Angry Birds, the popular iOS game, now available for free in the Android Market.

Angry Birds is one of the most popular games for iOS, and it was bought by over 6.5 million people running Apple's devices (without counting those who downloaded it via Installous).  A few days ago it has also been launched for Android, in the Android Market, and is now available for download, yes, for free. Of course that it includes ads, but they appear only when you are restarting a "mission" and only for a few seconds (2-3 maximum).

Just as I was expecting, it is a very addicting game, and I started liking it as soon as opened it. On my Nexus One (1GHz processor with 512 MB of RAM) the game runs smoothly, without any lag. I've first seen this game on someone's iPod Touch (3rd gen) and it really had lag. The high graphics the developers included in this game make it a must have one for any Android device.

As someone said, "Once played can't stop". Maybe only when your battery discharges completely. It has already over 250 000 downloads, and about 10 500 ratings. A paid, ad-free version is expected to become available later this year.

To download it, just search for "Angry Birds" in the Market, it should be available on Android Markets from all over the world. If you can't find it there, just request me a download link for it and you'll be able to download it directly on you Android device.

Limera1n/Greenpois0n and iPad on 3.2.2? Better...not.

If you've got an iPad and you want jailbreak on it, my recommendation is to avoid the update to 3.2.2 (if you haven't done it already). My iPad was bricked today by a an app (it was stuck at boot logo), and I decided that because there was no way of recovering the data I had on it, the best option was to update it to the latest firmware, 3.2.2. But it turned out that it was a bad idea....

Everything went fine, iTunes 10 successfully updated it to 3.2.2, but the problems started when I tried to jailbreak it. Even though it seemed that the jailbreak succeeded, I couldn't find on the home screen the icon/shortcut/logo/app/whatever of the jailbreak tool I tried. I tried both limera1n and greenpois0n, on three different computers. One was running Windows XP, one was on Windows 7, and the other was on Mac OS X. However, on none of the them I got the icon of the jailbreak solution I tried. So, I couldn't get Cydia, so the jailbreak was completely useless.

I really don't know where's the problem, some people reported that both solutions worked fine from the first try on their 3.2.2 iPad, others reported that they tried of few times and than they succeeded, and others reported that they got in the same situation as me. I think that I tried about 25 times to jailbreak that iPad. I really got tired of these iDevices. Unjailbroken, the iPad it is just a bigger iPod, even a much cheaper Android-powered device being able to do much more that an iPad can. But if you jailbreak it (it's legal in case you didn't know, read more here), you'll get a big headache with all the bugs and problems jailbreaking brings.

I ended up by restoring the iPad to 3.2.1 (I had SHSH on file for 3.2.1, so it was quite simple), and I did the jailbreak using jailbreakme.com. If you're still on 3.2.1 (or 3.2) and you want jailbreak, make sure you do it before updating the iPad to 3.2.2, because at that time you can save your iPad's SHSH blobs without any problem.Having SHSH saved on 3.2.1/3.2 (or even on 3.2.2 if you get there with a jailbroken iPad) means that you can anytime downgrade/restore to the version you have that SHSH saved.

Use them on your own responsibility:

Jailbreak by limera1n (Windows, Mac OS X): http://www.limera1n.com/
Jailbreak by greenpois0n (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux): http://www.greenpois0n.com/

Ubuntu 10.10 is live, there aren't any huge changes.

Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution, got today to a new version, 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. This new version brings some changes, but they are small so the experience is pretty close to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. The themes (Radiance and Ambiances) were slightly polished, making Ubuntu a quite good-looking alternative for Windows or Mac.

One of the most notable difference is represented by the fonts. They look now much prettier than before. Below is an example:

The Ubuntu Software Center has also been changed, bringing you new features, such as "What's new", "Where is it", the ability of handling .deb files or paid applications. Actually, there's only one paid application now, but it is just for testing purposes, more are expected to come with Ubuntu 11.04. 

The installation process has been completely redesigned. Andrew (from webupd8) shot a video of it:

Ouch, I was about to forget about it. There's also a new wallpaper into Ubuntu 10.10 by default. The old one, which has been a little redesigned compared to the one present in 10.04, created a real scandal and was changed after some users reported even a bug into it. So, it now looks something like this:

Other changes are represented only by under the hood improvements and updates to most applications, changes that are seen rarely or aren't at all for the end user. 

Ubuntu is available for download from here.

Limera1n is available, jailbreaks iOS 4.0-4.1.

Limera1n has been released yesterday evening, and after geohot got angry and pulled the download link (I don't know exactly why), it seems that Limera1n is now available for download again on the official website. This new jailbreak tool promises to jailbreak almost any device running iOS 4.0 or 4.1.

The supported products are iPhone 3Gs/4, iPad, and iPod Touch 3G/4G. For the unmentioned products: iPod Touch 2G support is coming soon, while for the iPhone 3G you must use redsn0w. For the moment, limera1n is available only for Windows, the compatibility for Mac is coming soon.

Theoretically, limera1n does hacktivate your device (allowing you to use it with any carrier), but many people reported problems after hacktivating their iPhones with limera1n, so I don't recommend you doing this yet (limera1n is currently in beta 4).

Hope I don't have to tell you that you're using it on your own responsibility, it is an unstable release so don't expect from it to be bug-free. You might have to restore your device or you may even get a bricked one as a result of using limera1n!

Download from here.

We'll probably have an alternative to iOS for the iPad soon, and that's the Chrome OS.

OK, I'm starting by telling that I have no idea about how popular "Hexxeh" is, but I never heard of him until now. And it seems that he isn't very popular on YouTube, as he has only a few thousands of views. But he did something really interesting, he succeeded to run the Chrome OS on the iPad. Yes, I'm sure you know, that OS created for netbooks by Google, running on the so popular iPad. So here's a video of what he did.



This seems to be quite real, because of two reasons: the first one is the pointer, which you can see that really moves when he clicks on something, and the second one is the speed of the OS, which shows that the Chrome OS might have been emulated on that iPad. Of course that there is a lot of job to do for Hexxeh, and one of the first things he needs to do is to improve the speed of Chrome OS (if he wants to release a official version of his work, of course).

In case you have issues with Market on your Android device, here is what you can try.

As you probably know, there are somewhere around 100 000 apps currently available in the Android Market, growing faster and coming forcefully behind Apple's App Store (which has around 200 000 apps). Is isn't currently any problem for Apple, but there's a matter of time until there will be a real challenge for Apple to keep up with the incredible grown of the Android Market.

However, the Market (the place from where apps for Android are officially installed) isn't a perfect app. Actually, it's quite buggy, maybe too buggy in some situations. Nexus One, a device on which the Market worked perfectly and which is considered "the Google Phone", got some problems since it was updated to 2.2. There weren't big problems until about a month ago, and, from then, my phone fails most of the times to install some updates (when more updates are available in the same time).

This is a common problem on many Android devices, and here is what you can try in order to get Android Market working properly. First, disconnect your device from wifi. Then go into Settings | Applications | Manage Applications | All (if these steps doesn't correspond to your device, just find in the settings the list with all apps).

From there, scroll down to "Market", tap on it, and then tap "Clear data", "Clear cache", and "Force stop". This will practically clear everything Market had saved about your apps. Then, connect again to wifi, and start Market. You'll be asked to Accept the "Terms of Use", and then it will list all your installed apps and the available updates on "Downloads" (just like it was before).

Now, just don't force it to update everything. Update every app from the update button (inside the app page), and make sure you don't update two or more apps in the same time. Otherwise, it will continue failing to update some of the apps.

Keep in mind that this is just a temporary solution, and doesn't work at all times. Additionally, make sure you have enough free internal storage memory on your device, as this could be the problem in some situations.

Apple just released iTunes 10.0.1, fixes lots of bugs.

Apple has just released a new version of iTunes, 10.0.1, which brings improvements to Ping (more exactly, it adds a new sidebar for it), and fixes lots of bugs. Here's the changelog of this update:

iTunes 10.0.1 makes it easier to share your favorite music with your friends on Ping. You can now Like or Post about music right from your iTunes library. You can also easily see the recent activity of a selected artist in your library, or of all artists and friends you follow on Ping using the new Ping Sidebar.

This release also provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• Addresses an issue where the picture quality of a video changes depending on whether the on-screen controls are visible. 

• Resolves an issue where iTunes may unexpectedly quit while interacting with album artwork viewed in a separate window. 

• Fixes a problem that affects the performance of some third-party visualizers. 

• Addresses an issue where the iTunes Library and playlists appear empty. 

• Resolves an issue that created an incompatibility with some third-party shared libraries.

iTunes 10 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• Introducing Ping. Use Ping to follow your favorite artists and friends or connect with the world’s most passionate music fans. Discover the music everyone is talking about, listening to, and downloading. 

• Rent HD TV episodes for just 99¢ each. Watch them on your Mac or PC, on-the-go with iPhone or iPod touch, or in your living room with the all new Apple TV. 

• Play your favorites on the all new iPod Touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV. 

• Play music wirelessly with AirPlay on AirPlay-enabled speakers, home theater receivers, and iPod accessories. 

• Explore many look-and-feel improvements throughout iTunes. 

• Enjoy performance improvements which make iTunes faster and more responsive. 

• Additional voice support with VoiceOver Kit for iPod.

It is not clear if this causes any problems with jailbroken devices, so if you have jailbreak on you iDevice, just stay away from it for now.

You can either get this new version via the Apple Software Update utility (on Mac), or you can manually download it for here (Windows & Mac users).