Say what you will about the Angry Birds franchise of games and its relative merits, it looks like it’s here to stay. How do we know?

Well, the company that produces the series of games, Rovio, announced on Monday that the company’s latest Angry Birds installment, Angry Birds Space, has been downloaded 50 Million times in just 35 days, making it the fastest growing mobile game of all time. In the same announcement the company also hinted that “something even bigger is on its way.” What that is, we can’t imagine. The Pigs strike back perhaps? We’ll see.

If you haven’t had a chance to play Angry Birds Space yet, you should. It was released on March 22 for iOS, Android, Mac OS X and Windows so you should have no trouble finding a platform to enjoy it on. Besides, it’s quite fun to play.

In fact, we would go so far to say it’s probably the most fun of the Angry Birds franchise since the original. For more on the game, check out the video after the break.

Continue Reading →

Much like you can pretty much count on things like death and taxes, you can also count on new versions of Microsoft’s Windows OS to come along. You can also count on their being some confusion regarding the different versions of the OS and what the can or can’t do.

Fortunately, it seems Microsoft has learned a lesson from the release of Windows Vista and Windows 7 and has simplified things a bit for their upcoming new OS: Windows 8. This week the company announced there will be three editions of its next-generation Windows 8 operating system: Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT.

Microsoft made the announcement on its blog and further promised “all editions of Windows 8 offer a no-compromise experience.” Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro will support PCs and tablets powered by x86 processors, while Windows RT works with ARM-powered devices. Windows 8 is aimed at the average consumer, while Windows 8 Pro is designed for tech enthusiasts, business people and tech professionals. The RT edition is intended for lighter-duty devices.

Going for the Pro edition of Windows 8 gets you premium features such as encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity. “If you are an enthusiast or you want to use your PC in a business environment, you will want Windows 8 Pro.”

Windows RT (the OS formerly known as Windows on ARM) will only be available pre-installed on PCs and tablets powered by ARM processors. It will include touch-optimized desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Microsoft is set to finish Windows 8 this Summer with PCs and tablets powered by the new platform following in October. Windows 8 looks pretty good, and we’ve payed with it a bit, so we’re very interested in seeing the final version when its released.

When it comes to image manipulation tools, the granddaddy of them all has to be Adobe Photoshop. Go to pretty much any company that spends any time manipulating images and they will have Photoshop. It is, to all intents and purposes, the standard against which all others are measured.

It’s been quite some time since Adobe launched a new version of its Photoshop software but finally, that time has come. Well, at least in the form of a new Beta.

Late yesterday, the company released Photoshop CS6 beta into the wild. It features a new, faster and more modern user interface, re-engineered design tools and content-aware patching.

“Photoshop CS6 will be a milestone release that pushes the boundaries of imaging innovation with incredible speed and performance,” said Winston Hendrickson, vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe. “We couldn’t wait to share this beta of Photoshop CS6 with our customers and are looking forward to hearing from them and seeing the ways they are incorporating the beta into their daily creative workflows.”

If you want to check out the new beta it would help to have fast internet. The file weighs in at about 1GB. PC users need to have a 2GHz or faster processor with at least 1GB of RAM and be running Windows XP SP3 or Windows 7. Mac users need multicore Intel processor, 1GB of RAM and OS X 10.6.8 or newer.

The Photoshop CS6 beta is available now from Adobe’s website. Expect the final version sometime in 2012.

If you want to know more, click through for the full press release from Adobe.

Continue Reading →

As we first told you a few weeks ago, Microsoft has today released the first “Consumer Preview” of the latest version of its Windows software. The new software has been dubbed Windows 8 and is, according to Micsosoft, is “Windows reimagined and reinvented from a solid core of Windows 7 speed and reliability.”

According to the company, here’s what you can expect from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview:

Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a prerelease version of Windows 8 that focuses on people and apps and gives you powerful new ways to use social technologies to connect with the people who are important to you. Windows 8 Consumer Preview is built on the rock-solid foundation of Windows 7 and has the security and reliability features you expect from Windows, but we’ve made it even better. It’s fast, and it’s made to work on a variety of form factors—especially the new generation of touch devices.

Well, there you go. You can go to Microsoft’s website and download Windows 8 to try for yourself. Although, unless you have a touch monitor you won’t be able to experience it exactly as it was intended.

Continue Reading →

One of the most useful applications I use every day on the Mac has now arrived for Windows. That’s right Windows-using writers Scrivener is now available to you.

No matter if you’re writing the next great American novel (something for National Novel Writing Month perhaps?), research paper, script or any long-form text document that involves more than hammering away at the keys until you’re done, Scrivener, made by the fine folks at Literature & Latte, can help you get your work done. The multi-featured program excels at helping you collect research, bring order to fragmented ideas and avoid shuffling index cards in search of that elusive structure.

Scrivener can help you from the moment an idea comes into your imagination until the final finished pages are output. In short, it pretty much does everything for you except the actual writing.

Unfortunately, that will still be up to you. The rest you can leave to Scrivener.

As someone who uses this app daily (the Mac version) I can safely say it really helps me get my work done. Without it, I would be back to posting index cards to cork boards and trying to make things work that way. I like the 21st Century’s technological advancements and I like Scrivener.

Scrivener requires Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (32 or 64 bit). 1GB RAM; 1ghz Processor; 100mb disk space; 1064 x 786 screen.

With all the news and hype surrounding Apple’s iPhone and Google Android-powered smartphones we sometimes forget the Microsoft has smartphones powered by its Windows Phone OS too. In fact, Microsoft just had a big even yesterday to talk all about the coming update to their phone OS.

The next generation, dubbed Windows Phone 7.1 “Mango” has a host of new features and enhancements that I hate to say look pretty darn good. Mango goes a long way to bring the platform up to date, and Microsoft has named HTC, LG, Samsung, Dell, Acer, Fujitsu Limited, ZTE Corporation and of course Nokia as partners moving forward.

Mango will add more robust multitasking support, messaging threads, deeper social integration, a unified email inbox, voice-to-text and text-to-voice support, and about 500 other enhancements to the Windows Phone platform when it launches this fall.

Click through for the full press release from Microsoft as well as a video of some of the new features of Mango.

Continue Reading →

Since last week I’ve been testing out the new Wi-Fi Finder App from Boingo. It’s been particularly handy the last day or so when, due to severe storms in LA and the apparently highly vulnerable Timer Warner infrastructure, my Internet went out and I was forced to seek alternative methods to connect and get my work done.

So, an application that’s purpose is to find and connect you to more than 325,000 hotspots (or more) should come in pretty handy in this situation. Not surprisingly, it did. The app was able to find several open Wi-Fi networks clost to my home that, if I wanted to, I could have connected to and used. It was also able to connect me quickly to a hotspot at a local Starbucks so I could get back online. All by launching one app and letting it do its thing.

But connecting you to hotspots isn’t the only thing this app does. It also boast these features:

• Connects to more than 325,000 hotspots from more than 125 network operators in 105 countries (I know, we covered that already, but its really cool)
• Connects to any open, free network that you may encounter
• Can determine the best available open network if more than one are present
• Can be configured to auto-connect to free networks

Continue Reading →

We don’t often cover straight business news here at The Flickcast, but this one is pretty amazing. Sure, as Apple fans, we expected it to happen eventually, but not quite this quickly. As of yesterday, Apple, Inc.’s market capitalization now exceeds that of longtime “friendly” rival Microsoft.

Yes, you read that right. Apple is now worth more than Microsoft. As of the close of market yesterday, Apple’s total share value stood at $222.5 billion, while Microsoft was at $219.53 billion. What does this mean? Well, it means that in terms of market capitalization (determined by multiplying all outstanding shares by their value) the only company based in the U.S. that’s more valuable than Apple is Exxon, who’s market cap is at $278 billion.

Although this news is pretty impressive, it’s not entirely due to the awesomeness of Apple. In fact, it probably has more to do with Microsoft’s problems than Apple’s successes. Recently, Apple’s market cap has grown by less than $10 billion, while Microsoft’s has shrunk by almost $40 billion.

So, even though Apple is doing many things right, obviously Microsoft is doing more things wrong — or it is at least perceived that way by investors. But no matter how you look at it, the news is still pretty impressive. Made even more so by the fact that we can still remember a time, not that long ago, when most business stories about Apple were discussing its impending death. Nice work Mr. Jobs. Nice work indeed.

Back in 2006, Apple ran the first of many different variations of “friendly warfare” commercials, which pretty much portrayed the competition (Microsoft) as a nerdy, uncool, unorganized human (played by John Hodgman), while the “Mac” was a cool, casual, suave human (played by Justin Long).

After four years the aptly titled “Get a Mac” ad campaign is coming to an end. Apple’s site has changed over to the “Why You’ll Love a Mac” page, and Justin Long even suggested a few months back that the ads were starting to dry up and he didn’t see them continuing much longer.

Losing their edge or not, it was always a treat for Apple fans to get these ads sandwiched into spot breaks between our favorite shows. Hodgman, who was also a regular contributor to The Daily Show, garnered certain fame from the campaign and has even been invited to give commencement speeches at several universities.

We’ll always remember the epic promotional campaign, and some of our favorites as well. After the jump, check out one of those personal favorites, guest starring the amazing Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean.

R.I.P. “Get a Mac” Ads.

Continue Reading →

If you’re a Mac user and also love to game, today is your lucky day. Why? Well, Valve has decided to release its Steam platform officially for the Mac today and also will be bringing two of their best games along with it.

The first games is the awesomely simple Portal where you solve puzzles by teleporting from place to place using the “portal gun.” The best part, the better you do the more you get rewards in the form of cake. And who doesn’t love cake?

The next game coming out is Runic Game’s Torchlight which is a hack and slash in the tradition of Diablo where you explore dungeons and search for treasure. It’s also a great game and will probably do well mostly because, like Portal, its simple.

Steam, which has around 25 million users, was launched in 2004, allowing PC owners to buy and download games to play on their computer. The library of games soon expanded, and there are now more than 1,000 titles available. Even though its taken a few years, I’m glad to see the platform is finally available for the Mac. Thanks Valve, its about time.

In a surprise announcement Friday, popular 3D desktop software firm, Bump Top revealed it had been acquired by Google. 3 years ago, the company founder, Anand Agarawala discussed their innovative interface at the 2007 TED Conference.

Built for Macs as well as Windows PC’s, Bump Top re-imagines the computer desktop as a three-dimensional desk-like space filled with icons and images piled up on the surface and pinned to the virtual walls. Agarawala at the time, famously described his interface as designed to “(move away from the) same old crap.”

With Google acquiring Bump Top, the speculation begins as to how the company may integrate this 3D environment into their existing product line. The Android mobile OS is a natural fit, initially launching on smartphones, but eventually making its way into the inevitable Android-powered tablets that are on the near horizon. The Bump Top multi-touch interface would allow Google to better compete with Apple whose multi-touch on the iPhone, iPod and recently released iPad are the industry benchmark.

Continue Reading →

Instead of commenting on the latest TV show, comic book, or superheroine, I’ve decided to fire a shot in a war that’s raged for decades: PC or Mac? For 5 years I’ve had one HP desktop PC at home and used several Mac desktops and laptops in the office.

I’ve finally decided to buy a new computer and because I work in the business of show, I will soon be drafted into the Mac army. I will use my new laptop for both home and work to edit, create flash animations, surf the net, write columns, listen to music, and watch TV.

Before apple juice is spilled and I’m forced to yet again hear about the greatness of Macs, you need to know I do not consider myself to be a tech guru or a first adopter. I have, however, been on computers since the age of 2, I’m an avid user of CNET, I’ve programmed in HTML, and I’ve troubleshot excel and everyday computer glitches for my co-workers.

Continue Reading →