bird

It's hard out here for a chaffinch.

People are putting up more and more houses. And then there's those solar panels that seem to have come out of nowhere. You bang into them and your head hurts more than when you've had eight pints of fertilizer.

So who is going to help you? Well, someone with the right iPhone app, it seems.

For here is the story of bird-loving tree surgeon, Leon Timms who, on discovering an injured chaffinch, operated on it with an iPhone app.

Angry Birds is officially a financial powerhouse.

The franchise's creator, Rovio, today announced that it generated $106.3 million in revenue last year. And thanks to a profit margin of about 64 percent, the company was able to post net income of $67.6 million.

Although much of the financial success Rovio enjoyed last year came by way of its popular Angry Birds games, the company also sells a host of consumer products, including stuffed toys and school supplies. Rovio also generated advertising revenue to supplement its operation.

But it's the sheer popularity of Angry Birds games that … Read more

With all the James Bond theme song-playing and tower-building quadrocopters these days, it's a little hard to get excited about new personal-size automated aerial projects. But how can you not get worked up by a bird robot that can cross a room and land gracefully on someone's hand?

Aerospace engineering researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have "duplicated the control functions that allow birds to successfully perform a soft landing--in this case, perching on a human hand."

The above video's a bit scientific for the average layman (read: me) but suffice it to say, the researchers -- Soon Jo Chung, Aditya Paranjape, and Joseph Kim -- have created a micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) that can fly nimbly across a room and then pull up at just the right moment for a soft landing at a specific place, or on someone's hand. … Read more

Rovio has added a new feature to Angry Birds on Facebook that could see the game crop up in more places across the Web.

Dubbed Share & Play, the initiative allows players to embed an Angry Birds level into another person's Facebook Timeline, a blog, or Web page. Those who come across the embedded title will be able to play the game instantly on the respective page without ever needing to install the game. In addition, users won't need to be logged into Facebook to play the title, even though it's shared via the social network.

The … Read more

We love Facebook pranks as much as the next guys, but not when it's coming from an anonymous source at Best Buy. As if we needed another reason not to step foot in the big blue retailer, we read this story about a Best Buy employee that posted a phony Facebook status update on a customer's phone. The message declared, "I am gay, I'm coming out," but there's one problem: the customer is straight.… Read more

Shark Dash is another in a long line of Angry Birds clones, but offers enough variation in gameplay that it will appeal to any physics puzzle addict.

Like many sling-shot games, the goal with Shark Dash is to pull back, then fling your hero (in this case, a cute shark) to collect or destroy items in as few shots as possible. Also like Angry Birds, the storyline is simple: the evil rubber duckies have stolen Sharkee's girlfriend, Sally, and now Sharkee is exacting revenge while taking out the rubber duckies that continue to taunt him. Sound familiar? It's … Read more

Every weekday afternoon, CNET Update delivers the top tech stories of the day. The show keeps a close eye on emerging trends, hot devices and new apps. And it's all in less than three minutes.

In today's show, Microsoft's got the hots for Nook, LG has its head in the cloud, and we're battling pigs in space! (space! space! space!):

Microsoft is investing $300 million in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary that will handle digital and college business. With this investment, expect the Nook to become a stronger player against the Kindle and iPad.

A … Read more

Rovio's success with the Angry Birds franchise continues to impress.

The development firm announced today that Angry Birds Space, which is currently sitting atop Apple's App Store, has hit 50 million downloads in just 35 days of availability. According to Rovio, the feat has made the game the "fastest-growing mobile game" ever released, and has broken all sales records set by previous Angry Birds iterations.

"We extend our deepest gratitude to all fans of Angry Birds everywhere," the company wrote in a blog post today. "While numbers like this certainly say something about … Read more

The bottom line: Firefox 12 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a new minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately, that describes most of Firefox's competition, too.

Please note that the First Look video below is still applicable to Firefox 12, as is this Firefox How To collection, even though it features Firefox 4.

Review: For those of you who spent last year away from the Internet, it's the year that Firefox went from annual major-point updates to a Chrome-style quick-release cycle. How quick? A new major version … Read more