angry

The success of Rovio's Angry Birds franchise is pushing creator Rovio into new areas of business, soon to include game-themed gear for babies.

Reuters reports that developer Rovio is planning a lineup of baby blankets and clothes made by SwaddleDesigns that will feature Angry Birds art.

The new offering will join Rovio's existing lineup of wearable merchandise, which includes flip flops, shoulder bags, and backpacks. The company also sells plush toys, iPhone cases, and stationary kits aimed at those in school.

The sales of products like these has turned into a big business for Rovio, with Reuters reporting sales of some 7 million Angry Birds toys since the company began offering them late last year. In an interview with the news outlet, Ville Heijari, Rovio's vice president of franchise development, said merchandise is "one of the fastest growing parts of the company."

Related: The unofficial Angry Birds bra … Read more

When it comes to the mobile world, it's all about apps.

More than ever, people are using apps to augment the capabilities of their smartphones. They can remind you of your next meeting, play the latest Lady Gaga song, and make catapulting virtual birds into evil pigs a family pastime.

Likewise, they're increasingly important to the technology world. The apps market is expected to generate $9 billion in revenue this year and nearly double that next year, according to Gartner. The lack of apps, meanwhile, has crippled some smartphone platforms. Just ask Research In Motion and its BlackBerry … Read more

In the grand tradition of Crave stories about brassieres, we bring you the Angry Birds bra. There isn't much more to say about this one, except...it's an Angry Birds bra!

As you'll note from the picture, a red bird adorns one cup and a green pig covers the other--and hopefully they don't go at it too much or things could get a bit uncomfortable for the wearer. The bra comes in a range of levels sizes, and despite being handpainted, it's washable.

Crafts site Etsy lists the $35 garment as sold as of today, but the maker, Etsy member SceeneShoes, takes orders for custom-painted goods. So, all you Angry Birds fans in need of an uplift, you can get one too.

SceeneShoes' other creations include adorable Mario and Luigi and Sonic and Tails shoes, so we're betting she can finagle just about any manner of geek undergarment. WoW lingerie anyone? … Read more

I was out for a walk with my son this weekend when he stopped me, gobsmacked, in front of the bakery. "Dada! Look! An Angry Birds...cake."

So I called Michael Gassen, the owner of Noe Valley Bakery, and asked him why, and for whom, he had built the giant and clearly fragile construction in his store window. "I love Angry Birds," he said. "I'm kind of obsessed with it."

Thinking it'd be "awesome" to build a 3D Angry Birds, he gathered "a couple of people," and took about three days to build the cake out of rolled fondant and gum paste. There are a minimum number of structural aids (dowels and toothpicks), "to avoid surprises," should anyone actually want to eat it.

He says the cake would cost about $750 if anyone wanted to buy it, but that it wasn't created for a customer. It'll keep indefinitely, because the bakers added drying agents to the ingredients. It is edible "and actually tastes pretty good," he says, but less so with each passing day. … Read more

Angry Birds maker Rovio is witnessing strong growth in China and is expanding operations there to capitalize on it.

The company announced today it has opened corporate and marketing operations in China that will aid its plans to develop titles for Chinese users. To kick things off, Rovio in September will be launching the "Moon Festival" episode of Angry Birds Seasons to coincide with the country's Mid-Autumn Festival. Moon Festival will also be available to Rovio's users outside of China.

To help embed itself in the Chinese market, Rovio is creating "Angry Birds-themed moon cakes,&… Read more

Lodsys, a group that's targeted companies big and small for infringing on its patents, has added five new defendants to a suit it filed back in May, including Electronic Arts and Rovio, the maker of the popular Angry Birds franchise.

In an amended complaint (PDF), filed today with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and picked up by patent-tracking blog Foss Patents, Lodsys has added a number of gaming heavyweights including Atari, Electronic Arts, Rovio, Square Enix, and Take-Two Interactive to the list of companies it says are violating patents it holds. That brings … Read more

Roku is updating its lineup of streaming video boxes with a trio of new products for 2011. The new models add Wii-like casual gaming, controlled by a new Bluetooth motion remote. The ubiquitous Angry Birds is the debut Roku title, and it's included for free with the flagship $100 Roku box.

The news of fresh Rokus confirms weeks of rumors and FCC leaks that had surfaced earlier on Engadget and Zatz Not Funny.

The new game-enabled boxes are known as the Roku 2 line--a particularly curious name, since it's the third or fourth incarnation of the streaming-media box (depending on how you count) that first debuted in May 2008. Truth in numbering notwithstanding, the new models carry over the basic functions of the existing Roku line, with more than 250 streaming media channels (including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, MLB, NHL, NBA, UFC, and dozens of others), HD video, and built-in Wi-Fi support. The tiny enclosures are smaller even than archrival Apple TV--just 3.3-inch square, and less than an inch high. … Read more

Having the ability to create an extraordinary cake is something you'll never see on my resume. That doesn't stop me from living vicariously through those who can bake something that looks like art, like an an almost-too-realistic Angry Birds cake.

The "Furious Fowl" Angry Birds cake is originally inspired from a T-shirt design by Brian Cook that is sold at the artist-driven Threadless clothing store. Jamie Masterson and her husband are self-described addicts of the popular smartphone game, and decided to create the cake as an entry on Threadcakes, which is a Web site that encourages … Read more

FarmVille, virtual guns, and Angry Birds helped drive a slight increase in total video game spending in the first quarter, according to NPD Group.

The market researcher said today that gamers poured $5.9 billion into hardware, content, and accessories in the period, a 1.5 percent increase from a year ago. The main catalysts include digital game downloads, mobile games, downloadable content, and social network games.

The new forms of content accounted for $1.85 billion in the period, underscoring the growing importance of games on smartphones and social networks.

The increase comes as Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter … Read more