Keane Ingram - Tech News and Views

Google are well known for sneaking Easter eggs into a variety of locations, and the latest one is a lot of fun! If you go to Google Images and type 'Atari Breakout', you'll get to play the classic Breakout game in your browser!

You get five lives and when the game ends you can share your score on Google+. Check it out now!

Barnes & Noble have reduced the price of their NOOK Simple Touch ereader to just £29.The motivation for this price cut is unknown (although they are marketing it as part of a campaign to get people reading), and the ereader is currently out of stock at most outlets (although Currys seemingly still have stock). This is an amazing price for a touchscreen E Ink reader, and it's no surprise that it's been snapped up by people.

The next model up, the NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight, has also been reduced to £69, making these products very competitive with Kindle's equivalent items - despite being a Kindle owner, if my Kindle packed up I'm not sure I could justify the difference in price with buying another Kindle over a NOOK (I get most of my books from Project Gutenberg or free from Amazon).

A new trailer has been released for the hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 5. The trailer is split into three parts, featuring the three protagonists from the game - Michael, Franklin and Trevor. The game will allow users to switch between the three characters during the game, potentially allowing for simultaneous city-wide destruction! Check out the trailer below.

According to a report on BloombergBusinessweek, Amazon are planning to release a set-top box for use with televisions. The box, which is rumoured to be released in the Autumn (for US customers at least) would allow users to view films from Amazon's Instant Video service. It remains to be seen how much the box will be, or what other services will be provided - it will be interesting to see if Amazon allow it to be used for viewing YouTube, Netflix etc.

With reports that Amazon are also developing a smartphone, they will soon have a pretty strong portfolio of hardware. If these are as successful as the Kindle and Kindle Fire then their rivals should start getting worried.

Twitter have released their long-rumoured Music app.  The app, currently only available for iOS and web users, allows users to discover new music based on the artists that they follow on the service.

The web app also shows the most discussed tracks in a grid style similar to above. Users can select a track and listen to a short preview, buy the track on iTunes or compose a tweet about it. Users who have premium Spotify or Rdio accounts can listen to whole tracks.

It remains to be seen how useful this is to users without premium Rdio or Spotify accounts, but it shows that Twitter are trying to expand their business and increase revenues.

The Mozilla Foundation has celebrated it's 15th birthday this week. As part of the celebrations, they have listed 15 facts that illustrate what they have achieved in that time.

The facts listed on the Contribute section of the site are:

1. The Mozilla Project launched at Netscape on March 31, 1998, to offer choice to users and drive innovation on the Web.
2. Proudly non-profit, Mozilla makes products like Firefox with a mission to keep the power of the Web in the hands of users everywhere.
3. More than 10,000 contributors expressed their support for our mission by paying for a full-page ad in The New York Times on the day Firefox 1.0 launched in 2004.
4. Today Mozilla has contributors on every continent, including Antarctica (where Firefox is used by 80% of people).
5. Firefox Add-Ons allow you to customize and take control of your Web experience. Over 3 billion of them have been downloaded by users so far.
6. Mozilla is leading the way in online privacy with browser innovations like Do Not Track and Collusion that give users greater control of their personal data.
7. Our global community has helped translate Firefox into 89 languages, making the browser available to more than 95% of the world's population.
8. In 2008, 8,002,530 people chose Firefox in a single day to set a Guinness World Record for “Most Downloads of a Software Application in 24 Hours.”
9. The Mozilla Festival is our largest annual event, bringing together hundreds of creative minds to realize the full power and potential of the Web.
10. Mozilla Webmaker works to create a more Web-literate planet, providing tools and projects to help people take greater control of their online lives.
11. The Mozilla WebFWD program helps open source innovators and entrepreneurs create products and solutions that empower users to push the Web forward.
12. The Mozilla Developer Network is a community-driven Web resource that provides the best documentation, tutorials and tools available to more than 2 million visitors each month.
13. Mozilla works to care for and preserve the Web as a shared public resource for the benefit of everyone.
14.  In 2013, Mozilla is launching Firefox OS to unleash the full power of the Web on smartphones and once again offer control and choice to a new generation of people coming online.
15. The work Mozilla does is made possible thanks to tens of thousands of individual donors and volunteers — people like you who believe the Web should remain open and accessible to all.

Another new Humble Bundle, they just don't stop coming! This week sees the release of the Humble Mobile Bundle, all the games are for Android devices. As per usual you pay what you want and get four games, if you beat the average you get two more!

The games in this bundle are:

• Contre Jour
• Anomaly Korea
• Plants vs. Zombies
• Bladeslinger
• Metal Slug 3 (beat the average)
• The Room (beat the average)

Currently the average is $5.51. I already had Plants vs. Zombies, but it's still pretty good value. I've played a bit of The Room and am liking it so far. The bundle will be available for the best part of the next 13 days, so buy it now!

Another week, another Humble Bundle? Well, not quite. They've started a new promotion where one game a week will be sold at a promotional price.

Every Tuesday, a new game will be put on sale, with the usual pay-what-you-want process in place. However, there are incentives for paying a bit more - paying more than the average unlocks soundtracks etc., and there is a new option to pay more than $25 and receive physical merchandise. This may be limited to this week's offer (Bastion) but may also apply to future games in the promotion.

Bastion has featured in previous Humble Bundles, it will be interesting to see if the promotion just highlights games that have been in previous bundles or if we will see new games from indie devs or the big publishing companies like THQ.

The Humble Bundle crew have added an extra three games to the Humble Bundle with Android 5, which is currently available for another six days. For anyone who pays more than the average, they will now receive the following:

• Splice
• Crayon Physics Deluxe
• Sword and Sworcery EP

Anyone who had already paid more than the average will now have access to these extra games. The current average is $6.81, so if you haven't already bought this bundle and enjoy playing games (especially on your Android phone) then get this now!

The latest Android flavoured Humble Bundle was announced and released last night. As per usual, users can pay what they want, but if they beat the average (currently $6.64) they will get an extra two games.

The games included in this bundle are:

• Beat Hazard Ultra
• Dynamite Jack
• Solar 2
• NightSky HD
• Dungeon Defenders + DLC (if you beat the average)
• Super Hexagon (if you beat the average)

As ever, bundle purchasers will have access to the game soundtracks, and can determine how much money goes to the developers and how much goes to charities (the EFF and Child's Play Charity). $6.64 is a ridiculously low amount to pay for these games, especially as you can also play them on your PC/Mac (Steam keys are included). I had previously purchased Super Hexagon on it's own which is an extremely addictive game, so I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this bundle. Check out the trailer below!