 360 million stolen credentials trafficked on the black market. Overall, Hold Security played a role in identifying and helping victims with most of the largest breaches.

    In the latest development, Hold Security’s Deep Web Monitoring practice in conjunction with our Credential Integrity Services discovered what could be arguably the largest data breach known to date.

    Whether you are a computer expert or a technophobe, as long as your data is somewhere on the World Wide Web, you may be affected by this breach. Your data has not necessarily been stolen from you directly. It could have been stolen from the service or goods providers to whom you entrust your personal information, from your employers, even from your friends and family.

    They’re calling the Russian gang, which they say still has possession of the stolen data, “CyberVor”. The 1.2 billion credentials are just the unique ones taken from a whopping 4.5 billion records altogether. The 420,000 compromised sites includes FTP sites.

    According to Hold Security, the gang acquired databases of stolen credentials from other hackers on the black market. These, it says, were used to attack email providers, social media, and other sites to distribute spam to victims and install malicious redirections on legitimate systems. Later, they got access to data from botnet networks and SQL injection.

    “The CyberVors did not differentiate between small or large sites,” the firm says. “They didn’t just target large companies; instead, they targeted every site that their victims visited. With hundreds of thousands sites affected, the list includes many leaders in virtually all industries across the world, as well as a multitude of small or even personal websites.”

    They encourage companies to check if their sites (including auxiliary sites) are susceptible to SQL injection. They then use the opportunity to plug their new “Breach Notification Service,” which charges you $10 a month or $20 a year to monitor your site for vulnerability.

    In fact, some see this as a bit shady.

    Kashmir Hill at Forbes writes, “It’s certainly in the interest of any security firm to portray the state of cybersecurity as dire to make their wares more appealing, and that’s something any reader should keep in mind when reading quotes from a security professional. But this is a pretty direct link between a panic and a pay-out for a security firm. Yes, I expect security firms to make money for making the Internet more secure, but I am skeptical of a firm with a financial incentive in creating a panic to be the main source for a story that causes a panic. If nothing else, it should be disclosed in the New York Times story that the firm that reported a major breach hoped to directly profit from it. We don’t just need hashed passwords salted, we need grains of salt in our reporting around security.”

    Those who watched the recent John Oliver bit on native advertising (which specifically talks about The New York Times) might be going back to look at the NYT piece for indication of a sponsored post. There doesn’t appear to be one.

    Meanwhile, Hold Security is also offering a service to individuals.

    Image via Facebook

  • Angry Birds Transformers Mash-up Is a Real Thing That’s Happening

    Because the world needed the word ‘Deceptihog’, Rovio and Hasbro have teamed up once again to bring you a new Angry Birds mashup that will spawn a new game, a new product line, and more branded toys.

    This time, it’s the Transformers.

    “We’re really excited to combine the iconic Transformers universe with the quirky world of Angry Birds” said Blanca Juti, Chief Marketing Officer of Rovio. “This mash-up is going to appeal to those who grew up with the brand in the 80s, as well as fans of the brand today. People are going to love it!”

    Yes, there will be ‘Autobirds’ and “Deceptihogs’.

    “Angry Birds Transformers provides fans worldwide with a fun, new story and characters, and innovative ways, like our TELEPODS platform, for consumers to engage with the brand” said John Frascotti, Chief Marketing Officer at Hasbro. “We collaborated with Rovio to create opportunities for kids and families to experience Autobirds and Deceptihogs across multiple formats and entertainment platforms, for a completely immersive branded experience.”

    No word yet on exactly when the new Angry Birds Transformer mobile app will launch, but there’s a teaser site you can go check out right now. Other than a big graphic, all you’ll find is the tagline Birds disguised as robots in disguise.

    Image via Hasbro, Twitter

  • Orange Is The New Black Meets Flappy Bird for Wonderful Time-Waster

    Orange Is The New Black Meets Flappy Bird for Wonderful Time-Waster

    Today, Netflix dropped an entire new season of their hit show Orange Is The New Black in our laps – 13 episodes ready to stream whenever you’re ready.

    Here’s the thing – most of us are at work. Damn.

    While you might not be committed to watching entire episodes of television in order to shirk whatever responsibilities you have at work, you may be willing to play a little OITNB-inspired game to pass the time?

    If you want to neglect your duties, Netflix has made an addictive little time-waster called Feisty Chicken. You can play it here.

    Feisty Chicken is a complete Flappy Bird clone, except the flappy bird has been replaced with that infamous chicken. You know the one. You must weave the chicken through gaps in a prison wall via careful clicks of your mouse. It’s hard, and addictive – just like the game on which it is based.

    Image via Netflix, Feisty Chicken

  • ‘Terminator 2’ Truck Chase Gets a Shot for Shot GTA Remake

    You know how there are some things that just make you happy? No, not the obvious things like beer, money, and grilled meat. I mean those times when you’re just delighted by something, inexplicably?

    This is one of those times.

    I guess it’s wrong to call my delight totally inexplicable. I think that it comes down to knowing that people took the time to do this. Of all the things in the world they could have done, they decided to remake, in Grand Theft Auto 5, one of the most classic chase scenes from one of the best flicks in history.

    You know the semi chase in Terminator 2: Judgment Day? Well, here it is, painstakingly recreated nearly shot-for-shot in the GTA universe.

    “It mostly took a lot of time because I wanted to try to make it exact. Yes I may have missed some small scenes but damn we worked hard on this from the actual setting up, to the directing, to the editing so please give it a look,” says creator John Chapman.

    I’d say they did a pretty damn good job.

    Image via John Chapman, YouTube

  • Lance Armstrong Gets Perfect Card in Cards Against Humanity. You Know the One.

    Lance Armstrong Gets Perfect Card in Cards Against Humanity. You Know the One.

    On October 2nd, 1996, professional cyclist Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer. On October 3rd, he underwent an orchiectomy to remove his cancerous testicle. Armstrong’s cancer had already spread to other parts of his body, and things looked grim. But as we all know, Lance Armstrong survived his battle with cancer, created a pretty dopey yellow bracelet, won a few gajillion Tour de Frances, and was eventually outed for his use of performance enhancing drugs.

    Cards Against Humanity is an incredibly popular party game that has players match answer cards with question cards. Cards Against Humanity shares some gameplay aspects to another popular game, Apples to Apples, where a question card receives answer cards from all players, and the “reader” decides the best answer of the bunch. But the thing about CAH is that it’s terrible, depraved, disgusting, and hilarious. It’s self-described as “a game for horrible people,” and as despicable and awkward–just like you and your friends.

    On May 18th, 2014, Lance Armstrong and Cards Against Humanity matched up in an absolutely beautiful moment.

    Behold…

    What a truly wonderful time to be alive, folks.

    Image via Lance Armstrong, Twitter

  • Rubik’s Cube Invention Celebrated with Playable Google Doodle

    Today, Google is celebrating one of the most ubiquitous and frustrating puzzle toys ever conceived–the Rubik’s Cube. Originally called the Magic Cube, the Rubik’s Cube celebrates its 40th birthday this spring. Google has honored the occasion with a (you guessed it) playable Doodle on its homepage.

    Hungarian inventor and architecture professor Ernő Rubik invented his now-famous puzzle in 1974, but was not marketed worldwide until 1980 when it was licensed to the Ideal Toy Corp. Though the 1980s were the complex puzzle game’s heyday, the Rubik’s Cube remains popular today. In fact, with well over 350 million units sold, the Rubik’s Cube is the most-popular puzzle game of all time.

    Of course, it’s also one of the hardest for those who pick it up without first devising a strategy. The goal of the game is to twist and turn each face of the multicolored cube until each side sports only one color. The standard model has nine individual squares on each face of the cube, with six colors: red, white, yellow, blue green, and orange.

    The popularity of the original cube has spawned many variations–additional colors, bigger cubes (like a 5×5 model, instead of the traditional 3×3). But the original Rubik’s Cube remains the gold standard of puzzle games.

    Though some people will go through their whole life without ever successfully completing a Rubik’s Cube, there is a whole culture of record-seekers that are obsessed with shaving seconds off their cube times. The fastest a human being has ever solved a Rubik’s Cube is 5.55 seconds (more than two seconds slower than the fastest robot, by the way). Other Rubik’s Cube competitions include blindfolded solving, underwater solving, and solving with the feet. The record for the former, if you’re interested, was set last year and is an impressive 23.8 seconds.

    The iconic toy is said to have over 43 quintillion permutations.

    Google’s Doodle on its homepage today is playable, making it even harder to concentrate on a Monday. Google counts your moves too, which shows quite a bit of faith in the average Google user. After fumbling around with it for a while, I looked down to see my move count approaching triple digits.

    If you’re having trouble solving Google’s Rubik’s Cube, there are thousands of tutorials available on YouTube.

    Image via Google

  • Flappy Bird Returning in August with Multiplayer

    As 2014 was just beginning, a new craze was taking over the smartphone-using world. It was a simple, addictive, yet highly difficult little game called Flappy Bird. It became such a sensation that its creator, Dong Nguyen, decided he “just couldn’t take it anymore” and decided to pull it from the App Store. Near riots ensued (or as close as you can get on the internet), and people demanded that he put it back up for download.

    About a month passed, and Nguyen tweeted that he would bring back Flappy Bird–but not soon.

    Now, he has confirmed to CNBC’s Kelly Evans that August is the date, and when it comes back he’d like it to have multiplayer.

    Also, he says that he wants to make it “less addictive,” as people’s level of obsession was apparently one of the reasons he decided to pull the plug back in February–even though he claimed he was raking in upwards of $50,000 a day in revenue.

    Prepare yourselves for a whole new round of crippling frustration.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Microsoft Adds New Features To Outlook.com

    Microsoft Adds New Features To Outlook.com

    Microsoft announced on Tuesday the addition of new Advanced Rules, new Undo functionality, in-line replies, and more personal messaging. It calls its advanced rules the most sophisticated rules in webmail.

    Users can create multi-condition and multi-action rules, and set their inboxes to organize automatically. Advanced rules can be combined with existing rules and customized. There are some optional conditions that come with the rules, including constraints, email tallying, checking read/unread state of emails, and checking if the sender is a contact you know.

    Microsoft gives this example:

    If an unread email is older than 3 days and is from one of your contacts, mark it as important and flag it.

    The new undo functionality is available with the following commands: delete, categorize, flag, mark as junk, and move. It works for one email or for a whole group. Just click the undo button or hit Ctrl+Z.

    The in-line reply feature lets you directly respond to an email thread without launching a new view.

    “One thing we heard from customers was that starting a chat session with friends wasn’t as easy to find as it could be, so we’ve made several improvements to the experience,” says Mike Schackwitz on the Outlook.com blog. Find recent conversations and other contacts you can chat with in the bottom left of your inbox. One click will launch you straight into a conversation with them; If you’re chatting with a friend on one service, but want to continue the talk on another service, now you can switch over from right inside the chat session.”

    “You can now browse your People by filtering what service they’re using (Skype, Facebook etc.),” he adds. “You can even see who’s currently available–Icons will now appear alongside names, so you know who’s able to Video, Call or just chat.”

    All the features are rolling out over the course of the next few weeks.

    Image via Microsoft

  • Google Trends Adds Email Notifications

    Google just announced that it’s adding email notifications to Google Trends. You can subscribe to any topic, hot searches for any country, or any U.S. monthly top chart.

    You can also get notifications about search interest in any topic.

    “I’m a Liverpool F.C. fan, so I set up a subscription to get notifications about searches for the team,” says Google software engineer Gavri Smith. “I don’t always have as much time as I’d like to keep on the daily scores, trades and gossip, so Trends email notifications have been a great way to make sure I catch the big news. For example, this week I got an email telling me searches for Liverpool F.C. spiked by 169%(!)”

    “Seeing this email I immediately got excited to find out what the buzz was about,” Smith says. “Looking at Google Trends, I can see this is the biggest spike in the past year by far. As football fans know, this week Liverpool F.C. beat Manchester City. It turns out this is the team’s 10th straight victory and puts them in striking distance of a championship title for the first time in 24 years. Busily working away on this feature, I didn’t realize just how big a deal this was, and the email from Trends was a great reminder to tune in.”

    This should make a fine addition to Google’s Alerts offering. There’s a new “Subscriptions” section on Google Trends, where you can set up the ones you want to get. It’s unclear if there’s a limit to how many you can set up.

    Image via Google

  • Email Marketing Best Online Channel For ROI [Report]

    Email Marketing Best Online Channel For ROI [Report]

    Econsultancy has released its 8th annual Email Marketing Industry Census, based on what it says is the largest UK survey of email marketers. It finds that revenue from email has increased by 28% in one year.

    68% of companies rated email marketing as “good” or “excellent,” making it the best-ranked channel compared to SEO, content marketing, paid search, online direct marketing, social media, affiliate marketing, mobile marketing and online display advertising.

    “This marks a 3% increase since last year, while the previously highest ranked digital marketing channel, search engine optimisation, dropped 8%, possibly due to the effect of ‘not provided’ keyword data,” says Econsultancy’s Graham Charlton.

    This is how respondents rated each channel:

    According to the report, companies are attributing 23% of their total sales to email marketing, up 18% from last year. 24%, it says, attribute 30% or more of their sales to email marketing (up from 18% two years ago).

    You can download a sample of the report for free from here, but the whol 92-page document is going to cost you nearly $700.

    Image via Econsultancy

  • Gamers May Actually Prefer Freemium, Shows Report

    For the past few years a new pricing model has begun creeping into the games industry. Beginning on mobile devices, the so-called “freemium” model gives players a taste of a game for free while plastering the title with ads or holding back crucial gameplay elements or items behind paywalls.

    For some developers the freemium model has been a fantastic success. Games such as Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans have become cash cows for their developers through sales of optional power-ups or other in-game resources. The Angry Birds franchise grew on the back of large in-game ad banners. And now the freemium model is beginning to show up on PC and console game titles, often in multiplayer titles such as League of Legends.

    Despite protests from the traditional gaming crowd that most freemium titles are, by definition, broken and manipulative, the money these titles can bring in tells a different story: many gamers prefer their games to be free. A new report from research firm IHS and website WildTangent today confirmed as much.

    The report shows that 86% of WildTangent gamers surveyed by those companies prefer games to be free but with ads rather than pay upfront for a game without ads. Another 79% of those surveyed stated that they “like” receiving virtual items from ad clicks.

    The companies using the freemium model are seeing encouraging statistics as well. Value exchange ads in games were seen to increase the number of times players put extra money into a game by 120%. In-game ads are also more interactive, with the survey showing that game ads account for two times as many post-ad actions as live TV ads.

    Of course, these results mirror a segment of the gaming community that is already playing freemium games and in many cases does not have much experience with game titles outside of the casual mobile or online titles. Even so, the group makes up a growing contingent of overall gamers that will only grow as growth in the tablet and smartphone markets continues.

    “The research shows that gamers embrace value exchange ads, which demonstrates the progress the industry has made with advertising in and around video games,” said Christine Arrington, senior games analyst at IHS. “As gamers become more accustomed to in-game advertising, it becomes essential for brand marketers to find creative ways to use value exchange advertising while developers must ensure gamers have easy access to these offers.”

  • Here’s 8 Hours Of Google Developer Day At GDC. Go Wild. [Video]

    Here’s 8 Hours Of Google Developer Day At GDC. Go Wild. [Video]

    Google held (and livestreamed) its Developer Day at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco yesterday. The recording, which is over 8 hours long, is now up for all to view.

    Dig in.

    Below is the full agenda via the GDC site, so you know what your’e in for.

    10:00-10:15am
    Developer Day Kick-Off

    10:15-10:45am
    Growth Hacking with Play Games
    Let’s look at how you can harness the incredible growth of Google Play Games to rapidly expand the user base of your game, and how Play Games assists in discovery, engagement and retention.

    10:45-11:15am
    Engaging Your Entire Community
    Your player community is stronger when they can all play together. So why are you needlessly dividing them up into arbitrary groups across screens and devices? Let’s look at how Google Play Games is letting all of your players play together as one big happy family.

    11:15-11:30am Break

    11:30-12:00pm
    Making Money on Google Play: Best Practices in Monetization
    To be successful, you need to learn from the best. This talk will review commercially successful games on Google Play and common themes they share.

    12:00-12:30pm
    Grow Your Game Revenue with AdMob
    Google advertisers spend more ad dollars in games than any other type of app! Discover how you can maximize your game’s earnings with awesome ads and recent innovations from AdMob.

    12:30-1:20pm Lunch

    1:20-1:45pm
    Okay Glass, Play a Game

    1:45-2:15pm
    The Next Level of In-game Advertising
    Ever wonder how the mobile ads ecosystem works and how ads reach your game’s inventory?

    Join us to learn the inner workings of programmatic and direct sales advertising, including an overview of the tools you can use to take your in-game advertising revenue to the next level.

    2:15-2:30pm Break

    2:30-3:00pm
    From Players to Customers: Tracking Revenue with Google Analytics
    What makes your players spend in your game? Who are your high value users and how do they play your game? Learn how Google Analytics can help you find the insights for the users that matter the most for you.

    3:00-3:30pm
    Take Your Users to the Next Level
    Small tweaks to your game can result in significant revenue increase. However you cannot rely only on personal opinions; hypotheses need to be confirmed by users. In this session you will learn how to use Google SDKs to control experiments and configuration without shipping a new version of your app.

    3:30-4:00pm
    Build Games that Scale in the Cloud
    Your game is a living, breathing creation that takes a lot of time and attention even after launch. So why worry about your technical infrastructure? Come hear how to build games that scale that run on Google’s state-of-the-art infrastructure.

    4:00-4:20pm Coffee Break

    4:20-4:35pm
    Looking to the Future

    4:35-5:00pm
    From Box2D to Liquid Fun: Just Add Water-like Particles!
    LiquidFun, Google’s new extension to Box2D, adds realistic fluid physics to any game. We’ll show how it works, and explore how it can enliven your next game with gooey, sticky, powdery, or jelly-like fun!

    5:00-5:25pm
    Bringing the Power of YouTube to your Games

    5:25-5:45pm
    Texture Wranglin’ : Getting your Android Game Assets Under Control
    Bloated APKs make customers sad, and with >60% of sizes coming from textures, it’s easy to see the culprit. Get your texture footprint back under control. This talk will focus on advanced processing techniques to reduce PNG sizes; Migration to GPU formats, as well as WEBP; and advanced techniques for compressing sprite animations.

    5:45-6:00pm Wrap Up

    Image via YouTube

  • Flappy Bird Is Coming Back, Says Developer

    Wednesday, when asked on Twitter whether he’d ever put Flappy Bird back in the App Store, the games creator Dong Nguyen responded with the answer that many former addicts wanted to hear: Yes.

    Of course, this all rests on Nguyen and him, you know, not lying and stuff–but as far as straight from the horse’s mouth, you can’t get any clearer than an unequivocal “yes.”

    But not soon. Nguyen has continued to answer Twitter users’ questions this afternoon, but made no additional reference to Flappy Bird. It does look like he has at least one other game in the pipeline.

    Earlier this year, it was nearly impossible to avoid the Flappy Bird phenomenon. A seemingly basic, even comically stripped down game took over people’s lives. It was addicting, not to mention difficult as all hell. The popularity of the game clearly took Nguyen by surprise, and he made the decision to pull the app from the App Store.

    People were pissed about it, and that’s the understatement of the year.

    “I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore,” said Nguyen on February 8th. “It is not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore.”

    But it looks like Nguyen has had a change of heart. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Flappy Bird was raking in $50,000 a day during the craze, according to some reports.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Should Scrabble Add ‘Selfie’ to the Official Dictionary?

    Scrabble and Merriam-Webster are about to publish the first new edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary in over 9 years, and they want Facebook users to vote on one word that they must have included.

    Fans of the game have until March 28th to cast their vote for the word that they most want added to the new edition of the dictionary. They can do this by nominating words in the comments section of this post, as well as liking their favorite “new” words.

    As of right now, some of the suggested words include “selfie,” “photobomb,” “emoji,” and “amazeballs.”

    I vote OK to “selfie,” I mean, it was the word of the year in 2013. I think I’m done with scrabble if my friends are able to play amazeballs–however, given the fact that it’s a 10 letter word, that would be quite the impressive play. Please god, anything but “twerk.”

    Post by Hasbro Game Night.

    “The Scrabble Word Showdown will let fans nominate and vote on words that are fun and relevant for today’s players,” said Jonathan Berkowitz, vice president of marketing at Hasbro. “We are excited to see which word rises to the top and makes its way into The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.”

    Scrabble and Merriam-Webster haven’t update the official Scrabble Players Dictionary in a long time–the fourth edition was published way back in June of 2005. At that time, they added a couple of words that I’m sure have made your Scrabble experiences a lot more enjoyable- “qi” and “za.”

    It’s kind of a bummer that they’re only letting the fans choose one new word–especially considering the fifth edition of the players dictionary will sport “thousands” of new words. But hey–this is a challenge ripe for manipulation. I know a few online communities with the ability to sway a vote. Start scouting urban dictionary for your favorite words, reddit.

    Image via Hasbro, Facebook

  • Now There’s A Matt Cutts Whack-A-Mole Game

    Now There’s A Matt Cutts Whack-A-Mole Game

    So remember that Matt Cutts Donkey Kong game from a few weeks ago? That has inspired a new Matt Cutts Whack-A-Mole game, in which (you guessed it) you get to whack Matt Cutts with a gavel over and over again.

    A number of fun quotes from Cutts play in the background while you whack.

    This one comes from LoveMyVouchers, which says on its site:

    Inspired by Donkey Cutts, which was recently created by NetVoucherCodes, we decided to have a go at making our own game in order to help out frustrated webmasters and SEOs everywhere. As Matt Cutts himself said recently in an interview, “You never want to play whack a mole with a spammer”, and this got us thinking that there must be many people out there who would like to play whack a mole with him.

    What with the constant influx of updates from Google these days and a constantly shifting set of rules to play by, running and promoting your website is becoming more and more difficult. However, this light-hearted flash game should help to reduce your stress levels, if only for a minute or two.

    Matt even played it himself:

    Have fun.

    Personally, I’m waiting for someone to take dino-Cutts and make a Rampage-style game.

    Image via LoveMyVouchers

  • Nobody Was Using Facebook Email, So It’s Going Away

    Remember back in 2010 when Facebook launched the social inbox and Facebook email addresses for users? Mark Zuckerberg said at the time, “This is not an email killer.”

    He meant it.

    The company is now retiring the @facebook.com email address for users, and is forwarding any email sent to the user’s Facebook address to their primary email address used for the account. Some users have been getting messages that say:

    When someone sends you an email at that address, it will no longer go to your Messages on Facebook. Instead, the email will be forwarded to the primary email address on your account.

    We’re making this change because most people haven’t been using their Facebook email addresses, and we wanted to make it easier to view all your emails in one place. Plus, we can focus on improving our mobile messaging experience for everyone.

    The Verge, which confirmed the retiring of the feature with the company, suggests that now anybody will be able to get emails into your real inbox by figuring out your Facebook address.

    The company generated a bit of a stir a couple years ago when it began listing Facebook email addresses as users’ default addresses.

    Image via Facebook

  • Gmail Is Adding An Unsubscribe Link To The Top Of Marketing Emails

    Gmail Is Adding An Unsubscribe Link To The Top Of Marketing Emails

    Google is reportedly adding a new “prominent” unsubscribe link to the top of marketing emails, potentially driving a lot more unsubscribes for businesses. It was announced on Thursday at a conference in San Francisco.

    According to a report from PCWorld, the link will appear at the top of the message next to the name and email address of the sender. In other words, if you put an unsub link at the bottom of your marketing emails, you won’t be making it any less likely that a recipient will unsubscribe, at least in Gmail.

    Many marketers will no doubt see this as another blow from Google, which last year, already made it much less likely that users will even see their emails in the first place. Gmail added a new tabbed inbox style, which includes a Promotions tab, where marketing emails go to never be seen again. Ask Groupon.

    Google says the new unsub link could help businesses, however, by giving users an easy opt-out without reporting the email as spam, which would make it more likely that future emails would appear in users’ spam folders. PCWorld quotes a couple of Googlers:

    “One of the biggest problems with the Gmail spam filter is identifying unwanted mail or soft spam,” said Google’s Vijay Eranti, who heads anti-abuse efforts at Gmail. The issue, he said, is that sometimes customers opt into a company’s send-to list but later decide they don’t want the emails. And if they can’t find the unsubscribe button, sometimes they mark the message as spam.

    …

    “We want our users to not have spam, and we also want you to reach the user,” Elie Bursztein, who leads Google’s anti-abuse research, told conference attendees.

    This week, Google also launched a new search feature in Gmail, enabling users to search by file size:


    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • ‘Flappy Bird’ Knockoff Apps Being Rejected by Apple

    After Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen announced he was pulling his addictive game from the Apple App Store and Google Play, which prompted reactions that varied from outraged to threatening, quite a few games have popped up that are very similar to Flappy Bird. Considering that Flappy Bird was bringing in $50,000 per day for Nguyen, it’s no surprise that others are trying to capitalize on the game’s success, but Apple is now rejecting games with the word “Flappy” in the title.

    If you searched for the word “flappy” in the Apple App Store a couple of weeks ago, you would have found quite a few games with the word “Flappy” in the title. Flappy Bee, Flappy Puppy, Flappy Rabbits and Flappy Plane are just a few of the games that would have popped up.

    The same search now doesn’t yield many results with “Flappy” in the name at all, and this is because Apple is now rejecting new apps that have the word “Flappy” in them. According to Tech Crunch, some developers have gotten a rejection notice from Apple for violating the App Store Review Guidelines with their submissions. Developer Ken Carpenter says that Apple rejected his game Flappy Dragon for the following reasons:

    22.2: Apps that contain false, fraudulent or misleading representations will be rejected
    22.2 We found that your app, and/or its metadata, contains content that could be misleading to users, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.
    We found your app name attempts to leverage a popular app.

    This move is infuriating many developers. Check out tweets on the matter from Carpenter and mobile game developer Kuyi Mobile below.

    Carpenter certainly raises a point about Apple rejecting his game–how is it possible for these games to violate the rules since Flappy Bird doesn’t exist in the App Store anymore? Perhaps Apple should leave it up to Dong Nguyen to decide whether he wants to pursue litigation against the developers.

    Even if Apple is successful in getting rid of the games with “Flappy” in the title, don’t expect similar games to go away anytime soon. Many developers are now removing “Flappy” from their game names to get around the “Flappy” word ban (Flappy Bee was changed to Jumpy Bee). Splashy Fish is the number one free app in the Apple App Store, followed behind Flying Cyrus (no, it doesn’t have “Flappy” or an animal in the name, but the setup is similar and hilarious), and City Bird is in the number four spot.

    Image via Twitter

  • King, The Company Behind ‘Candy Crush,’ Files For IPO

    King Digital Entertainment, the company behind the massively popular Candy Crush Saga and other games, announced that it has filed for an initial public offering.

    The company said on Tuesday that it has filed a registration statement on Form F-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed IPO of its ordinary shares.

    The number of shares and the price are yet to be determined, but the company said it intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “KING”.

    Here are some graphics from the filling:

    J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse and OfA Merrill Lynch are acting as joint lead book-running managers and representatives of the underwriters for the offering. Additoinally, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and RBC Capital Markets are acting as joint book-running managers.

    The date of the proposed IPO is listed in the filing as “as soon as practicable after this Registration Statement becomes effective.”

    It’s unclear what effect any of this will have on how many times per day you’re invited by Facebook friends to play Candy Crush Saga.

    Images via SEC.gov

  • The ‘GoldenEye’ Telescope Sustained Serious Damage in an Earthquake

    Fans of the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye (and the subsequent N64 game) no doubt know the Arecibo Observatory as the “cradle.”

    The famous movie set is actually a 1,000-ft. radio telescope, the largest single-aperture telescope in world. The giant platform is suspended hundreds of feet above the dish by 18 cables, which are attached to three concrete towers.

    Well, one of those cables was recently damaged.

    According to the observatory, the cable was damaged during the 6.4 magnitude earthquake and subsequent 70 or more aftershocks that hit Puerto Rico back in January. Although the earthquake didn’t cause any known injuries, it did cause structural damage to nearby buildings and major power outages.

    And now we learn that it also damaged The GoldenEye cradle. Damn you Mother Nature.

    “That cable segment and splice near the top of one of the telescope towers was consequently more rigid than the balance of the suspension system,” director Bob Kerr told Universe Today. “When the earthquake shook the site, just after midnight on January 13, it is that short cable and splice that suffered damage.”

    Apparently, the cable in question was already a known issue since it was actually made of two cables that had been spliced together during construction.

    The Arecibo radio telescope was completed in 1963. It is used in radar astronomy, aeronomy, and radio astronomy.

    Images via Wikimedia Commons