Facebook No. 1 Mobile App Of 2013 But Google Has 5 Of Top 10

Nielsen published a range of year-end data today. Among other things the measurement firm said that 65 percent of American cell phone users now own smartphones. By comparison comScore says the figure is 62 percent. Regardless it means there are now more than 150 million smartphone users in the US.

Nielsen also reported that 29 percent of US households have at least one tablet. If there are roughly 115 million US households that argues there are roughly 33 million tablets in American homes. However this number undercounts the actual number of tablets in the market.

A previous Pew survey found that 35 percent of Americans over 16 owned tablets. The Pew data, if extrapolated, argue that there are more than 80 million tablets (as of September 2013) in US households. After the holidays are over that number could swell to over 100 million.

Not counting iPads and iPod Touch devices, Nielsen found that Apple had a 41 percent OS share of the smartphone market compared with 52 percent for Android. The most recent comScore US smartphone data reflect a very comparable 52.2 percent (Android) to 40.6 percent (Apple).

Nielsen also reported that Facebook was the top mobile app of 2013 and the Facebook-owned Instagram came in seventh but it was the fastest-growing app of the year. The second-fastest growing was Apple Maps.

Google dominated the rest of the list with five out of the top 10 apps. It takes up the most mobile app “shelf space.” Twitter came in at number 10.

Source: http://www.marketingland.com/

Grand Theft Auto V has broken 7 World Records

Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most popular games among people of all the ages, no doubt in it, now also have obtained a certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records.

The records keeping publication of Guinness Book of World Records confirmed on Tuesday that the game sold $800 million in its first day and within 3 days of its launched reached the $1 billion mark.

Let’s now look at the records broken by the Grand Theft Auto V; Best-selling action-adventure video game in 24 hours, Best-selling video game in 24 hours, Fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion, Fastest video game to gross $1 billion, Highest grossing video game in 24 hours, Highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours, Most viewed trailer for an action-adventure video game.

“Gaming is a worldwide hobby of people from all types of ages around the world.” said Craig Glenday, the editor in chief of Guinness Book of World Records. He added, we are really happy to see a game in the record books.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games.

Source: http://www.ghanalive.tv

Grand Theft Auto Franchise Playfully Flicks Mud at Its Birthplace: Scotland

Since its introduction 16 years ago, the wildly popular video game franchise GrandTheft Auto has been set in some of the most recognizable cities in the United States. There were New York, Miami and San Francisco, and in the fifth installment, released to great fanfare this month, Los Angeles.

Yet the roots of the game can be traced directly back to Dundee, a former shipbuilding city in Scotland, better known as the humble home of jam and jute, a vegetable fiber used to make rope and burlap. It is a city that has, instead of the raw urbanity celebrated in the video game, a quaint coastline, as well as a population that prizes irreverence and wit.

“There’s a cultural aspect in the U.K. of not taking other people too seriously,” said Brian Baglow, a writer for the series’ first installment and the head of the Scottish Games Network. “That’s a very large part of why G.T.A. works the way it does.”

He added: “Basically, we’re all just sarcastic. There’s a strong tradition of satire here, which is centuries old. I think that in an American studio, you would run the risk of being entirely serious and straight-faced, whereas there is subversion in G.T.A. all the way through. It’s black humor.”

Grand Theft Auto was created in 1995 by four friends — David Jones, Russell Kay, Steve Hammond and Mike Dailly — in a two-room office above a small shop in Dundee that sold baby clothes.

Mr. Dailly, a programmer, had been toying with the idea of creating a “virtual 3-D city” that would allow players to roam freely and choose their actions. The team initially intended the protagonist to be a police officer, but it quickly scrapped the idea in favor of inhabiting a criminal.

“You just can’t go around running over people if you’re a cop — nobody liked playing the cop,” said Mr. Baglow, an early member of the team.

Fascinated by American gangster films like “Goodfellas” and “Scarface,” the four, who ran a company called DMA Design, based the narratives on their vision of the United States. (At the time, none of them had been there.)

“In the 1980s, Dundee was a shadow of its former self — it wasn’t the nicest of places,” said Mr. Kay, who rewrote the game for consoles. “We didn’t think it would be exciting if the games were set in Dundee.”

Creating the game was a form of escapism, he said: “We made a lot of inside jokes.”

And while the game — which has sold more than 125 million units worldwide since its debut in 1997 — satirizes much of American culture, it is also peppered with Scottish references. San Fierro, a fictional city, features a wealthy district called Calton Heights, after the dilapidated Calton area of Glasgow. San Fierro is also home to the Hippy Shopper chain, a twist on Happy Shopper, a grocery chain with stores in Scotland and Britain. In another city, a Saltire, the blue-and-white national flag, flies over a building. And a racehorse named Scotland Nil alludes to the long, humiliating history of goal-less matches by Scotland’s national soccer team.

DMA Design was eventually sold, through a series of complicated takeovers, to Rockstar Games, a label of the American game publisher Take-TwoInteractive Software, and the Dundee connection was broken. Rockstar Games has eight studios, including Rockstar North, based in Edinburgh, which is responsible for the creative content of Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar North is one of the biggest game developers in Britain, employing 300 people.

Scotland is now the biggest hub for game developers in Britain and among the biggest in Europe, with around 80 developers huddled around Dundee.

While some consider the game Scotland’s greatest cultural export since “Auld Lang Syne,” the game’s louche tone does not resonate with everyone. David Paterson, a councilor for the Scottish town of Hawick, said recently that he was “absolutelydisgusted” at the use of the town’s name for a “druggie hipster” district in its latest installment.

“It is going to destroy the good reputation of this town,” he said.

Still, for those who were there at the game’s beginnings, its sly references to their home bring smiles to their faces.

“These little inside jokes are very clever,” said Mr. Baglow, who is Scottish. “It makes me very happy.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

Windows 8 Gaining Speed Among Desktop OS Web Traffic

Windows8 continues to claw its way up the OS ranks, while Windows XP keeps losing its grip.

Stats released Tuesday by Web tracker Net Applications gave Windows 8 an 8.02 percent slice of all desktop OS Web traffic for September. That number was up from 7.41 percent in August and 5.4 percent in July.

At the same time, Windows XP continues to shed its once-dominant position. For September, XP scored a 31.4 percent share, down from 33.6 percent in August and 37.1 percent in July.

In first place, Windows 7 has shown a resurgence in recent months, taking home a share of 46.4 percent in September, 45.6 percent in August, and 44.4 percent in July.

Windows8.1, which debuted as a preview edition in late June and will officially launch on October 18, accounted for 0.87 percent of September's desktop OS Web traffic. That was up from 0.24 percent the previous month.

In the mobile OS arena, Apple's iOS remained firmly on top last month with a 53.6 percent share. However, its hold on the market has been dropping steadily over the past year, according to Net Applications' data. In September of 2012, iOS's share was more than 63 percent.

Android has been moving slowly up the charts, especially during the past few months. For September, Google's mobile OS captured a share of 29.4 percent, up from 28.1 percent last month and 25.2 percent in July.

Source: http://news.cnet.com

AT&T seeks to defend Austin, Texas, market with faster Internet

(Reuters) - AT&T Inc plans to start speeding up its Internet service in Austin, Texas, in December, to defend itself against a planned ultra-high-speed Internet and television service to be launched by GoogleInc in the same city next year.

Texas' capital city, with a population of 840,000, has a reputation as a high-tech industry hub.

After Google said in April that it would bring a service of 1 gigabit-per-second to Austin users,AT&T followed with a promise to match the offer if it obtained the same regulatory terms granted to Google by local authorities.

AT&T said on Tuesday that it would start by offering a 300 megabits-per-second service in December, and that by mid-2014 the speed would increase to up to 1 gigabit per second. It said this would allow users to download an entire high-definition movie in less than 2 minutes.

The AT&T service promised for December is almost seven times faster than AT&T's fastest existing home broadband offering.

Google had initially billed its first "Google Fiber" broadband offer, launched in Kansas City, Missouri, last year, as a test project to spur development of new Web services and technology.

But it has since suggested that high-speed Internet could be a viable business for the company, causing traditional broadband rivals such as AT&T to prepare a response.

AT&T's chief executive, Randall Stephenson, told investors at a conference on September 24 that AT&T was working on the Austin project and that he expected the company to do "multiple marketslike this over the next few years."

AT&T said it will reach "tens of thousands of customer locations" in Austin and the surrounding areas this year with its new speeds and will expand to more neighborhoods in 2014.

Google's Fiber service, which the company says provides Internet speeds 100 times faster than today's average broadband service, will be available in Austin by mid-2014. Google began offering Fiber in Kansas City in late 2012 and will make the service available in Provo, Utah, by the end of this year.

Source: http://www.reuters.com

Angry Birds: New Angry Birds on Toons.TV Passes 1 Billion Views

Rovio declared it would be increasing its simulation line up after its online-only cartoon entry exceeded 1 billion views after it was launched in March.

The Channel Toons.TV is accessible on all Angry Birds games, video-on-demand and smart TVs services and 20 tv channels all over the world. To go together with the Angry Birds cartoon, Rovio will create a swing of latest data accessible in the next upcoming months in this year.

In addition to the latest season of Angry Birds Toons, two latest Angry Birds-branded sequences are in the works: one concentrating on the Evil Piggies and one concentrating only on the pink bird, Stella.

Toon.Tv is already try out an offering content from Sony pictures. A Five minutes clip of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is made available on Toons.TV ahead of the movie’s release on Friday.

Interview given by CEO, Mikael Hed to Rovio Entertainment at Advertising Week in New York, he quoted, “We are extremely excited about the positive reception from our fans with the original Angry Birds Toons series. Given the size of our reach and our massively engaged audience, it seemed only natural to extend beyond our own storytelling and partner with the best content creators to bring our fans even more fun entertainment,”

Year 2016 is confirmed for an Angry Birds movie produced by Sony Pictures will hit the big screens.Source:http://www.ghanalive.tv

Apple iPhone 5c Review: A Colourful iPhone 5 with Better Battery Life

iPhones have always been aspirational, high-end products, for which people have been prepared to pay a hefty price in order to join the (not particularly exclusive) club. With Apple's 2013 handset launches that approach has changed slightly: the flagship iPhone 5s occupies the traditional premium-product slot, while the iPhone 5c, reviewed here, and comes in for those with less money to spare.

However, pricing is still high compared to the iPhone 5c's many Android-based rivals, with the entry-level 16GB model costing £469 (inc. VAT; £390.83 ex. VAT) SIM-free, rising to £549 (inc. VAT; £457.50 ex. VAT) for the 32GB model. Two-year contract prices from Vodafone, supplier of our review sample, start at £42 a month for a 3G plan with a free handset, or £47 a month for a '4G-ready' plan.

The flagship iPhone 5s costs £549 (inc. VAT) for the 16GB model, £629 for 32GB and £709 for 64GB, while Google's Nexus 4 — perhaps the best-value Android smartphone of the past 12 months — costs £159 (inc. VAT) for the 8GB model and £199 with 16GB of internal storage.

The iPhone 5c may be a budget buy in Apple's terms, but it isn't really one in the broadest sense.

Design

The most obvious innovation in the iPhone 5c is the chassis build, which uses a seamless plastic shell over a steel-reinforced frame. The general design is immediately recognisable as an iPhone, with the telltale home button beneath the screen, rounded corners and Apple logo on the back.

But Apple has decided, for the first time, to produce a handset with a range of pastel-coloured casings in addition to white: you can opt for green, blue, yellow or pink alternatives. There's no black, though. We were sent the pink version, which is unlikely to find its way into many businesses. It's worth noting that the only other handset maker that dares to be as bold with its handset chassis colours is Nokia.

The plastic that's used for the outer shell has a shiny but grip-friendly finish that's not completely scratch resistant. As with previous iPhones, the battery is sealed in behind a non-removable backplate.

The silent-mode switch and volume buttons are on the left edge, while the power switch is on the top. The headset jack is on the bottom edge, alongside the microphone, Lightning connector and speaker. There's a caddy for a nano-SIM on the right edge of the chassis.

The 132g iPhone 5c feels solid and substantial in the hand, yet is quite comfortable to hold — even for people with small hands. It's quite thin at 8.97mm and has a moderate-sized footprint at 59.2mm by 124.4mm.

The Retina display measures just 4 inches across the diagonal, but its 1,136-by-640-pixel resolution makes for a sharp and clear 326-pixel-per-inch (ppi) image. The backlit IPS LCD screen is vibrant and content seems to jump out at you. The iOS 7 feature that sees application icons jiggle about slightly as the phone moves in your hand is a little disconcerting, but it lends a faux 3D appearance to things.

There's nothing new about the screen specification — it's the same as both the iPhone 5s and the now-discontinued iPhone 5. That sets the tone for much of what's on offer here, for the iPhone 5c is essentially a rebadged iPhone 5 in terms of its core specifications.

Features

The iPhone 5c uses the same A6 processor as the iPhone 5. It also sports the same 8-megapixel iSight camera at the back, the same 4-inch Retina screen and the same local- and personal-area wireless connectivity (dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4 respectively).

There are some differences between the iPhone 5 and 5c though. The sensor on the front-facing 1.2-megapixel FaceTime camera has bigger pixels for better low-light performance, for example. The 5c also supports a full set of LTE frequency bands, while the iPhone 5 has limited LTE support. Battery life is better, too, the 5c offering a claimed 10 hours of 3G talk and LTE internet use compared to the 8 hours of each on the iPhone 5. As ever, one person's average usage is another's light use, so it's difficult to be definitive about battery life. Still, if you're a current iPhone 5 user, you should go longer between battery charges with the 5c. During testing, we certainly didn't need to rush off and find mains power during a typical day's use.

The 5c may not be Apple's flagship handset, but its price sets it apart from mid-range offerings from other vendors — and for the money, its feature set is a little bland. Apple has saved its iTouch fingerprint scanner for the top-end iPhone 5s, for example, and we're surprised there's no place for Near Field Communications (NFC) here (or on the 5s for that matter). And while some people dislike the huge array of extras with which Samsung peppers its handsets, we'd have appreciated a little more innovation from Apple on the iPhone 5c.

OS upgrade: iOS 7

The main innovation work with this refresh cycle has gone into building iOS 7, of course — but that's not exclusive to the new iPhones. Apple's new mobile OS is downloadable to the iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, and the 5th-generation iPod Touch — although not all devices get the full gamut of features. This is not the place for a full review of iOS 7, but it's worth noting some key points.

iOS 7 has had a complete visual makeover. Apple follows the chassis colour through to the iOS 7 theme, and the overall design is flatter, cleaner and leaner. Third-party apps are already starting to follow suit. There are plenty of new features, including a swipe-up settings area that you can set to be accessible from the lock screen and which, among its features, lets you use the camera's LED flash as a torch.

A new app switcher appears when you double-tap the home key, letting you see everything that's running and sweep anything upwards off the screen to close it. There are many other changes under the surface that add new features and enhance older ones.

LTE ('4G') support is likely to be a key draw for some users, and if that's the case then it's worth checking your chosen operator's coverage. Our iPhone 5c review sample came from Vodafone, where it's available with Spotify or Sky Sports Mobile TV preinstalled. If you sign up for the handset before the end of October, you get 4GB of 4G data added to your contract for its duration. Vodafone's UK 4G rollout currently only covers London. At the end of September Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield will be added. By the end of the year 4G coverage will also include Bradford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle.

Conclusion

The iPhone 5c's colourful appearance puts it firmly in the consumer camp, although the relatively sober white version is certainly an option for business users. If you're an existing iPhone user and weren't tempted by the iPhone 5, then the 5c is worth considering as an upgrade. However, iPhone 5 owners should think carefully: there's very little difference between the core specifications of the two handsets, and iOS 7 is just a download away.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com