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If you’re just rubbing the sleep out of your eyes prior to heading outside to dig out of yet another polar blast, shut down the snow blower and drop that shovel — we’ve got three days worth of weekend to catch up on in this edition, and you won’t want to miss a single story. Let’s dig in before you dig out!
Apple, Google Have Had Enough of Flappy Bird Clones
Are you sick of hearing about Flappy Bird and having to wade through the clones that have sprung up in its wake? According to TechCrunch, so are Apple and Google, who have started clamping down on imitators with the word “flappy” in their title. Both companies nixed developer Mind Juice Media’s submission Flappy Dragon, which Apple claimed “attempts to leverage a popular app.” Of course, the damage is already done, with knockoffs such as Flappy Bee, Flappy Plane, Flappy Super Hero, Flappy Flyer and Flappy Bird Flyer already having snuck through the gates, which are more than enough to keep anguished Flappy Bird players busy.
Boinx Holding Stop-Motion Animation Events at NYC Apple Stores
Stop-motion animation lovers in the New York City area may want to swing by an Apple retail store this Thursday to get a family oriented, hands-on look at iStopMotion for iPad. Developer Boinx Software and the team from Animation Chefs are holding two such free events on February 20, hitting the Apple Store Upper West Side from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST, then darting over to the Apple Store Grand Central from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST. To reserve your place, click the appropriate link above and follow the event listing on Apple’s website — and don’t forget to bring the kids!
Roxio Brings Stripped-Down Toast Disc Burning to Mac App Store
Now that Apple has banished the SuperDrive from its entire product line, Roxio has been largely quiet when it comes to major updates for its venerable Toast disc-burning software. But the Corel-owned division isn’t giving up entirely, having recently released Toast Burn, a $19.99 Mac App Store offering that strips out most of the multimedia features from the more expensive Toast Titanium and delivers a compact app for copying or burning data discs. Unfortunately for Roxio, there are plenty of cheaper apps on the Mac App Store that already perform such simplistic tasks, but kudos for taking the plunge and here’s hoping there will be at least one more big Toast Titanium release down the road for those of us who still use CD, DVD or Blu-ray media.
Open Source Tizen OS Announces 15 New Partners
The Tizen Association announced last week that 15 new companies have joined the ranks of its Partner Program, which launched in November of last year with 36 members. Tizen is an up-and-coming open source mobile operating system whose ranks include Samsung, LG, Huawei, Intel and Vodafone, and are now joined by Chinese handset maker ZTE, AccuWeather, Japanese carrier SoftBank Mobile and most curiously, third-placed U.S. carrier Sprint, who presumably will be among the first to offer Tizen OS-based handsets when they finally launch.
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