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It's Friday! And here are the Friday News Bits of this week!
The Angry Birds RPG: Angry Birds EPIC
Rovio has revealed a new Angry Birds game. But this is not just another one of those tower breaking Angry Birds games. The new game is called Angry Birds EPIC. The Angry Birds EPIC is a medieval-themed RPG game.
The game has shown to have weapons and magic, working in a turn-based battle system against the Bad Piggies gang. There is a little talk of the weapons "Epic Weapons!", "Epic Upgrades!" and "Epic Battles!". This is the info:
- EPIC Battles! - Craft amazing battle-winning weapons like a wooden sword, frying pan or stick thingy with a sponge on top!
- EPIC Upgrades! - Level up your characters, armor, weapons and potions to become a legendary hero ready to take on the mightiest pig warrior!
- EPIC Battles! - Turn-based battles between our heroic flock of warriors and those green snout-nosed scoundrels! It's easy to play, but difficult to master!
Angry Bird EPIC's game world, the Piggy Island.
There have also been two classes of the player characters revealed, Knight and Mage:
Images Source: AngryBirdsNest
Google Buys Most of Green Throttle Games
Google has purchased most of the Green Throttle Games for an unknown sum of money. Google confirmed to BBC News that Google, while not having purchased the whole company, has bought "elements" of Green Throttle Games.
As per part of the deal, two of Green Throttle Games' co-founders, Matt Crowley and Karl Townsend, will be joining Google, while Charles Huang, also a co-founder, wont be moving to Google and will keep the rights to the Green Throttle Games brand.
Figures in the industry have theorized that this move could be for Google to create it's own TV box that could be used to play games of Google's Android operating system on a large screen.
Green Throttle Games is perhaps best known for making a game controller for mobile devices which connected to the devices wirelessly through Bluetooth.
FDA Approves The Cefaly, A Battery Powered Head-Band That Prevents Migraine
The FDA(Food and Drug Administration) has recently approved the Cefaly for prescription in the United States. The Cefaly is a head-band which uses a low dose of nerve-stimulating electricity that prevents migraine.
The Cefaly is to be worn for 20 or less minutes per day. It sends a low electrical current which stimulates the 'cranial nerves' which are associated with migraine pain. The users who have tested this device have stated that they feel a "tingling or messaging sensation".
The Cefaly is only available for patients of age 18 and above, and is only available per prescription. It is also available in Europe, Canada and Australia.
According to a study, 53% of the participants were satisfied and planned to purchase the product for future use, while the others complained that they do not like the feeling while wearing it, experienced headache after using it or felt sleepy. However, no serious effects have been reported.
The Amazon Controller Is Revealed
Image Source: ZatsNotFunny
ZatsNotFunny has revealed pictures of the new Amazon controller(picture above). The controller is rather similar to the Xbox 360 controller, having two analog-sticks styled just like the Xbox 360 controller, a D-Pad, and the A,B,X,Y buttons. It also appears to have buttons for 'Home, 'Menu' and 'Back' as well as Rewind, Pause/Play and Forward buttons.
The controller will not be shipped with Amazon's upcoming set-top Box but it is an optional extra and also works with the Kindle Fire tablets.
Complete details are yet to be revealed by Amazon.
Bill Gates Says He Wouldn't Characterize Edward Snowden As a Hero
In an interview with The Rolling Stone, Bill Gates was asked if he considers Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor. Bill Gates replied:
I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero. If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of "OK, I'm really trying to improve things." You won't find much admiration from me.
He was then asked if he thinks "it's better now that we know what we know about government surveillance", to which Bill Gates replied:
The government has such ability to do these things. There has to be a debate. But the specific techniques they use become unavailable if they're discussed in detail. So the debate needs to be about the general notion of under what circumstances should they be allowed to do things.
This clears up that Bill Gates definitely does not like what Edward Snowden did, and considers him a law breaker. But personally, I see Edward Snowden as a hero.
Ubuntu Smartphones Estimated Price Revealed
Canonical's Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth has revealed at the CeBIT that the smartphones running on the Ubuntu operating system will be costing between $200 and $400 Dollars. Mark Shuttleworth has stated:
Ours will come out in the mid-higher edge, so $200 to $400. We’re going with the higher end because we want people who are looking for a very sharp, beautiful experience and because our ambition is to be selling the future PC, the future personal computing engine.
Canonical aims to create hardware that would work as a smartphone and also work as a PC when plugged into a monitor. They have teamed up with phone makers Meizu and BQ earlier this year to produce the devices but their attempts to raise $32 Million Dollars to create the 'Ubuntu Edge' smartphone were unsuccessful. However, while calling it a "spectacular failure", Mark Shuttleworth also called it a "spectacular success" because of the attention it received.
The Ubuntu smartphones will be launched sometime this year, while more will follow in 2015.
Facebook To Add Premium Auto-Play Video Ads
The ads will auto-play when they are displaying on your feed, scrolling away from them will automatically stop them. The video ads will be of 15-second per ad.
The price for running a video ad will be determined by the size of the audience as measured by the measurement firm Nielsen. The marketers will have the choice to choose specific times of a day for their spots and the ads will be able to be targeted to specific ages and genders.
Sony and Panasonic Develop The Next Generation of Optical Discs: The Archival Disc
The disc will have three layers per side and have the same dimensions as the Blu-ray discs.
The Archival Disc is expected to be launched in 2015, starting from 300GB of storage and expanding to 1TB.
A Panasonic spokesperson has stated:
As a type of archival media, optical discs have numerous advantages over current mainstream HDD and tape media, such as their ability to be stored for a long time while still maintaining readability. We hope to develop demand for archives that use optical discs.”
The development is specifically for professional archiving. We are not currently considering optical discs for household consumer use.
Houston Father Fatally Shoots Daughter's Boyfriend After Finding Him In Her Bedroom
According to Fox News, the father was awaken by one of his other children and was told that there was someone in his daughter's bedroom at about 2:20AM. He took his gun and confronted the 17 year old teen in his daughter's bedroom. The daughter declined that she knew the teen and the father told the boyfriend not to move. The teen reached for something and the father then fatally shot the teen, killing him. The teen did not have a gun.
Later, the daughter confessed that she knew the teen, who was her boyfriend, and she snuck him in her bedroom herself.
There is an on-going investigation on the incident and the father will be unlikely to get any charges because he reacted to what he knew at the time, what he knew after was not what his state of mind was at the time of the shooting, he was only trying to protect his daughter. A grand jury will decide whether the father should be charged with anything or not.
The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has stated that the US government is a threat to the internet. He says he called the United States' President Obama to "express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future".
Mark Zuckerberg Says The US Government Is A Threat To The Internet And Called President Obama To Express His Frustration
Mark Zuckerberg added that when "our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our government". "The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat.", Mark Zuckerberg continued.
He then, ended his statement saying that it's up to "all of us" to build the internet "we want" and that we can "count on Facebook" to do their part.
This is the original statement posted by Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook profile:
As the world becomes more complex and governments everywhere struggle, trust in the internet is more important today than ever.The internet is our shared space. It helps us connect. It spreads opportunity. It enables us to learn. It gives us a voice. It makes us stronger and safer together.To keep the internet strong, we need to keep it secure. That's why at Facebook we spend a lot of our energy making our services and the whole internet safer and more secure. We encrypt communications, we use secure protocols for traffic, we encourage people to use multiple factors for authentication and we go out of our way to help fix issues we find in other people's services.The internet works because most people and companies do the same. We work together to create this secure environment and make our shared space even better for the world.This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government.The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.So it's up to us -- all of us -- to build the internet we want. Together, we can build a space that is greater and a more important part of the world than anything we have today, but is also safe and secure. I'm committed to seeing this happen, and you can count on Facebook to do our part.
Muhammad Junaid
Muhammad Junaid is the writer of Entertainment Ghost. He writes articles, reviews, previews and entertainment news about gaming, technology, the media and so on. You can follow him on Twitter @Mr_MJunaid and Facebook MJunaid
