Pudding Monsters tops iPhone Games of the Week

Now that the holiday season is behind us, we get to sit in that awkward bit of time at the end of the year. That time that is so utterly devoted to reminiscence and top games of the year lists. As such, it’s hard to find out about notable new releases, and most developers avoid this time like the plague. Thankfully, last week was so utterly packed with releases that there’s enough for a second list. I mean, there was a new game from ZeptoLabs, creators of Cut the Rope, and that wasn’t even on last week’s list. So here we go with the last, but certainly not least, new iOS games of 2012.

Pudding Monsters ($0.99)

After the massive success that was Cut the Rope, developer ZeptoLabs has gone against all conventions and branched out in a brand new direction with a new IP. Everyone was probably expecting a Cut the Rope 2, but instead, we get a brilliant puzzle that has you sliding pudding blobs together into bigger pudding blobs. It’s not as quite casual as Cut the Rope, with a slightly higher difficulty that should appeal to a slightly more mature gamer, but it is still charming and adorable with puzzles worth every penny. Definitely don’t miss out on this one.

Karateka ($2.99)

Only in the open and accessible world of iOS development have we seen projects like this. An ancient eighties fighting game revitalized and re-released as a gesture and timing-based adventure from the creator of the original (who also created Prince of Persia). There are plenty of old references mixed in with the new look and feel of the game, appealing to both modern and old school gamers. There is an elegant simplicity in the violence at play here, and while I don’t foresee it being crazy popular, there is a modern classic to be found in this one.

Middle Manager of Justice (Free)

DoubleFine Productions, with their buckets and buckets of Kickstarter money, are still doing what they do best. They make smaller titles that offer a lot of creativity and charm. The creators of Brutal Legend have no branched into the iOS realm with this wonderfully funny freemium simulation. Only DoubleFine would think of such a hilarious concept as superhero middle management. Yes, it is a freemium game with freemium elements, but DoubleFine has done their best to lessen the brutality of them, and in the end this is a very familiar game with a sense of humor.

Shadow Warrior (Free)

3D Realms, creators of Duke Nukem, have been having a pretty good time releasing their old games on mobile devices. Their latest release is that of the controversial 1997 shooter, Shadow Warrior, based on the same engine as Duke Nukem 3D. The controls for Duke Nukem 3D’s port weren’t very cooperative, but it seems like they’ve been vastly improved for the bloodbath that awaits you here. It’s retro ultra-violence at its best. The game is only decent overall, but it’s still worth playing if you miss the simpler shooters of old.

Pixel Defenders Puzzle ($0.99)

It is a rare day that I promote a match-three game on this weekly list. I’ve never seen a genre get so popular so quickly before dying off just as quickly as I saw with match-threes. Luckily, the developers of Pixel Defenders Puzzle know just how to scratch my gaming itch. Essentially, this is more like a Triple Town, but it isn’t a blatant clone, and simply builds on those solid mechanics. For another thing, it involves a retro RPG pixilated world, with magic, wizards, undead, and the rest. I’m pretty much guaranteed to pay attention when I see such an aesthetic. As it so happens, the game itself is really well done, and worth playing!

Read More..

Number of e-book readers increasing in United States: survey

The popularity of electronic books is increasing in the United States, with nearly one-quarter of American bibliophiles reading e-books, according to a survey released on Thursday.
The number of e-readers aged 16 years and older jumped from 16 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year, while print readers fell from 72 to 67 percent in 2012, in a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.
"The move toward e-book reading coincides with an increase in ownership of electronic book reading devices," the organization said. Its report analyzed reading trends among the 75 percent of Americans who read at least one book in the last year.
"In all, the number of owners of either a tablet computer or e-book reading device ... grew from 18 percent in late 2011 to 33 percent in 2012."
E-book owners increased from 4 percent in May 2010 to 19 percent in November 2012, while people with tablets jumped from 3 percent to 25 percent during the same period, according to the report.
People most likely to read e-books are well-educated, 30- to 49-year-olds who live in households earning $75,000 or more.
More women, 81 percent, read books, compared to 70 percent of men, and the number of readers declines as people age. The trend toward e-books impacted libraries, which stocked and loaned more e-books.
"The share of recent library users who have borrowed an e-book from a library has increased from 3 percent last year to 5 percent this year," according to Pew.
Even awareness that library stock e-books has grown, from 24 percent late last year to 31 percent now.
The findings were based on a telephone survey of 2,252 people, aged 16 years and older, across the United States and a similar poll the year before. It had a 2.7 percent margin of error.

Read More..

Marvell has options as it faces $1 billion patent verdict

 As Marvell Technology Group Ltd embarks on a legal process to void a $1.17 billion damages verdict in a patent dispute with Carnegie Mellon University, it has some reasons to be optimistic.
The verdict was delivered on Wednesday by a jury in Pittsburgh, which found that Marvell had infringed two patents owned by Carnegie Mellon related to how accurately hard-drive circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks.
On Thursday, Marvell said that it would seek to overturn the verdict through post-trial motions at the district court.
Marvell also said that, if necessary, it would appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That court, which oversees appeals in patent infringement cases, has proven willing to throw out large verdicts in the recent past.
Brian Love, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who specializes in patent law, said damages awards are reversed about 20 percent of the time on appeal. Further, he said, "the larger a damages award is, the more susceptible it is to attack." The award is one of the largest by a U.S. jury in a patent infringement case.
Other large verdicts have not held up on appeal. In February 2011, Abbott Laboratories, for example, succeeded in overturning a $1.67 billion verdict against it in a patent infringement verdict won by a Johnson & Johnson unit.
That verdict, the largest ever by a jury in U.S. patent infringement litigation, was delivered in 2009 by a jury in Texas which found that Abbott's arthritis drug Humira had infringed the Johnson & Johnson unit's patent. But the Federal Circuit ruled that the patents at issue were invalid and thus could not be infringed.
Microsoft Corp has also successfully cut down big patent infringement verdicts delivered against it. In 2007, it was hit with a $1.52 billion verdict in a case brought by Alcatel-Lucent SA over patents related to digital music technology.
But, after post-trial motions, the judge who oversaw the case set aside the verdict, finding that Microsoft's Windows Media Player did not infringe the patents held by Alcatel-Lucent. The Federal Circuit affirmed his decision.
It's unclear which issues Marvell will raise in its post-trial motions and appeals. In a statement on Thursday the company said it did not infringe Carnegie Mellon's patents and that those patents could not have practically been used in its products.
Legal experts said Marvell's lawyers could attack the jury's damages calculation. Love of Santa Clara Law noted that the award exceeds Marvell's annual profits and is more than one quarter of the company's market capitalization.
"The law of patent damages is fuzzy, and leaves parties leeway to argue for damages amounts that differ drastically, often by 100-fold and sometimes much more," he said.
Because it received precisely what it requested, an amount calculated by an outside expert based on assumptions that could later be questioned, this award may be in "greater jeopardy than usual," Love said.
Marvell may contest the jury's finding that it willfully infringed the patents, which allows Judge Nora Barry Fischer to treble the damages owed to Carnegie Mellon.
In a decision issued in June, the Federal Circuit gave judges discretion in determining whether infringement was willful. Before that decision, willfulness was often left entirely up to juries.
"Typically that is a focal point of post-trial motions," said Donald Dunner, a patent attorney who is not involved in the case.

Read More..

Working conditions begin to improve at Apple partner’s factories

It has been nearly a year since Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook addressed the unsafe working conditions in the company’s supply chain factories. Following an investigation from the Fair Labor Association that found a number of Chinese labor law violations, Apple and Foxconn (2038) agreed to improve conditions. The companies planned a series of reforms, including reduced hours and significantly higher wages. Foxconn said that the majority of changes would go into effect by July 2013, however according to a report from The New York Times, some workers have already noticed some smaller changes taking place such as cushioned chairs replacing old wooden stools.
[More from BGR: Google names 12 best Android apps of 2012]
Apple has continued to work with advocacy groups over the past year as it carries on with its efforts to improve conditions and factory worker morale. The company has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, in addition to re-evaluating how it works with its supply chain partners, and has even reached out to competitors such as HP (HPQ) and Intel (INTC) to help curb excessive overtime in China.
[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]
Despite the improvements, many laborers continue to work illegal overtime and employee safety remains at risk. These are problems Apple must address in 2013, advocacy groups say.

Read More..

Lumia smartphones see deep discounts from Verizon, T-Mobile and Amazon

Lumia line of smartphones is now seeing post-holiday discounts at a variety of retailers shortly after launching in the United States. The phones, which run Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone 8 operating system, are the company’s latest gamble after a string of launches that were not well received. Verizon’s (VZ) Lumia 822 can now be had for free with a new two-year agreement, as can T-Mobile’s Lumia 810, while Amazon (AMZN) is offering the flagship Lumia 920 for $39 on AT&T (T).
[More from BGR: Google names 12 best Android apps of 2012]
It is unclear if the carriers are footing the entire financial burden, or if Nokia has provided some support. A Nokia spokesperson said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that “pricing is always a carrier decision, but holiday season promotions are fairly standard at this time of year,” adding that even some Samsung (005930) phones are being offered for free.

Read More..

BMW's vehicle sales reach 1.8 million in 2012: CFO

BMW , the world's largest premium carmaker, has sold about 1.8 million vehicles in 2012, its chief financial officer told a German newspaper.
"One of our goals was to increase vehicle sales in 2012 and to reach a new record in deliveries. With about 1.8 million vehicles, we have achieved this," the executive, Friedrich Eichiner, told Die Welt in an interview.
In December, BMW said vehicle sales in the January-November period had increased by 10.1 percent to 1.66 million. For the whole of 2011, BMW had vehicles sales of 1.67 million.

Read More..

Settlement reached in Toyota acceleration cases

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it has reached a settlement worth more than $1 billion in a case involving unintended acceleration problems in its vehicles.
The company said the deal will resolve hundreds of lawsuits from Toyota owners who said the value of their cars and trucks plummeted after a series of recalls stemming from claims that Toyota vehicles accelerated unintentionally.
Steve Berman, a lawyer representing Toyota owners, said the settlement is the largest in U.S. history involving automobile defects.
"We kept fighting and fighting and we secured what we think was a good settlement given the risks of this litigation," Berman told The Associated Press.
The proposed deal was filed Wednesday and must receive the approval of U.S. District Judge James Selna, who was expected to review the settlement Friday.
Toyota said it will take a one-time, $1.1 billion pre-tax charge against earnings to cover the estimated costs of the settlement. Berman said the total value of the deal is between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against Toyota since 2009, when the Japanese automaker started receiving numerous complaints that its cars accelerated on their own, causing crashes, injuries and even deaths.
The cases were consolidated in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana and divided into two categories: economic loss and wrongful death. Claims by people who seek compensation for injury and death due to sudden acceleration are not part of the settlement; the first trial involving those suits is scheduled for February.
As part of the economic loss settlement, Toyota will offer cash payments from a pool of about $250 million to eligible customers who sold vehicles or turned in leased vehicles between September 2009 and December 2010.
The company also will launch a $250 million program for 16 million current owners to provide supplemental warranty coverage for certain vehicle components, and it will retrofit about 3.2 million vehicles with a brake override system. An override system is designed to ensure a car will stop when the brakes are applied, even if the accelerator pedal is depressed.
The settlement would also establish additional driver education programs and fund new research into advanced safety technologies.
"In keeping with our core principles, we have structured this agreement in ways that work to put our customers first and demonstrate that they can count on Toyota to stand behind our vehicles," said Christopher Reynolds, Toyota vice president and general counsel.
Current and former Toyota owners are expected to receive more information about the settlement in the coming months. Some information is also available at http://www.ToyotaELsettlement.com , a website created for Toyota owners affected by the settlement.
"We are extraordinarily proud of how we were able to represent the interests of Toyota owners, and believe this settlement is both comprehensive in its scope and fair in compensation," Berman said.
Toyota has recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide due to acceleration problems in several models and brake defects with the Prius hybrid. The automaker has blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and stuck accelerator pedals for the problems.
Plaintiffs' attorneys have spent the past two years deposing Toyota employees, poring over thousands of documents and reviewing software code, but the company maintains those lawyers have been unable to prove that a design defect — namely Toyota's electronic throttle control system — was responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly.
Both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA were unable to find any defects in Toyota's source code that could cause problems.
The company has been dogged by fines for not reporting problems in a timely manner.
Earlier this month, NHTSA doled out a record $17.4 million fine to Toyota for failing to quickly report floor mat problems with some of its Lexus models. Toyota paid a total of $48.8 million in fines for three violations in 2010.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda appeared before Congress last year and pledged to strengthen quality control. Recent sales figures show the company appears to have rebounded following its safety issues.

Read More..

Large, powerful storm heads east; at least 6 dead

A powerful winter storm system pounded the nation's midsection Wednesday and headed toward the Northeast, where people braced for the high winds and heavy snow that disrupted holiday travel, knocked out power to thousands of homes and were blamed in at least six deaths.
Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed, scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts, and blizzard warnings were issued amid snowy gusts of 30 mph that blanketed roads and windshields, at times causing whiteout conditions.
"The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex," said John Kwiatkowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.
The system, which spawned Gulf Coast region tornadoes on Christmas Day and a historic amount of snow in Arkansas, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and headed toward the Northeast. Forecasts called for 12 to 18 inches of snow inland from western New York to Maine starting late Wednesday and into Thursday and tapering off into a mix of rain and snow closer to the coast, where little accumulation was expected in such cities as New York and Boston.
The storm left freezing temperatures in its aftermath, and forecasters also said parts of the Southeast from Virginia to Florida would see severe thunderstorms.
Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were implored to avoid it. Snow was blamed for scores of vehicle accidents as far east as Maryland, and about two dozen counties in Indiana and Ohio issued snow emergency travel alerts, urging people to go out on the roads only if necessary.
Some 40 vehicles got bogged down trying to make it up a slick hill in central Indiana, and four state snowplows slid off roads as snow fell at the rate of 3 inches an hour in some places.
Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways. Deaths from wind-toppled trees were reported in Texas and Louisiana.
The day after a holiday wasn't expected to be particularly busy for AAA, but its Cincinnati-area branch had its busiest Wednesday of the year. By mid-afternoon, nearly 400 members had been helped with tows, jump starts and other aid, with calls still coming in, spokesman Mike Mills said.
Jennifer Miller, 58, was taking a bus Wednesday from Cincinnati to visit family in Columbus.
"I wish this had come yesterday and was gone today," she said, struggling with a rolling suitcase and three smaller bags on a slushy sidewalk near the station. "I'm glad I don't have to drive in this."
Traffic crawled at 25 mph on Interstate 81 in Maryland, where authorities reported scores of accidents.
"We're going to try to go down south and get below" the storm, said Richard Power, traveling from home in Levittown, N.Y., to Kentucky with his wife, two children and their beagle, Lucky. He said they were well on their way until they hit snow in Pennsylvania, then 15-mph traffic on I-81 at Hagerstown, Md. "We're going to go as far as we can go. ... If it doesn't get better, we're going to just get a hotel."
More than 1,400 flights were canceled by evening, according to FlightAware.com, and some airlines said they would waive change fees. Delays of more than an hour were reported Wednesday at the three New York City-area airports, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
In Arkansas, some of the nearly 200,000 people who lost power could be without it for as long as a week because of snapped poles and wires after ice and 10 inches of snow coated power lines, said the state's largest utility, Entergy Arkansas. Gov. Mike Beebe sent out National Guard teams, and Humvees transported medical workers and patients. Snow hadn't fallen in Little Rock on Christmas since 1926, but the capital ended Tuesday with 10.3 inches of it.
Other states also had scattered outages. Duke Energy said it had nearly 300 outages in Indiana, with few left in Ohio by early afternoon after scores were reported in the morning.
As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilize with snowfall forecasts of a foot or more that was expected to start falling late Wednesday and through Thursday.
"People are picking up salt and a lot of shovels today," said Andy Greenwood, an assistant manager at Aubuchon Hardware in Keene, N.H.
As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow. At Smiling Hill Farm in Maine, Warren Knight was hoping for enough snow to allow the opening of trails.
"We watch the weather more carefully for cross-country skiing than we do for farming. And we're pretty diligent about farming. We're glued to the weather radio," said Knight, who described the weather at the 500-acre farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in "Cracker Jacks — we don't know what we're going to get."
Behind the storm, Mississippi's governor declared states of emergency in eight counties with more than 25 people reported injured and 70 homes left damaged.
Cindy Williams, 56, stood near a home in McNeill, Miss., where its front had collapsed into a pile of wood and brick, a balcony and the porch ripped apart. Large oak trees were uprooted and winds sheared off treetops in a nearby grove. But she focused instead on the fact that all her family members had escaped harm.
"We are so thankful," she said. "God took care of us."
___
Associated Press writers Rick Callahan and Charles Wilson in Indianapolis, Kelly P. Kissel in Little Rock, Ark.; Jim Van Anglen in Mobile, Ala.; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.; Julie Carr Smyth and Mitch Stacy in Columbus, Ohio; Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md.; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

Read More..

Wells Fargo doesn't have to pay clients $203 million: court

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court vacated an injunction and a $203 million restitution order against Wells Fargo & Co in consumer litigation over the bank's overdraft policies, according to a ruling issued on Wednesday.
But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco also found Wells had violated part of California's unfair competition law, and sent the case back to trial court in San Francisco to determine what relief is appropriate.
A spokesman for the bank, Ancel Martinez, said Wells was pleased with the decision. Plaintiff attorney Michael Sobol said he was confident the damages could be reinstated by the lower court judge.
"The misrepresentations found by the district court have been affirmed," Sobol said.
Wells Fargo, prior to April 2001, posted customer debit card purchases to their bank accounts in order of lowest charge to highest, which minimized the number of overdrafts, according to the ruling.
But beginning in April 2001, the bank began posting debit card purchase from highest to lowest, which maximized the number of overdrafts, the 9th Circuit wrote.
A San Francisco federal judge certified a class action on behalf of Wells Fargo customers, who incurred overdraft fees because of high-to-low sequencing. The judge then issued an injunction ordering the bank to cease the practice, as well as a $203 million restitution award.
In its ruling, the 9th Circuit found that federal law preempted part of the California statute on which the injunction was based.
"Federal law does not, however, preempt California consumer law with respect to fraudulent or misleading representations concerning posting," the court wrote.
The case in the 9th Circuit is Gutierrez vs. Wells Fargo, 10-16959.

Read More..

Toyota seeks to settle acceleration cases for $1.1 billion

DETROIT (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp plans to spend $1.1 billion to resolve sweeping U.S. class-action litigation over claims that millions of its vehicles accelerate unintentionally, as the Japanese automaker looks to turn the page on the biggest safety crisis in its history.
About 16 million Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles sold in the United States spanning the model years 1998 to 2010 are covered by the action, according to court filings made public on Wednesday. Thirty nameplates are affected, including the top-selling Toyota Camry midsize sedan and Corolla compact car.
Toyota, the No. 3 automaker in the U.S. market, admitted no fault in proposing the settlement, one of the largest of U.S. mass class-action litigation in the automotive sector. Investors snapped up shares of Toyota and its stock rose 2 percent in early trading.
"This was a difficult decision, especially since reliable scientific evidence and multiple independent evaluations have confirmed the safety of Toyota's electronic throttle control systems," Christopher Reynolds, general counsel for Toyota Motor Sales, USA, said in a statement.
"However, we concluded that turning the page on this legacy legal issue through the positive steps we are taking is in the best interests of the company, our employees, our dealers and, most of all, our customers."
The figure eclipses other settlements in the auto industry including Bridgestone Corp's $240 million payout to Ford Motor Co in 2005 over Ford's massive Firestone tire safety recall in 2001. Ford replaced 13 million Firestone tires, installed mostly as original equipment on the company's popular Explorer SUV, in one of the biggest recalls in U.S. history.
Toyota said it would take a one-time pretax charge of $1.1 billion to cover the costs. The company said it plans to book the charge as operating expenses in its October-December third quarter.
Hagens Berman, the law firm representing Toyota owners who brought the lawsuit in 2010, issued a statement saying that the settlement was valued between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion. In a memo filed in court, the lawyers said the settlement was "a landmark, if not a record, settlement in automobile defect class action litigation in the United States."
Toyota's recall of more than 10 million vehicles between 2009 and 2011 hurt the company's reputation for reliability and safety. Toyota faces an estimated $10 billion in potential civil liability in U.S. courts, for consumer fraud, personal injury and wrongful death claims stemming from acceleration complaints.
Wednesday's $1.1. billion settlement does not cover the wrongful death or injury claims.
LINGERING EFFECTS
The effect of the recalls on sales and loyalty remains "difficult to isolate," IHS Automotive analyst Rebecca Lindland said.
"A lot of their growth through the early 2000s were first-time Toyota buyers," she said. "Those are the people that were most vulnerable to saying, 'I'll never own a Toyota again.' The long term effects won't fully be realized until all of the cars that have been impacted by the recall have been retired."
The biggest safety crisis in Toyota's history began to get public notice in August 2009 when an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer Mark Saylor and three members of his family were killed in a Lexus ES 350 that crashed at a high speed.
A separate lawsuit over the death of the Saylor family was settled out of court. A handful of wrongful death and personal injury cases are still pending, but the vast majority of the litigation over this issue will be finished if the proposed settlement is approved, said a person with knowledge of the remaining lawsuits who wished to remain anonymous.
Within a half year of the Saylor family crash, Toyota President Akio Toyoda and other company executives were questioned in a high-profile U.S. Congressional hearing, and Toyoda made a public apology.
Toyota maintained all along that its electronic throttle control system was not at fault. It reiterated that on Wednesday.
A study by U.S. safety regulator the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA found no link between the reports of unintended acceleration and Toyota's electronic throttle control system.
INCREASINGLY COMMON
The settlement, which must be approved by a California federal judge, includes direct payments to customers as well as the installation of a brake override system in more than 2.7 million vehicles, according to the settlement agreement filed in court.
The terms include a $250 million fund for former Toyota owners who sold vehicles at reduced prices and a separate $250 million fund for owners not eligible for the brake override system.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs are slated to receive up to $200 million in fees and $27 million in costs, according to court documents.
Richard Cupp, a professor at Pepperdine University School of Law, said the settlement was large for the automotive sector but was dwarfed by other litigation involving economic loss claims. State cases against the tobacco industry, for instance, amounted to more than $200 billion.
"That could mean that lawsuits like these could become increasingly common, even where there is not provable physical injury on large scale," Cupp said.
The case is In re: Toyota Motor Corp. Unintended Acceleration Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 10-ml-02151.

Read More..