Yogi Land

Roku 2 is a streaming video box that’s been radically redesigned, and its newest and hottest feature is the ability to play that goofy but fun game, Angry Birds. Included with this device that’s scarcely larger than a hockey puck is a brand-new game remote with an accelerometer on board. That lets you control objects on the screen using gestures, much like the Nintendo Wii.

For our review, Roku sent us its $99.99 Roku 2 XS model, the top-of-the-line unit that includes an Ethernet port, a USB port for playing video, music and photos from an external storage device, and that new game remote along with the Angry Birds software. The least-expensive model is the Roku 2 HD, a $59.99 box that’s limited to 720p resolution. The middle model, the Roku 2 XT is $79.99, and adds 1080p video playback. Here’s a Roku product matrix to help you keep the three models straight.

Connecting the Roku 2 is a simple process of plugging in its power cable and then connecting Ethernet (or not if you’re using its on-board Wi-Fi) and HDMI cables to your TV or home theater receiver. The tedious part of the setup is getting the Roku acquainted with your various credentials on services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora.

Aside from its newfound gameplaying capabilities and radical design changes, the Roku 2 interface and sources are almost identical to its predecessor. It does an admirable job of playing high-definition content from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus and lots of other video sources that you can see listed here.

As a longtime Roku user, I’ve always admired its simple interface, allowing you to quickly select sources, and skip forward or rewind video playback with ease. Both its 802.11n Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections work well, and overall, it’s a worthy addition to any home theater with one caveat: If you’d like to watch YouTube videos using Roku, you’re out of luck.

The big new feature for this Roku 2 XS is its Angry Birds game, the only game so far for Roku. I’m a big Angry Birds aficionado, so I had great fun playing this Roku version, which adds more physicality to an already excellent game.

The accelerometer in this new remote is accurate and sensitive, and lends itself well to Angry Birds mayhem. To launch a bird, you press and hold the OK button while gesturing with your hand pull to back the slingshot. When you let go of the OK button, you’ve launched a bird on its way toward slaying those porcine scoundrels lurking underneath various woodwork and icy planks. This is big fun.

Roku is tightlipped about what’s in store for this nascent gaming platform, but I think its future is bright. You’ll be able to play against an opponent using an additional controller in future games, and if Roku can attract developers to create good content for this platform, it could be a promising and relatively low-cost way to play some engaging games.

Although the Roku 2 can’t play the variety of video files (such as .mkv files) that competing boxes such as the WD TV or the Boxee Box can, for streaming Netflix and Hulu videos — and now for playing Angry Birds — it can’t be beat.

Roku 2 Gallery

Connect Roku 2 to Wi-Fi or Ethernet, and feed that 1080p video to your TV or receiver via HDMI. There's room for a micro SD card for game and settings storage, too.

Roku 2 Front

It's slightly larger than a hockey puck.

The Purple Tab

The tab has no function, but is a quirky design touch that I like.

USB Port

This is a streaming box, but there's a USB port for plugging in an external drive or future peripherals.

Underside

Its rubber pad keeps this diminutive device from slipping around too much.

Two-Shot

This is the first time I've seen a remote that's bigger than the device it controls.

Remote

It's new, shiny and has an accelerometer on board.

Slot for Strap

Roku recommends attaching the included purple strap in this slot, to keep from smashing your TV while engaging in vigorous game play.

Like a TiVo Bone

The shape of the remote's underside makes it fit perfectly in the hand.

Move It!

It's like a magic wand.

Angry Birds Loading Screen

It takes 23 seconds to load Angry Birds.

Cursor Control

You control the cursor with hand motions.

Angry Birds

It feels just like the iPhone version, but that hand control takes a bit of training.

Flipping the Bird

Hold the OK button, pull back with a hand gesture, and let the bird fly by letting go of the OK button.

Roku Interface

It's largely unchanged from previous versions, but pleasant to use.

Netflix

The best channel among many on Roku.

Pandora Radio

Another fave is Pandora. Missing? YouTube! Too bad.

More About: games, hands-on, home theater, netflix, pandora, review, roku 2 xs, streaming video, video

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In Zynga‘s IPO filing, which was announced Friday, we found out a lot about the company.

During the day, the company released some of its own stats about its userbase and user behaviors.

However, some of the most interesting numbers came from the SEC filing itself, which showed flat growth in number of users but skyrocketing revenue figures.

From the startup’s founding in 2007 through its first rounds of funding and $3 billion valuation in 2009, here’s a look at the company’s history, including a string of acquisitions over the past two years that’s placed some of the best talent in web games squarely in Zynga’s game dev studios.

Check out this IPO infographic from real-time conversation startup Namesake, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Click image to see full-size version.

[source: Namesake blog]

More About: infographic, ipo, Zynga

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Two-year old online game Moshi Monsters has just reached a sizable milestone: 50 million registered users.

Moshi Monsters is a social online game/community that allows kids 6 to 12 to adopt virtual pets, tool around a virtual land called Monstro City, play games to earn virtual currency and communicate with other kids in a moderated, safe environment. The franchise also includes toys (coming soon), books, video games, trading cards and a Moshi magazine. Moshi will also soon begin its foray into music, live tours, a TV platform and film.

Moshi, founded by London-based startup Mind Candy, also reports that it has more than 15 million registered users (out of the total 50 million) in North America. Apparently, the game gets one signup per second.

Fifty million is a pretty hefty community, but it makes sense considering the rise of the digital native we have been privy to lately. In October, a study conducted by Internet security firm AVG found that 92% of children in the U.S. have an online presence by the time they are two, compared to 73% in western Europe.

More About: Children, mind-candy, moshi-monsters, social media

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Angry Birds fans can’t get enough of the bird-hurling application and game franchise from mobile developer Rovio.

Angry Birds Rio, the latest iOS and Android edition of the game, features a theme based on the upcoming FOX animated motion picture Rio. The app saw ten million downloads in its first ten days after release.

The milestone metric spans all free and paid versions available in the App Store [iTunes link], Android Marketplace and Amazon Appstore. The stat was first announced on Rovio’s Twitter account.

The news is flashy tidbit of information that demonstrates Rovio’s stronghold in the mobile gaming genre. Everything the company releases in the Angry Birds franchise is an instant hit, plush toys included. The impressive figure also demonstrates why investors were keen on forking over $42 million and could help lay the groundwork for a profitable IPO.

More About: Android apps, angry birds, Angry Birds Rio, iphone app, rovio

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In case you’re wondering precisely how likable those Angry Birds are, here’s the scoop from The Oatmeal, one of our favorite sources of infographics.

For Angry Birds aficionados, here are a couple of things left out: You’ve got to like that red bird a little more because of the useless call it bleats out if you tap the screen during its flight. Although it’s not exactly an effective pig crusher, look out for its big brother.

And of course, the white bird that drops the exploding eggs seems rather helpless; but a finer point of the game is if you can drop an egg when the bird’s almost hit the ground, it will fly upward with extreme velocity, perhaps knocking over something important. That ought to be good enough to move it up at least one place on this totem pole of shame.

Editor’s Note: While we appreciate the in-depth knowledge of the game that this post represents, perhaps our writers are devoting a bit too much time to Angry Birds “research.” What do you folks think?

Image courtesy of The Oatmeal

More About: angry birds, infographics, Likable, The Oatmeal

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Chances are Twitter is where you turn for a dose of news, gossip and even some entertainment. But have you ever considered the gaming potential the micro-blogging platform offers?

We’ve found five iPhone developers who have, and thus created apps that turn Twitter into various types of games, including tower defense, a word game, and even a retro side-scrolling platformer.

If you’re looking for some Twitter-themed light relief, take a look through the gallery below for five fun games. Or should that be twames?

1. Poptweets

If you've got your finger on the pulse of who is likely to say what on Twitter, Poptweets is a really fun way to put that knowledge to use.

You can choose from a wide range of categories and are then presented with a tweet, and three well-known Twitter users who might have issued the 140-character missive.

Your job is to match the tweet to the personality. It makes for addictive gameplay with results that can sometimes surprise you.

Cost: $1.99

2. Super Twario

Possibly the most fun Twitter client out there, Super Twario turns your Twitter stream into a colorful, retro video game.

Using the iPhone's accelerometer, you (represented by a cute little white rabbit) scroll through the platform as tweets come across the screen. You can jump on them or perform other actions to retweet, reply, etc.

With a Game Center-happy, score-based reward system in place, you might find yourself loading up Super Twario more often than your "serious" Twitter client.

Cost: Free

3. ChumpDump

This app encourages you to sort the wheat from the chaff from the list of folks you follow on Twitter.

ChumpDump analyzes your follows and looks at who follows you back, their follow ratio, and any interaction between the two of you and then suggests a suitable candidate for you to "dump."

Once you've decided whether to save them or cut them loose, you can tweet about it, explaining your reasoning.

This isn't a game that you're going to be glued to for hours, but loading it up every now and again will certainly offer some interesting Twitter insight and kill five minutes here and there.

Cost: Free

4. Tweet Defense

Tweet Defense is actually a standalone zombie-themed tower defense game, but it adds in Twitter for some fun functionality.

The game uses your Twitter activities as part of your game stats, so the more you tweet and the more followers you have, the more it boosts your tower's capabilities, helping you fight the marauding undead.

Cost: $2.99

5. TwitCross

This might be the most fun word nerds can have with Twitter on their iPhone. TwitCross is genius -- a crossword game where you have to guess the words in the context of the tweet they appeared in.

Most clues are manageable after a bit of brain wracking, but you do occasionally get thrown a curve ball that will have you deliciously stumped.

Cost: Free

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More Twitter Resources from Mashable:

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- 5 Useful Tools to Track Twitter Unfollowers
- 5 Terrific Twitter Mapping Tools
- 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualization Tools
- 5 Free Ways to Never Miss a Twitter @Reply
- 8 Fun Twitter Tools for Language Lovers

More About: app store, gallery, games, iphone, iphone apps, iPhone games, List, Lists, twitter, twitter apps, twitter games

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Facebook is currently testing a new feature called “Buy With Friends,” which allows users to get discounts on virtual goods purchased by their friends.

Here’s how it works: A user makes an in-app purchase using Facebook’s currency, Facebook Credits, and shares it in his or her newsfeed. A friend sees the purchase and can then buy the same item at a discount directly in the newsfeed.

Currently, the feature only works for certain in-game purchases of virtual goods. Developers determine the items and terms of the promotion.

Speaking at the Inside Social Apps Conference in San Francisco Tuesday, Facebook’s head of commerce product marketing Deb Liu said that during early tests, more than half of users chose to share their purchases with friends, Forbes reports.

Although Buy With Friends is currently restricted to virtual goods, we can easily envision how this feature could be expanded to include physical goods as well, especially as more and more retailers set up shop on Facebook. The prototype could be Facebook’s way to participate in the kinds of group-buying offers recently popularized by the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pavlen

More About: buying with friends, facebook, facebook games, group buying, groupon, LivingSocial

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With 150 million users, LOLapps is one of the biggest social games providers on the Facebook platform, but the party grinded to a halt this weekend when Facebook pulled the plug on all of the company’s games.

LOLapps titles include Critter Island, Garden Life, Diva Life, Band of Heroes, Supermodel: The Game, Yakuza Lords and Facebook versions of the big gaming titles Dante’s Inferno and Champions Online, but visit any of those right now and you’ll be greeted by Facebook’s “Page Not Found” error, pictured below.

Social games are potentially very lucrative for Facebook, which has demonstrated its commitment to the form with the deployment of its Facebook Credits that can be used for in-game transactions. Thus, it’d be in the best interests of both Facebook and LOLapps to resolve this dispute quickly.

At first it wasn’t clear why the games were dropped, but VentureBeat reports that a Facebook spokesperson said, “We have disabled applications from LOLapps due to violations of our terms.” The spokesperson didn’t specify which terms were violated.

LOLapps obviously can’t survive a long-term ban from Facebook, so CEO Arjun Sethi released a statement of his own, saying, “We can’t provide comment at this time. We will update you as soon as we are able to.”

More About: apps, band of heroes, champions online, critter island, dante's inferno, diva life, facebook, facebook apps, facebook platform, garden life, lolapps, online gaming, social gaming, supermodel the game, terms of service, TOS, yakuza lords

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When tech bloggers discovered an icon for the popular mobile game Angry Birds in a Windows Phone 7 promotional image, it seemed like confirmation that the game is coming to Microsoft’s smartphones, but the developers behind Angry Birds tweeted a denial of any commitment to the platform.

Microsoft reps then sent a note to TechFlash admitting that the image was a mistake. “It appears information was mistakenly posted to Microsoft’s website, and has been removed,” the statement said.

Microsoft will need developers like Angry Birds developer Rovio to make Windows Phone 7 attractive to iPhone or Android users who are accustomed to having a large selection of high-quality apps. Rovio said it was not thrilled because, “We don’t like others using our [intellectual property] without asking.”

However, we don’t want to overstate the blunder. We expect that Microsoft and Rovio will both move on and work together if the market for a Windows Phone 7 version of Angry Birds is there and waiting to pay for it.

Rovio even admitted as much in later tweets: “Nothing to do with if we do or don’t, it’s just that we decide that for ourselves … We could do a WP7 version of Angry Birds, not the issue. We have not agreed to do that (yet). Will support all relevant platforms.”

Angry Birds is a standard-setting iPhone game that also appears on Android, webOS and some Nokia phones. It has sold at least 6.5 million copies to date, so it’s a perfect example of an app store success story — a story Microsoft would like to see told on the Windows Phone 7 platform, too.

[Via Engadget]

More About: angry birds, apps, developers, games, gaming, Mobile 2.0, mobile games, rovio, smartphone, video games, windows mobile, windows phone, windows phone 7, wp7

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Arrr! Ye Mashable readers know today be Talk Like a Pirate Day 2010, but were ye landlubbers aware that there be more ways t’ celebrate online than there are bottles o’ rum in ol’ Jack Sparrow’s locker?

Thar be danger in the social media seas — sour enemies tellin’ tales that aren’t ‘tall funny. Ye scurvy dogs want only the best when ye enjoy ye Internet memes!

These five selections be just a few o’ th’ ways ye and ye hearties can set sail together this evenin’, so be sure and parlay in th’ comments if ye be havin’ any other clever ideas.

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1. Make Facebook Speak Pirate

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Facebook supports countless languages, but one of them is pirate speak — did you know that? Just go to “Account Settings” (in the top-right corner of your Facebook home page), click the “Language” tab and pick “English (Pirate).”

The result can only be described as hilarity. Be sure and look around all over Facebook because virtually everything is affected. Events are now “Grog Fests,” all your friends’ names begin with “Cap’n,” the act of deleting comments is achieved by clicking “T’ Davy Jones wit’ it!” and the Like button simply says “Arr!”

Other companies have piggybacked their own gags on this. Visit Mint.com’s Facebook page in your native language, then return in English (Pirate) and you’ll see what we’re talking about.

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2. Use Google Maps to Find Pirate Parrrties Tonight

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Pirate Parrrties are being held across the globe in celebration of Talk Like a Pirate Day 2010. Some people dress up, drink rum, bring parrots and actually talk like pirates, so if you’re into that more power to ya, but some folks just show up for good conversation and a beer or two. And there’s no arguing with the appeal of that.

There’s a Google Map that shows the locations of numerous parrrties around the world. Just click one one of the blue markers for more information and set sail for a night of plundering, grog and adventure.

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3. Watch Funny Pirate YouTube Videos

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This one’s pretty obvious. Just search YouTube for “Talk Like a Pirate Day” (or just “pirates”) and you’ll uncover a treasure trove of hilarity from the past few years of celebrations. We don’t have much to add to this — just try it!

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Read the Funny Pirate Tweets

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This is really the heart of Talk Like a Pirate Day, and it’s where it all began — with people talking like pirates on Facebook and Twitter. Search Twitter for “Talk Like a Pirate Day” and you’re bound to see some retweets of some very funny messages.

Our favorite so far is the one we’ve included above from NPR News. “N-P-Aaarrrrrrrrr!!!” Get it? Yeah, you get it. Now go get some more funny tweets.

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Play Most of the Monkey Island Saga For Mere Pennies

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Ron Gilbert’s The Secret of Monkey Island, produced by LucasArts, is one of the greatest computer adventure games of all time. It’s chock full of gorgeous artwork, hilarious characters, hysterical dialogue and ridiculous puzzles. The series was recently rebooted with remastered, high definition versions of the first two games (so far) on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Additionally, a well-respected adventure games studio called Telltale Games produced episodic new adventures called Tales of Monkey Island. The only two Monkey Island games you can’t play recent versions of are Curse of Monkey Island and Escape From Monkey Island, though if you’re crafty you should be able to get those to work on your PC.

However, both of the Remastered re-releases and the entire Tales series are on sale for practically nothing this weekend in celebration of Talk Like a Pirate Day. These deals are simply incredible, especially the iPhone ones and the Tales bundle. Here are the links:

The Secret of Monkey Island (iPhone) — $0.99
The Secret of Monkey Island (iPad) — $4.99
Monkey Island II: LeChuck’s Revenge (iPhone) — $0.99
Monkey Island II: LeChuck’s Revenge (iPad) — $4.99
The Secret of Monkey Island & Monkey Island II: LeChuck’s Revenge (PC) – $7.49 for the set
Tales of Monkey Island Episodes 1-5 (PC, Mac) — $4.95 for the set

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, JerryPDX

More About: adventure, Events, facebook, Google, Google Maps, international talk like a pirate day, international talk like a pirate day 2010, iOS, ipad, iphone, iPod Touch, language, lucasarts, mac, memes, mint, mint.com, monkey island, monkey island 2, monkey island 2 lechuck's revenge, parties, pc, pirates, ron gilbert, social media, social networking, steam, tales of monkey island, talk like a pirate day, talk like a pirate day 2010, telltale games, The Secret of Monkey Island, twitter, video games, videos, youtube

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