Gaming on the iPad and other tablets is the second most popular activity - right behind "surfing the Internet" - according to data released by entertainment market research firm Interpret. That data comes from Interpret’s quarterly New Media Measure study. The study tracks media behavior, device ownership, attitudes, and product consumption.

According to the study, 58 percent of tablet owners use the device for surfing the Internet. Gaming is the second most popular activity, with 52 percent of tablet owners using the device to play games. Active gamers are more likely to buy some type of tablet device in the next three months than the average consumers, the study found.

The ESRB has released an updated version of its app that makes it easier to look up ratings on a particular game while shopping. The free mobile app lets users snap photos of video game boxes to find out what the ratings mean. By taking a photo and using the app, consumers can get deeper content descriptors and information on the age-appropriateness of every game sold in stores. This is particularly useful for parents that may not be familiar with what is appropriate for teenagers and younger children.

The app is available on iPhone and on Android devices. You can grab it from the ESRB's mobile site or by searching for "ESRB" in the Apple Store or Android Marketplace.  

Google claims that 300,000 Android phones are activated every day. At least, that is what Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, claimed last night on his Twitter account - according to a Network World report. Why would he say that? Well, people do enjoy big numbers, particularly if they support and use your device, but it has importance for another reason: it shows that Android is beating Apple's iPhone. Apple claims that its daily activation number is 270,000.

Andrew Gomez of AndroidGuys points out that this is very important to Google.

"Does this mean that more Android phones are currently being purchased than iPhones?" asks Gomez. "Generally, iPhone activations are always brought up at Apple events and keynotes. It's going to be interesting to see how Apple will react to or counter Rubin's statement."

Digital Chocolate claims that its games collectively enjoy 20 million monthly active users. Four million of those users are from Facebook games, while rest come from iOS games (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad), Android-based devices, and "open internet" games.

"Our growth across the world's most exciting platforms separates us from the crowd," said Marc Metis, president of Digital Chocolate.

"We are unique in combining social gaming expertise, leadership on both Facebook and mobile, a global approach, technology leverage, and scale."

Digital Chocolate makes such games as Millionaire City, Hollywood City, Island God, Vegas City, Flower Shop Frenzy, Underground 3D Rollercoaster Rush, Fantasy Warrior Legends, Nanostar Siege, MMA Pro Fighter, and more.

Source: Gi.biz

British health officials are apparently working on a new app that allow users to urinate into their cell phones and find out in minutes if they have a sexually transmitted disease. What?

According to The Guardian, £4 million has already been invested in the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, which aims to create a smartphone app that allow users "to put urine or saliva on to a computer chip about the size of a USB chip, plug it into their phone or computer and receive a diagnosis within minutes."  The app is designed for younger folks who are too ashamed to go to a clinic.

"Your mobile phone can be your mobile doctor. It diagnoses whether you've got one of a range of STIs, such as chlamydia or gonorrhea and tells you where to go next to get treatment," Dr Tariq Sadiq, a senior lecturer and consultant physician in sexual health and HIV at St George's, University of London, who is leading the project, told The Guardian.

A new mobile app helps voters keep track of all the promises that politicians made to get elected so that they have some ammo when they run again. The app, My Elected Officials, is $4.99 and available on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The app streamlines access to congressional voting records, local contact information such as telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, offers push notifications via a "follow" option, video links and breaking news via media resources such as FOX News, CNN, C-SPAN and GovTrack.

My Elected Officials uses a collection of website portals designed to provide legislative tracking information from the Library of Congress’ THOMAS, as well as other automated resource methods and tools.

Grab it from iTunes. Find out more about the game at www.myelectedofficials.com.

If you are not addicted to Farmville on Facebook or iPhone, then Zynga has a new drug for you to try out: Farmville for the iPad. The company says that it is the first app it has developed for the platform.

The new app, which comes on the heels of Farmville on the iPhone, creates a cross-platform Farmville experience that allows existing players to tend to their farms on the web, the iPhone, and the iPad. Naturally, new players can create a farm if they do not already have one on some other platform.

The app is free and available now in the iTunes App Store.

Farmville on iPad features custom graphics built specifically for the larger iPad and takes advantage of the touch screen interface. It is the same game as the iPhone version with support for the iPad's larger screen.

Social games statistics company Raptr has created an app for iPhone tying its information and social gaming services for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 users to Apple's popular platform. Free to download and use, the app lets users track what games friends are playing on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

The app also lets users easily add friends from Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, PC (Steam, Social Games), and Raptr in real-time (and see what they are playing), send and receive Raptr and Xbox Live messages via one unified inbox, track gameplay and achievements on their Raptr.com profiles, find and invite new friends from your iPhone address book and Twitter, and more.

Grab it from iTunes.

While Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino’s iPhone app has been making the news this week due to its appearance in Apple’s top 10-grossing application list, the Jersey Shore star may soon be facing a lawsuit over a game included in the app.

The app features a game called “Grenade Dodger,” in which users attempt to dodge unattractive women, or “grenades” in Jersey Shore-speak. The problem, according to Radar Online, is that photographers were dispatched by the game’s developer to clubs in order to snatch pictures of women in the “3 or 4” category for inclusion in the Situation’s application. One of the girls featured in “Grenade Dodger” is reportedly horrified over her insertion in the game and is considering taking legal action.

If you can't beat, join them... or convince them to join you. That's kind of what Atari is doing with those developer and publishers it thinks are infringing on its copyrights to create socialized game experiences (Facebook, iPhone, etc.). Atari calls it the "GO initiative." The company will reach out to portals and developers that it believes have created clones of its classic IPs and offer an invitation to replace the clones with the real deal.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview published today, Atari project head Thom Kozik said that getting developers on board to improve Atari IP instead of copying it is of paramount importance.

"This initiative is not about going out after the market with a big stick, that's a different situation," Kozik said. "First and foremost we're going to be saying, 'let's bring the friends and folks who love us, and the folks who love these brands, into the fold, and we'll worry about the folks who don't want to play along, no pun intended, we'll worry about them later in a different context'" .

A few months ago the consummate smart assess at the Onion News Network deployed a news report on a hot new game (fake, of course) called Close Range. The report detailed the main point of the game: to shoot people and animals at close range in the face. The video, which you can watch here is hilarious.

But that wasn't good enough for ONN. They decided it would be a good idea to create an actual game for the iPhone. When they went to get approval from Apple, their app was rejected. Big shock there. Apparently, the idea of shooting people and animals at point blank range was too violent of a concept for Apple.

What got them, as Game, Set, Watch points out, is this line from the Apple App Guidelines:

"apps portraying realistic images of people or animals being killed or maimed, shot, stabbed, tortured or injured will be rejected."

While analysts expected that the technical problems with iPhone 4 antennas would have a profound impact on Apple's sales, the real problem impacting Apple's bottom line is its exclusivity with AT&T. At least, that's what a survey released on Wednesday by Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster concludes.

Munster and his team interviewed 258 cell phone users in Minneapolis to gauge the impact of the iPhone 4's signal problems related to the antenna. Munster claims that surveyors never directly asked respondents about Verizon Wireless, but the subject came up anyway.

Approximately 177 respondents (69 percent) said they were aware of iPhone 4's problems related to faulty antennas. Of those who knew, 20 percent said that it affected their decision to purchase.

Munster said that, for every one respondent that acknowledged the antenna issue, three complained about the iPhone not being available through Verizon. Munster concluded that the "lack of an iPhone on Verizon is holding sales back by about three times more than the antenna issue."

Here's how Munster comes to this conclusion:

Apple has backed off its decision to exclude Flash and other programming languages, and what kinds of data can be collected by developers and advertisers. Apple will also publish a list of app review guidelines for developers - something the company has yet to do.

The trouble began earlier this year when Apple released iOS 4 to developers and they started reading the fine print of the iOS Developer Agreement. Section 3.3.1 restricted developers to a certain languages such as Objective-C, C, and C++; this excluded popular languages such as Javascript, Flash and C# when developing native iOS apps.

Section 3.3.2 further limited the use of scripting languages to aid in development or to run in the app. Finally, section 3.3.9 strictly limited the collection of analytic information that developers and third-party advertising networks could collect.

While it has been ruled that jailbreaking your phone is not an illegal act, Apple plans on keeping a watchful eye on those individuals that decide to do it to their iPhones, if a recent filing with the patent office is any indication. A patent filed by the company called "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device" details a number of ways to detect hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or the removal of a SIM card from a phone.

Further, the patent details a method for "taking a series of geotagged photographs with the in-built camera and e-mailing them to Apple in order to identify" the user as well as some other far-fetched methods like "voice-print analysis to identify legitimate users" or the "use of a heartbeat sensor." While much of this sounds like a bad sci-fi movie about a big brother government agency tracking users, it should at least bother users that the patent specifically mentions jailbreaking in its langauge.

Source: bit-tech.net

It was a different scene today at the Shenzhen, China-based Foxconn plant, which employs over 300,000 workers who assemble everything from iPhones to video game accessories. Today Foxconn held a rally designed to promote living and loving life and to generally boost the morale of workers - who only a few months ago were as unhappy as a worker can be in a plant that expects the average employee to work 80 hours of overtime a week.

Just a few months ago morale was so low that more than a dozen employees committed suicide, prompting the company to install safety nets on the top of its buildings. But more importantly, it made the company face the reality that productivity has to be balanced with the well being of its employees.

Former Apple global supply manager Paul Shin Devine plead not guilty Monday in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. A bail hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Devine was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and accepting kickbacks, according to court documents obtained by C|Net.

Devine also faces the wrath of Steve Jobs; Apple has filed a civil suit against him for allegedly accepting more than $1 million in bribes from suppliers over the past few years in return for inside information that was then used to give those companies a better position in bargaining lucrative contracts.

Six Asian companies were named in the indictment including Kaedar Electronics - a division of Asus owned Pegatron (Taiwan), Singapore-based JLJ Holdings's Jin Li Mold Manufacturing, Singapore-based Glocom/Lateral Solutions and Fastening Technologies, Taiwanese company Nishoku Technology and earphone and headset maker Cresyn.

You can’t fight city hall. Apparently it’s not too smart (or cost-efficient) to take on the estate of Michael Jackson either, as PopCap Games has modified a character in its Plants vs. Zombies game for the iPhone which formerly closely resembled the late, great gloved-one.

MTV got word from PopCap themselves that MJ’s estate was none too thrilled with the game’s Dancing Zombie, which was outfitted in a red jacket, short pants and white socks, resembling the way Jackson appears in his in-famous Thriller video. The Dancing Zombie is now said to feature more of a disco-themed look.

PopCap issued MTV the follow statement:

The Library of Congress’ Copyright Office looks into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) every three years in order to ensure that its harms are “mitigated.” The latest such inquiry has led to the establishment of legal protections for those who choose to jailbreak their cell phones, as well as for those who break protections on videogames in order to “investigate or correct security flaws.”

An AP story stated that the triennial investigation offers exemptions to the DMCA in order to “ensure that existing law does not prevent non-infringing use of copyrighted material.”

Other exemptions handed down included:

Canadian game development firm Snow Day Games has just released its iPhone game Fly vs. Car and pledged to donate half of the profits from the sale of the title to the Child’s Play charity.

Snow Day was formed just this year and is helmed by “noted educator and games scholar” Matthew M. White. Commenting on the company’s charitable aspect White said, “Through working together with Child's Play across so many wonderful platforms, we can let gamers keep doing what they love to do, and at the same time give some help to the children who need it the most – I think that's incredible.”

White’s company will make quarterly cash deposits to Child’s Play, which in turn uses the funds to provide the occupants of children’s hospitals with toys and videogames.

Fly v. Car is available in the iTunes store for $0.99.


Via GameZebo

At the ongoing Develop Conference in the UK, a representative from GameStop Sweden and the CEO of a new company attempting to make games as easy to play and share online as YouTube videos got into a bit of a dustup over used games.

GamesIndustry.biz details the flare-up between GameStop’s Niall Lawlor and InstantAction chief Louis Castle. Lawlor told Castle that the used game business helps GameStop preserve its margins, but that, “We don't like being in the used business, it's very difficult to manage.”

Lawlor said that without used game sales, GameStop would not be in business.

Castle answered that selling used games would quicken the demise of brick-and-mortar stores, adding, “While you're preserving some margins, used is accelerating changes. He continued, "I can see the train wreck, it's coming. Pretty soon everyone is losing money. Used is accelerating the decline of profitability for publishers. The oxygen is being sucked out of the room.”

When many gamers think of the South Korean gaming scene, the first images that jump to mind are of highly competitive real-time strategy games like Starcraft, or action-oriented MMORPGs like Aion or Lineage II. 

Ogmento, a company that sees the future of gaming rooted in "augmented reality," (games that combine the real word with virtual worlds) is shoring up its ranks with three video game industry veterans. The company announced today that it has hired three people that have collectively worked for such companies as Looking Glass, Pandemic, Sony Online, Electronic Arts Mobile, Alchemic Productions, and more. The three new hires are Rick Ernst, who will serve as lead game designer; Tim Hernandez, who has been named Director of Production; and James Chung who has signed on as the company's new Art Director.

Rick Ernst is a 15 year veteran of the video games industry having worked for such companies as Looking Glass, Pandemic and Sony Online, and independently as a contractor and consultant. He is also the co-founder of Alchemic Productions in Los Angeles, a production company that works with artists, film makers and authors.

When people are scheduling their real lives around virtual tasks like harvesting strawberries and corn, it's time for a 12-step program. So naturally Zynga has decided to ease the suffering of addicts who don’t have access to a computer at certain times of the day by releasing a portable version of Farmville to waste time on. Zynga's addictive farm game is responsible for more Facebook spam - save Zynga's other game, Mafia Wars - and more screen time logged than actually sifting through Facebook feeds and messages.

Farmville fans looking to get a portable fix can now get it from the Apple app store for free right now. No doubt 75 million users worldwide that can afford an iPhone or an iPad touch will be delighted. Facebook friends of these people - not so much. No word on if it works on the iPad, but my guess would be that it does.

Source: AP

A recently released iPhone/iPod Touch game pins the U.S. recession on the collapse of a bank that was infiltrated by giant maggots from outer space.

The Bank, from Primus Productions, drops players into the game after the collapse of the one bank that started the whole economic downturn (Sun Valley Bank in Bells, Montana) and allows them to mow down said maggots while piloting a flying car named “Sally” that is outfitted with a variety of weapons.

A self-described $18.00 marketing budget resulted in the embedded video at left and a second that can be viewed at YouTube.

A video featuring game play footage can be seen here.

The Bank is available for $2.99 from the iTunes Store and is rated 12+.

Try your hand at being the Federal Reserve Chairman in a new iPhone/iPod Touch game featuring Pac-Man-style game play.

Developed by Marroni Electronic Entertainment and NightIrion, iBailout! decrees that “it’s time for you to get yours,” and has players racing around the screen in a bid to gobble up as many stacks of dirty, dirty bailout cash as possible. Instead of being chased by ghosts however, players will have to outmaneuver angry mobs of torch and pitchfork-bearing United States citizens.

Running over machine guns will also give players the ability to declare martial law and will render taxpayers harmless and able to be gobbled up. Scores are also tabulated in the trillions, because that’s how the Fed rolls.

Available for $1.99 in the iTunes store, iBailout! was also chosen as an entrant in the 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile Competition.

Municipal leaders in New Jersey are split in their reactions to an iPhone game which depicts tanks rolling through their suburban neighborhoods.

Cherry Hill resident  and Cloud Scissor Games Principal Ken Fodero is profiled on NJ.com in a story centered on his new iPhone/iPod Touch game entitled Tank Battles in Suburbia. The game features various New Jersey towns—including Glen Ridge, Edison, Nutley, Summit, Raritan and Bloomfield—as battlegrounds for tank battles. Neighboring houses and private property can be destroyed in the skirmishes, but that decision is ultimately up to the player.

Edison Mayor Antonia Ricigliano wasn’t overly pleased with the game, saying:

Some of these video games are — my goodness — why are they so bent on destruction?

Jordan Glatt, Mayor of Summit, New Jersey, agreed with Ricigliano, stating, “It doesn’t sound like something that’s really constructive to what we’re trying to convey here.  We could be spending our efforts on a lot better things.”

Kathryn Weller-Demming, a Councilwoman-at-large for Montclair, took a more enlightened approach:

I don’t think there’s anything a fictional video game can take away from what’s great about Montclair. Certainly no one should be encouraged to perpetuate violence, but video games don’t raise people. Parents raise people.

Tank Battles in Suburbia is available in the iTunes Store for $1.99.

While an iPhone may not necessarily be the first thing you think of when asked what is need for our soldiers overseas, it turns out that a simple app that costs around $20 is being used quite extensively in Afghanistan.

We knew that soldiers already use modified Xbox 360 controllers to fly unmanned robotic vehicles, but a story in the Mirror details how snipers are using an app called BulletFlight, which takes into account wind and the rotation of the Earth and its affect on the path of a bullet to its target.

The story also talks about PS3 technology being used in supercomputers and radar.

According to Stuart McDougall of BAE Systems, which is developing 3D graphics technology from the PS2 to power the next wave of military engineering designs:

"Historically the military have invested in developing technology to meet their specific requirements. This technology has then filtered down to everyone else. But, increasingly, modern consumer gadgets are so powerful and so highly competitive that they're often ahead of the game - and much cheaper to buy in and adapt."

BulletFlight is available for download by anyone.

The growing popularity of the iPhone in Korea may necessitate the rating of App Store game offerings by government regulators.

The Korean Herald notes that currently all games in Korea must be approved by the country’s Game Rating Board. In deference to this, the Korean version of the App Store currently does not offer a game category at all, but concern remains over games that could be downloaded from the App Store’s “entertainment” category or from the App Store of other countries.

A Game Rating Board official told the paper, “We asked Apple to open its games category and get its games rated, but Apple shows no signs of doing so.”

30 of the top 100 most popular App store programs in Korea are games that do not have an OK from the Game Rating Board.

150,000 iPhones have been sold in Korea since the device’s launch three weeks ago.

Korea’s Game Rating Board ratings consist of four categories: All (for everyone) 12-year +, 15-year+ and Teenager Restricted (not for those under 18).

A lawsuit filed against an iPhone game development company claims that the firm used a backdoor method to access, collect and transmit the phone numbers of the iPhone on which the games was installed.

Storm8 is the target of the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern California by Michael Turner of Lynnwood, Washington reports The Register. The complaint alleges that Storm8 violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, California’s computer crime law and other statutes. Storm8 claimed that the collected numbers were the result of a bug, which has since been fixed.

Storm8 iPhone/iPod Touch titles include Ninjas Live, Zombies Live, iMobsters, Racing Live, Rockstars Live, Vampires Live, World War and Kingdoms Live.

In a post on the subject on the Storm8 website forums, an admin wrote, “I want to assure everyone that we do not collect the phone numbers of our users. It is safe to install and play all of our games on both iPod Touch and iPhone alike.”

It appears as well that at least some games have been pulled from the iTunes Store.  Currently only “loyalty points” for Kingdoms Live and Vampires Live are available. No other Storm8 games are offered.

A new Adult Swim-branded iPhone/iPod Touch app from Turner Broadcasting System and the Cartoon Network has office desk jockeys attempting to off themselves in the fastest way possible utilizing a variety of bloody and violent (and amusing) means.

TouchArcade describes some of the action from 5 Minutes to Kill (Yourself):

You can staple your forehead, drink toilet water, pee on computers, and countless other things. The amount of objects that you can interact with and the objects that can be combined with others for even more lethal damage is pretty amazing.

5 Minutes to Kill (Yourself) is on sale for $2.99 in the iTunes store, though purchasers must be at least 17 years of age to grab the game. A free Flash version of the game is also available on the Adult Swim website.

TouchArcade also has a video embedded on its page featuring gameplay from the touch-enabled title.

I wonder how the Classification Board of Australia would rate this one.