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Rovio Announces “Angry Birds Rio”, Coming This March

There is a new Angry Birds game on the horizon, and this time it’ll be the result of an exclusive partnership between Rovio, the makers of the original game, and Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox. The game, named “Angry Birds Rio”, will be a crossover of Rovio’s series with the upcoming animated film Rio, which – guess what – tells the story of two birds, Blu and Jewel, that have to fight animal smugglers in Rio de Janeiro.

The new Angry Birds game will follow a plot similar to the movie: the original Angry Birds are kidnapped and taken to Rio de Janeiro, but they manage to escape and set out to save Blu and Jewel, the characters of the movie. Sounds like Rovio and 20th Century Fox really collaborated to make the series fit together – how couldn’t they, considering we’re talking about a blockbuster game and a new film from the creators of the Ice Age trilogy?

Angry Birds Rio will launch in March 2011 with 45 initial levels, and more will be added with software updates. The app will be released for “smartphone and tablets” – we guess iPhone and iPad support is pretty much obvious. No word on pricing yet, but we think $4.99 is the usual sweet spot. Full press release available here, and trailers of the movie and game embedded below. Read more

Ask Different: Apple Stack Exchange Out Of Beta

The Apple specific question forum as a part of the Stack Exchange community has gone live this afternoon, harboring a community of experts willing to share knowledge on all things iPad, Mac, and iOS development. The collaborate question and answer site has implemented a lovely interface fit for any MacBook or iMac you may be visiting the exchange from, and you can visit Stack Exchange’s most recent launch at apple.stackexchange.com.

OWC To Transform Your Mac Mini Into The Media Center You Always Wanted

There’s those that live in iTunes with the Apple TV, and then there’s those that live off an assortment of digital media with a mess of HTPCs, NAS storage boxes, and long runs of ethernet. Mac Minis turn out to be pretty good multimedia centers at an affordable price point, and OWC wants to take your initial box and transform it into a powerful, redundant, and blu-ray capable monster. With OWC’s Media Center Solution program, they’ll upgrade your Mac Mini to the max, toss in a new RAID storage server, outfit your Mac Mini with an external Blu-Ray drive, and give you the option of a couple Elegato HDTV USB plugins so you have an effortless connection to your flatscreen. Why pay OWC when you could set all of this stuff up yourself? Well if you’re not terribly handy with cables, screwdrivers, or can’t stand the initial software setup between all these boxes, think of OWC as the cable installer (at least not Comcast ones): he’ll set you up and all you’ll have to do is turn on the TV. The best part of OWC’s package is that it’s easy to judge how much storage you need thanks to easy site layout – OWC plans to turn a complicated setup into a simple install starting a base price of $700.

[via Cult of Mac]

We Reviewed Berokyo For iPad: Now We’re Giving It Away

Berokyo is an app you never knew you needed until you actually get your hands on it: presenting a one of a kind management system that organizes your contacts, photos, documents, and media onto an array of bookshelves, you always have access to your most used content. We were especially excited by its capabilities with Dropbox, and now we have ten promocodes to giveaway thanks to the awesome developers at Think, Code, Release. Click past the break below for the full rundown of contest rules.

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Active Storage To Replace The Discontinued Xserve

A report from 9to5mac earlier this week suggested that Apple started recommending a product from company Active Storage to customers in the Xserve, which as you may remember will be officially discontinued on January 31st. Indeed, shipping status on Apple.com for the Xserves indicates that orders will be shipped on April –  likely the last units that are being sold these days.

In the meantime, a teaser page on Active Storage’s website features a countdown to a new product that will be launched on Monday. As noted by MacRumors, the teaser device (covered by black cloth) looks like a rackmountable unit:

The teaser image appears to show a rackmountable hardware unit, seemingly in a 2U form factor, covered with a black cloth. While the company has released no other information about the forthcoming product, it does appear as though Active Storage is preparing to fill the void left by the Xserve’s discontinuation, quite possibly with Apple’s blessing and assistance.

Active Storage was founded by Apple employees that left the company in 2008. It is unclear what kind of support will Apple give Active Storage in recommending the product to its existing customers, but at this point we guess Active Storage will provide more details next week.

Did Pixar Tease The iPad With “The Incredibles” In 2004?→

Did Pixar Tease The iPad In “The Incredibles” In 2004?

During a session at Macworld Expo, Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff told the audience that Steve Jobs might have tested people’s reception to a tablet computer in Pixar’s 2004 movie “The Incredibles”:

If a device works on a movie audience, it’ll also work as a real-world product. That’s the “meta lesson” fromChris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff who study how sci-fi interfaces in movies make it off the silver screen and vice versa.

We know the tablet project had been in the works for years before Apple decided to release the iPhone first, in 2007. We also know, however, that similar tablet devices were used in sci-fi movies before Pixar’s The Incredibles, because people have always wondered what the future might look like. For example, in today’s movies we’re predicting Minority report-style controls and brain-based human-machine interactions.

The fact that a tablet computer with touch controls was used by Jobs’ Pixar in 2004 is, anyway, fascinating. And perfect discussion material for geeks.

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Localscope 1.1 Integrates Navigon MobileNavigator For The Ultimate Find & Drive Combo

Localscope is well known for its location based discovery prowess, helping you gather information about your current location thanks to the combination of augmented reality, geo-meta-search, and social driven capabilities. Comparable to Google’s Places, Localscope enables users to find the nearest hotspots for coffee, movies, and more. As of Localscope 1.1, you can not only find the hip new club in your city, but you can navigate to it as well thanks to Navigon MobileNavigator integration. Swipe across your destination, tap the map, and bring up MobileNavigator so you can quickly reach your destination. Localscope with MobileNavigator brings the functionality that Android has delivered with Places and Navigation Beta to the iPhone: if you own both the applications, the combo presents a terrific way to traverse new landscapes without getting lost.

Localscope can be downloaded from the App Store for $2.99, and Navigon MobileNavigator (USA version) can be downloaded for $39.99.

Tip Of The Day: Check for App Store Updates With Keyboard Shortcut

For me, the most annoying thing in iTunes is that to check for app updates I’m forced to mouse to the “Check for Updates” button in the lower right corner, and most of the times I miss the little arrow next to it with my cursor. I used to hate this. I’m saying “used to” because thanks to this tip I found over at Finer Things in Mac, now I can check for app updates with a keyboard shortcut.

The shortcut is the usual Command-R. What’s interesting is that the shortcut is used to refresh the web view in the iTunes Store, and Command-R isn’t documented in the iTunes menu.

So, there you have it. Command-R to check for updates. A little trick that’s incredibly useful for me.