Android – Iphone – Applications

Earlier this month Twitter made a deal with Bharti Airtel. Airtel is one of the biggest telecommunications companies in India with about 100 million subscribers. The company launched an SMS service where users in India can update their tweets from mobile phones. The SMS tweets are a free additional service which inevitably will increase the popularity of Twitter in the Asian subcontinent. In order to promote the new service, Airtel is airing three new commercials that lets their customers know about the service. After the jump are the three commercials:

Popularity: unranked [?]

written by Duy Phong \\ tags: App, Application, Free, OS

Josh Elman was the former platform manager at Facebook. But now Elman is joining another California based social networking slash micro-blogging firm Twitter.com. Elman is joining Twitter at a time where the micro-blogging company is receiving a lot of interest from third party developers.

TweetDeck is one of the most used Adobe AIR applications and Tweetie is one of the most downloaded applications on the iPhone. When Elman worked at Facebook, he was responsible for Facebook Connect. Elman was also responsible for cleaning up the design of the social network after applications made Facebook look very cluttered.

Elman has also previously worked for LinkedIn, Zazzle, and RealNetworks. Louis Gray broke the news of Elman’s hire after spotting the Twitter official list of employees. Twitter has about 113 employees.

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written by Duy Phong \\ tags: App, Application, Download, Iphone, OS

Aviary is a web-based software company that has designed applications such as Image Editor, Color Editor, Vector Editor, Effect Editor, Screen Capture, Image Markup, and Audio Editor. Aviary is based in Long Island, New York. And now the company has raised $7 million in Series B from Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com) and Spark Capital.

Bezos’ investment was made through his venture firm Bezos Expeditions. Aviary competes directly with Adobe Systems Inc. To access Aviary’s web based applications, the subscription cost is $24.99 for the Pro version. The Pro version gives more enhanced file privacy, full watermark control, higher quality thumbnails, and unlimited storage. The basic version gives access to the web base applications too.

“We are disrupting the status quo by eliminating the long-held barriers to digital creation and giving creators the tools they need to create, market and monetize their vision,” stated Aviary Inc. founder and CEO Avi Muchnick. “We are extremely excited to have Spark Capital on board. Their broad-ranging internet, software and consumer experience will be a tremendous asset to us in furthering our mission to make creation accessible to creators of all genres.”

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written by Duy Phong \\ tags: App, Application, OS

Actress Kate Hudson is in a legal battle with a domain name squatter. Hudson filed for arbitration of the domain name with the National Arbitration Forum. Hudson starred in movies such as You, Me and Dupree and Almost Famous.

KateHudson.com is covered with links to other spam websites that has text such as “kate hudson pics,” “celebrity photos,” and “kate hudson biography.” Below is a screenshot of how it looked when I visited the website. The domain is currently owned by a man in Shanghai, China.

Popularity: unranked [?]

written by Duy Phong \\ tags: OS

Earthworm Jim was originally released in 1994 on the Sega Genesis. Since then, the game has been subsequently updated and ported to several other platforms, the newest being the iPhone. Earthworm Jim is an unforgettable game in terms of both gameplay and difficulty, but was Gameloft able to successfully port it to a device with no physical buttons?

One of the best features of Earthworm Jim is its humor. For those of you who have yet to play it, in Earthworm Jim, you play as Jim, an initially lowly earthworm. One day, a super-powered suit falls from space and gives Jim super powers. Of course, Jim’s adventure involves saving a princess, “Queen Slug-for-a-Butt”. Saving the princess involves, like all platformers, the basic mechanic of running and jumping onto platforms. There are numerous enemies along the way, which Jim can attack in one of two ways, depending on the enemy: using his gun or using his head as a whip. The whip can also be used as a sort of pseudo grappling rope. In addition to the normal in-level enemies, there are bosses which often require special mechanics. One of the best things about Earthworm Jim is the absolute plethora of gameplay elements it contains. There are wires to be crossed using your head, conveyer belts of garbage, teleportation devices, underwater hiding spots, and more. The level design is superb. Earthworm Jim is known for being extremely difficult, but to help out more casual gamers, Gameloft has included four difficulty levels, the hardest one being “original.” In addition to the normal platforming levels, Earthworm Jim contains intermediary tunnel racing levels in which you race an enemy. These are controlled using the accelerometer, and they are very similar to other App Store tunnel games: avoid some objects, collect others. Including these levels, Earthworm Jim has 16 levels in all. The game is a little short, though the individual levels are long. Frustratingly, there are no mid-level saves, eliminating “pick up and play” value.

I couldn’t have ever imagined a perfect control scheme for Earthworm Jim for the iPhone, but Gameloft did the best they could. Movement is done using a virtual d-pad or analog stick. While for me, the d-pad was by far easier to use, it lacked a big enough sensitivity area. There are on-screen action buttons for jumping, using the gun, and using the whip. These are a bit too bunched together. The controls take some time to master, and of course lack the precision of physical controls which is frustrating, but are not a deal-breaker because of the adjustable difficulty levels.

Gameloft has clearly taken time and effort in recreating Earthworm Jim, as evidenced by the graphics. They have all been lovingly remastered, and look fantastic. The presentation is comical, and is well-implemented. This is the best looking version of Earthworm Jim yet. The audio is great as well, with recreated sound effects and music that do nothing but add to the humorous feel of the game.

Controls have been the breaking point for a countless number of iPhone games thus far, and Earthworm Jim nearly falls into this “Duke Nuke ‘em” category. However, Gameloft has done a great job in bringing this game to the iPhone, and the classic gameplay certainly stands the test of time.

Popularity: unranked [?]

written by Duy Phong \\ tags: App, Application, Game, Iphone, OS