Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Bible All Win On Sunday

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The reports are in, and the three big shows on Sunday (AMC’s The Walking Dead, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and History’s The Bible) all did quite well. The two-hour finale of History’s The Bible was up 14 percent over the previous week, pulling in 11.7 million viewers on average and12.33 million viewers during the 60-minute overlap with Walking Dead, where it focused on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Walking Dead‘s Season 3 finale saw 12.4 million viewers (a record for the show). It is the season’s top show, broadcast or cable, with treasured young adults (ages 18-to-49).

Game of Thrones opened its third season with 4.4 million viewers. This is a record for the series, up 4 percent from the Season 2 finale (4.2 million) and 13 percent from the Season 2 premiere (3.9 million).

Source: USAtoday.com

BlackBerry Co-Founder Shifting Focus To Quantum Computing

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Mike Lazaridis says he has no plans to sell his stake BlackBerry, which he co-founded. He will step down from the board, however, and focus on a new quantum computing investment fund.

“I’m really proud of what we built together at RIM, and I believe I’m leaving it in good hands, and remain one of its largest shareholders,” said Lazaridis.

Lazaridis owns about 5.7 percent of BlackBerry, which recently changed its name from RIM. Lazaridis helped found RIM in 1984 with Doug Fregin.

Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie stepped down in January 2012 and was asked to make Thorsten Heins the new CEO. “I was asked to reconsider my decision to give up the CEO post, but I promised the board that I would assist Thorsten and his team in the completion of the development of BB10,” he said. “I believe I’ve now fulfilled my commitment to the board.”

The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics was founded by Lazaridis, who said he sees the quantum computing field “producing opportunities in the near-term.” He said the fund has started making investments, but gave no details.

“This is ground-breaking work,” he said. “We have the resources to put us in a position to help them fulfill the potential of these breakthroughs.”

Source: Reuters.com

Zynga Austin Veteran Founds Team Chaos

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Team Chaos has been founded by former Zynga Austin vice president and general manager Andrew Busey. The first game in the series is Elements: Broken Lands, a new free-to-play, collectible card game for iOS with a player driven market for buying and selling cards.

“The rise of CCGs on mobile has been incredible,” said Busey. “One of our objectives in crafting Elements has been evolving the ease of use and raising the quality level of this genre on mobile. Our past experience building these types of games combined with the amazing advancement in mobile technology has allowed us to build a visually stunning game that is both accessible and deeply strategic.”

“I had not planned to do another start-up, but conversations with Chaotic Moon and the pace of mobile gaming advancement got me super excited.” adds Busey, “This is about passion. We are truly making games that we want to play. And we believe our passion and enthusiasm will result in games that other gamers are going to love playing, too.”

join.me Warns Against Bad Meetings

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If you’ve ever worked in a office, you know how bad and dysfunctional meetings can be. join.me is all about combining instant screen sharing and meeting tools, making sure employees don’t start playing with toy ponies or start fighting over the last cookie.

 

Facebook Invite Teases Something For Android

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Facebook has sent out an invitation to the press, and in a style Apple would be proud of, it’s decidedly minimalistic over what the event it’s announcing will be about. The invite reads “Come See Our New Home on Android,” which certainly implies that it will factor into the company’s plans for mobile.

Rumors run the gamut of it being an actual Facebook phone, a Facebook-built mobile operating system or just a new app. Facebook has constantly denied that they are outright building their own phone.

Source: TheAtlanticWire.com

Windows Phone Topping Seven Markets Worldwide

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Windows Phone is currently outselling the iPhone in seven markets around the world. Kevin Restivo, an analyst at IDC, says that those countries where it is selling well are Argentina, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine and a group of smaller countries, including Croatia, that is lumped together in a category called “rest of central and eastern Europe.”

For three of the markets, Ukraine, South Africa and “rest of central and eastern Europe,” there were fewer than 100,000 Windows Phone unit shipments in the fourth quarter in each.  Also, Windows Phone tends to thrive in parts of the world that are traditional strongholds for Nokia, Microsoft’s flagship handset partner, because of the iPhone’s high cost.

Additionally, Windows Phone is reaching 10 percent smartphone market share in a number of countries. It is thought that countries like Finland and Italy the OS is gaining traction because of the popular and cheap Lumia 620.

Overall, IDC says Windows Phone and Windows Mobile devices accounted for 6 percent of the 227 million smartphones shipped worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012. While Windows Phone made up 2.6 percent of the total year, the analyst firm is predicting Windows Phone to be the fastest growing platform between now to 2016 with a compound annual growth rate of 71.3 percent.

IDC expects Windows Phone to account for 11.4 percent of smartphone shipments by 2016, cutting mostly into Android market share. It forecasts Apple’s share of shipments to grow from 18.8 percent in 2012 to 19.1 percent by 2016, while Android 69.3 percent in 2012 declines to 63.8 percent and BlackBerry will be flat with four percent share.

Source: ZDnet.com