1）据《莫斯科时报》报道，Promsvyazbank银行日前与Internet Retail Solutions（简称Irsol）宣布将推出愤怒的小鸟银行卡，这是Rovio在俄罗斯推出的首个品牌授权项目。

angry birds bankcard(from themoscownews.com)

这些限量版银行卡将于6月4日面世，首批银行卡数量为10万张，其年费是499卢布（15美元）；如果用户需求量增加，Promsvyazbank之后还将推出更多银行卡。

2）IDC最新报告显示，2012年第一季度智能手机出货量为1.523亿部，其中Android智能手机占比59%，而iOS则占比23%。

top six smartphone OS(from IDC)

这两个智能手机平台合并占比82%，远超同期的54.4%市场份额。Symbian智能手机出货量从2640万部下滑至1040万部，RIM则从1390万部跌至960万部，Windows Phone仅从原来的220万部增长至330万部；值得注意的是，Linux设备出货量达350万部，超过了Windows Phone设备。

3）据路透社报道，RIM首席执行官Thorsten Heins最近正进行一项彻底的业务重组，计划裁减40％的员工。继其全球销售主管Patrick Spence离职后，RIM首席法务官Karima Bawa最近也宣布离开公司。

rim-blackberry(from itsalltech.com)

报道称RIM有可能在2013年初，将原先的1万6500名全球员工削减至1万人左右，其中涉及的部门包括法务、营销、销售、运营和人力资源；IDC分析师Kevin Restiso认为，这一结果可能与Heins推行的变革有关，RIM市场份额在最近几年已被iOS和Android持续蚕食，其股票在过去一年中也下跌了75％。

不过有知情者透露，Bawa和Spence离职主要与Heins的管理模式有关，Heins上任后“挑选并组建核心管理团队……许多人都不是太适应他的领导风格”。

4）据《纽约时报》报道，Facebook最近招募了一些前苹果开发者（游戏邦注：据称这些开发者拥有iPhone和iPad研发背景），准备在明年发布一款Facebook手机。

facebook phone(from electricpig.co.uk)

虽然Facebook尚未公开确认这个消息，但有一位匿名Facebook成员透露，Mark Zuckerberg担心如果公司不能尽早推出手机设备，Facebook将来就只能成为其他手机平台上的一款应用而已。

5）据西班牙网站Windows Phone Apps报道，诺基亚出产的低端Windows Phone手机无法运行《愤怒的小鸟》和《PES2012》等热门手机游戏，并指出Lumia 610这种手机的RAM限制用户下载应用程序。

观察者指出，这种限制低端设备下载应用程序的做法可能会惹恼一些用户，而Lumia　610这种低端设备对Windows Phone平台的发展来说至关重要，因为它在发展中国家很有市场。

Nokia-Lumia-610(from tech.sc)

不过值得注意的是，一些高端的iOS游戏也已经开始出现不支持iPhone 3GS或第一代iPad等旧版设备的趋势。

6）《Lil’ Kingdom》是Glu Mobile推出的一款风格类似于《Tiny Tower》的游戏，在Google Play下载量已超过50万次，并在上周的Android应用营收榜单中位列第32名。

Lil-Kingdom(from playandroid.com)

其游戏玩法与《Tiny Tower》基本相同，但差别在于，玩家是挖地建造地下室，而非向上建高楼。但该游戏目前尚未植入社交功能，因此不具有《Tiny Tower》那种与好友比拼快速建高楼，以及Zynga游戏《Dream Heights》那允许玩家访问好友楼房的功能。

这款游戏目前也在App Store推出了一个通用版iOS应用，它曾在iPad免费游戏榜单排名第8，目前位居该榜单第310名，iPad游戏营收榜单第208名。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Russian bank to launch limited edition Angry Birds-branded credit card

by Matthew Diener

The Moscow-based Promsvyazbank has teamed up with Internet Retail Solutions (Irsol) to unveil an upcoming line of Angry Birds-branded bankcards.

While perhaps not as flashy as Angry Birds jewelry, the Russian credit cards are just another indication that the immensely popular Angry Birds brand is becoming a global marketing juggernaut.

The Moscow Times reports that this tie-in is the first official Angry Birds product licensed by Rovio in Russia.

Charging Angry Bird

The limited supply of cards will be made available on June 4th, with an initial run of 100,000 units. Promsvyazbank may produce more cards, assuming that consumer demand is strong enough.

Promsvyazbank is charging a modest 499 ruble ($15) annual service fee for the cards but is hoping to make more money through turnover and frequent payments.

Speaking on behalf of the bank, Ivan Pyatkov summarized their marketing strategy for the cards succinctly by stating, “We hope that customers will actively use this ‘plastic’ to pay for goods and services.”（source:pocketgamer）

2）Eight out of ten smartphones shipped are Android or iOS

by Tim Green

Kicking the shizzle out of RIM, Symbian and WinPho 7.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker said Android contributed 59 per cent and iOS 23 per cent of the 152.3 million smartphones shipped in 1Q12.

That’s 82 per cent – a big rise on the combined share of 54.4 per cent they had in 1Q11. And miserable news for the once mighty RIM/Symbian and the wannabe WinPho.

Symbian slipped from 26.4m shipments to 10.4m, while RIM went from 13.9m to 9.6m. For all its efforts WinPho could only rise from 2.2m to 3.3m. Interestingly, at 3.5m, more Linux devices shipped than WinPho.

“The popularity of Android and iOS stems from a combination of factors that the competition has struggled to keep up with,” said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Phone Technology and Trends program.

“Neither Android nor iOS were the first to market with some of these features, but the way they made the smartphone experience intuitive and seamless has quickly earned a massive following.”（source:mobile-ent）

3）RIM ‘reframing’ to see 40% of workforce cut by early 2013

by Keith Andrew

RIM is to cull up to 40 percent of its workforce in the coming months as CEO Thorsten Heins conducts what’s being billed as a complete ‘reframing’ of the Canadian mobile giant.

As detailed by Reuters, the news comes as the firm’s Chief Legal Officer – Karima Bawa – has announced her resignation, leaving RIM just days after head of global sales Patrick Spence also departed the BlackBerry manufacturer.

RIM revolution

According to IDC analyst Kevin Restiso, all such change is the result of Heins’ redesire to reshape RIM’s entire business, with the company having seen its market share eroded by both iOS and Android in recent years.

“Thorsten Heins is reframing the RIM organisation,” Restivo told Reuters, suggesting the company isn’t undergoing a steady transition, but rather enduring a full scale revolution.

“Not everyone will fit into the new picture.

“Departures, forced or otherwise, are inevitable anytime management sets a new course for an organisation.”

Make or break

It’s claimed the widescale reduction in RIM’s workforce – expected to bring its global total down from 16,500 to around 10,000 by early 2013 – will impact several divisions, including legal, marketing, sales, operations and human resources.

Such changes come at a particularly sensitive time for RIM, however, with the company gearing up to launch its BlackBerry 10 handsets before the end of 2012.

With RIM’s share price having fallen by 75 percent during the last year, many are pitching the launch of the new devices as a make or break moment.

Hit by Heins

Commentators are keen to suggest the departure of Bawa and Spence should not been seen as standard ins and outs following Heins’ appointment, however.

Rather, a former RIM employee cited by Reuters claims Heins’ mode of management is rubbing many of the big names at the company up the wrong way.

“Thorsten has a very different leadership style,” said the employee, who it’s claimed left several months ago.

“He is picking a very specific organisational structure, inner circle, external hires and strategy, and a lot of folks aren’t 100 percent comfortable with it.”

Heins was appointed as RIM’s new CEO back in January, following the board’s decision to dispose former joint CEOs and founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.（source:pocketgamer）

4）Rumour: Facebook hires Apple engineers to build new smartphone, due next year

by James Gilmour

Last November, we reported that Facebook was working with HTC to create the first Facebook smartphone handset.

Now, it seems that Mark Zuckerberg is turning up the heat on his mobile hardware project (code-named ‘Buffy’), hiring ex-Apple employees to expand the existing team with the intention of releasing a Facebook handset next year.

According to The New York Times, Facebook has taken on a small group of software and hardware engineers whose previous credits include the iPhone and the iPad.

These new recruits will not only bolster the existing Facebook / HTC smartphone team, but will also be involved in other Facebook-oriented smartphone projects.

Following the timeline

Though the company is trying its best to keep the project under wraps, some of Facebook’s staff are being a little more candid.

“Mark is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms,” an unnamed Facebook employee revealed.

Another unnamed source explained that the project has already received two “reboots”, after the social network’s software-centric tech department realised it would need outside help with hardware design.

When asked to comment on the new rumours, Facebook reiterated the statement it gave in November, saying: “We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers.”（source:pocketgamer）

5）Angry Birds and PES 2012 won’t run on low-end Nokia Windows Phones

by Keith Andrew

Low-end Windows Phone handsets from Nokia won’t be able to run some of the platform’s most popular apps, it’s been revealed.

According to Spanish website Windows Phone Apps, the likes of Angry Birds and PES 2012 are currently unavailable to Lumia 610 owners.

The site claims testing Nokia’s latest low-end handset – specifically designed for the European and Asian markets – reveals users are barred from downloading the apps in requestion due the 610′s RAM restrictions.

RAM rights

Users attempting to download and install said releases are hit by a notification claiming they require “a phone with more RAM than the Nokia Lumia 610.”

The block has reportedly been put in place by Nokia rather than Microsoft, with the Finnish firm restricting said apps to devices with more than 256MB of RAM to ensure the apps perform to standard.

Indeed, Microsoft appears to have not set policy in place, instead simply estimating that around 95 percent of apps designed for Tango – the next major update to the Windows Phone platform – would run on devices with 256MB of RAM.

High and low

Nokia’s response appears an attempt to ensure Windows Phone doesn’t get dragged into the issues of fragmentation that have dogged Android since its inception, with users barred from installing certain apps rather than running them and suffering poor performance.

Nonetheless, as Microsoft looks to present a universal platform, the revelation that not all handsets are equal may alarm consumers.

Low-end devices such as the Lumia 610 are vitally important to the platform’s growth as it looks to eat into Android’s share in developing markets.

The news comes as speculation continues to surround just how Microsoft will implement the delivery of Windows Phone 8 – expected late this year – to Windows Phone 7 handsets, with the suggestion being existing devices may be barred from updating the OS.

And it’s also worth pointing out in this context that it’s increasingly the case that high-end iOS games don’t support older devices such as the iPhone 3GS or the original iPad.（source:pocketgamer）

6）Dig deep with Glu’s Lil’ Kingdom

Pete Davison

Lil’ Kingdom is a new game from Glu Mobile. The title is a Tiny Tower-inspired building game, and has been downloaded over 500,000 times from Google Play since its launch, showing up as the No. 32 top grossing Android title at the end of last week.

Note: This title was tested on a Motorola Xoom tablet running Android 3.2. No compatibility or performance issues were encountered.

After choosing a name for their castle and naming the resident princess, players are introduced to the game’s basic mechanics via a brief tutorial. Gameplay is almost identical to Nimblebit’s Tiny Tower, albeit digging down instead of building up. Players build increasingly-deep floors in their castle which may either be residential or commercial in nature.

Residential floors allow players to provide housing for residents, who can then be used to staff the commercial floors and make money. Most tasks, be they building a new floor or restocking a commercial floor, take a particular period of real time to accomplish, though they may be “hurried” using hard currency — this may be purchased with real money or, like in Tiny Tower, earned gradually through normal play.

Sometimes, characters will knock on the player’s door and request to be ferried to a particular floor using the castle’s elevator system. Some of these characters have special abilities — dwarves, for example, have the ability to hurry production of a new floor without having to expend hard currency. At other times, the castle’s princess will request a specific product that is in stock on one of the commercial floors, and the player is then required to carry a character to the relevant floor before a timer expires. As the inverted tower expands, this time limit becomes tighter, so the player is able to upgrade the elevator’s speed using large quantities of hard currency.

The game also features a “collection” mechanic where players sometimes find special items after completing one of the princess’ requests. Completing collections unlocks the ability to build special floors which provide various bonuses to the player, allowing them to earn soft currency quicker.

Lil’ Kingdom does not feature social play, unlike Tiny Tower and other similar titles such as Zynga’s Dream Heights. Part of the attraction of Nimblebit’s original title in particular was competing against friends to see who could build the highest tower the quickest, and that incentive is not present in Lil’ Kingdom. Zynga’s Dream Heights built on this formula by allowing players to build connections to other players’ towers and trade with them, but that facility, too, is not present in Glu’s offering.

Lil’ Kingdom, in short, is simply a game to play for the sake of playing — there is no specific end goal and no means of competing against other players. This is not necessarily a bad thing — the Tiny Tower formula is proven to be popular and addictive for many players, and the game’s large number of downloads and strong showing in the Top Grossing charts for Android suggest that it is finding an audience. How long these players will continue playing (and paying) without social features and competitive play, however, remains to be seen.

Lil’ Kingdom is available to download now for Android devices via Google Play. It is also available as a Universal app for iOS devices via the App Store. On iOS, the title peaked at No. 8 in the Top Free iPad Games chart, and is currently placed at No.310 in Top Free iPad Games, No. 278 in Top Grossing Games and No. 208 in Top Grossing iPad Games.（source:insidemobileapps）