Robo5 for Android:A platform game that's puzzling on many levels.

A platform game that's puzzling on many levels.

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The good: Robo5 is a unique platform-style action-puzzle game that is challenging and visually fascinating.

The bad: A richer, faster-moving storyline could help your play feel more rewarding.

The bottom line: If you like platform-style puzzle games, then Robo5 is a great one.

Set in a futuristic steampunk-flavored world, Robo5 is a 3D puzzle game that puts you in the shoes of a cute and quirky robot trying to escape his laboratory. As Robo No. 5, your job is to climb up mountains of boxes, reach the top, and advance levels. But with perplexing box configurations and other obstacles, this task can be much more difficult than it sounds.

Similar to many other mobile games, Robo5 starts you off with stages that are designed to teach you how to play. Throughout these, a mysterious character known only as "LA" gives you tips. Also, the layouts of the levels let you practice basic moves like pushing, pulling, and hopping along the sides of boxes. To have any hope of completing the later levels, you first need to master all of these skills, and you have to learn to deal with things like immovable objects, boxes that act as teleportation devices, and even time limits. While the first 10 stages or so are relatively simple, the stages that follow quickly increase in difficulty. If you enjoy challenging puzzle platformers, then this is certainly a good one.

To get to the top, you must push, pull, and hop on the sides of boxes. But trust me, it's not as easy as it sounds.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jaymar Cabebe/CNET)

In Robo5, you'll commonly encounter things like uncrossable gaps between objects. Since Robo No. 5 cannot jump (except to get on top of a box), you must get over these obstacles by creating either bridges or stairways using movable boxes. Similarly, you often have to create stairways to get atop high platforms. The challenge is that as you move boxes around, you may be causing other boxes to fall or become otherwise inaccessible. These are the kinds of puzzles you can expect with Robo5.

If you pinch your screen, you can zoom out to get a wider look at a level, which I use often when plotting out my strategy for ascending a level. While this little trick is certainly helpful, I also wish the game let you swipe around to see specific portions of a level up close.

The curious Robo5 for Android (pictures)

Even with its borderline annoying ambiguities, Robo5 is a captivating puzzler with unique and interesting feel. The game is free to download, but it only comes with a limited number of levels before asking you to upgrade for $1.99. Once you do, you get 40 levels and 8 hidden bonus levels.What frustrates me about playing Robo5 is how little you learn about the plot and game as you go. At the beginning of the game, you know literally nothing, except that you are a robot and you need to get to the top of the boxes. Then, as you make your way through the game, you get tiny tidbits of information that shed light on your character's purpose. I understand that this promise to learn more is supposed to keep you playing, but I also think that the mystique created borders on annoying. For instance, 12 levels into the game, and the icons and items still haven't been clearly explained. I think that if the game could reveal more details, more often, to enrich the storyline and inform the gameplay, it would make for a much more enjoyable experience.

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Today`s quote

“I may not have gone where I

 intended to go, but I think I

 have ended up where I needed to

 
be.” 

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EXPERT SPEAK

• 
  The dos and don'ts of weight loss
• 
  Yoga poses for a flatter belly
• 
  The health benefits of sleeping naked
• 
  7 health reasons to drink red wine

The dos and don'ts of weight loss

Not sure about how to diet, or of the best way to lose weight and maintain that weight loss? To help you out, here are a few weight loss do's and don'ts to help you home in on your goal and keep the weight off.

When embarking on weight loss then do...

• Eat regularly
  Re-fuelling when you are hungry is a good idea, but make sure that you snack on the right things. Good snacks are fruit, vegetable sticks and low fat dips, scones (watch the butter), sandwiches, toast, smoothies and low fat or diet yogurt.
• Take a walk at lunchtime

• Just small changes make a big difference over time. Offer to make the coffee at work or wash up, just walking over to the kettle every day for a few weeks counts! Or could even exercise at your desk.

• Go shopping with a list
  There is nothing worse than standing in the chocolate aisle with a growling stomach, it makes it all the more tempting to grab foods that are high in fat and sugar. Make sure you do your food shopping with a list — and not when you are hungry too.

• Don’t be conned by marketing
  Low fat does not necessarily mean low calorie; many manufacturers lower the amount of fat in dessert foods and increase the amount of sugar to compensate. Make sure you read the labels on food stuffs so you know exactly what you are eating.

• Get support
  This is really important if you are to succeed at losing weight in the long-term. Being surrounded by people who will eat the same foods and encourage you along the way is a good idea. Find a ‘buddy’ or someone in your family to boost your morale. This can really help if you are taking up a new exercise regime; it makes backing out much harder to do!

• Watch your portion sizes
  Next time you go out, look at the amounts that your friends eat; you may be surprised at how much you consume in comparison to others. It is important to get your meal portions correct so try to eat more fruit, vegetables and starchy foods and less of the protein, dairy products and fatty and sugary foods.

• Set yourself achievable goals
  This is important as you have something to aim for and if you make it achievable then you feel good when you reach the goal, rewarding yourself perhaps with a nice hot bath or a night out to the movies.

• Tackle problems and don’t rely on food as a comfort
  A large number of us use food as a way of relieving stress and as a way to unwind when we are not even hungry.

• Remember that there are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods, only ‘good’ or ‘bad’ diets
  This means that you can have treats; it is really important to be able to have what we call ‘flexible restraint’ and pick and choose when you have foods such as chocolate and chips.  

• Do monitor your food intake and physical activity
  Using a diary or blog to record what you eat and how much you exercise is an excellent start. This helps you to understand where are your ‘danger periods’ on a daily basis, such as in the evenings when you relax in front of the TV. Once you have found out when you are most likely to waver it is easier to find ways to help yourself e.g. going for a walk instead of watching TV or having a bath, reading a book etc.

When embarking on a weight loss then don't ...

• Don’t rely on just changing your food intake to lose weight
  Research has proven that a combination of both exercise and altered eating habits is the best way to lose and maintain weight loss.
• Think a fad diet will be the answer to your weight issue
  This is a sure-fire way to head for the junk food. Many fad diets promise great weight loss but are unbalanced, and only make you crave the foods that it advises against. Life is for living and we should try to have a sensible and realistic approach to weight loss!
• Don't miss breakfast!
  A classic way to think you are cutting back is to miss the most important meal of the day. By missing breakfast you are more likely to go for a snack mid-morning and it may not always be a healthy one you reach for!
• Don’t become obsessive about your food intake
  If you feel you are permanently on a diet, ask yourself why. There is no point going out for a meal and feeling deprived, think of coping strategies to make such occasions as enjoyable as they should be. Why not cut back the day before you go out for that meal or even the day after?

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AirAsia's 800 million rupee JV with Tata group approved.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - AirAsia Bhd's (KLS:AIRASIA) proposal to set up an airline jointly with the Tata group was approved on Wednesday by the Indian government's foreign investment regulator, paving the way for the first foreign carrier to enter the domestic aviation sector.

Malaysia's AirAsia, the largest budget carrier in Asia, plans to launch a regional airline in India with an initial investment of 800 million rupees to cash in on rising demand for domestic air travel among India's rapidly expanding middle class.

The new airline, AirAsia India, will be managed by the Malaysian company and based in the southern Indian city of Chennai.

AirAsia, through its investment arm, will own 49 percent of the new airline, with Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group, owning 30 percent. Arun Bhatia, who owns Telestra Tradeplace, an investment firm, will hold the remainder.

"It's been cleared," said Arvind Mayaram, India's economic affairs secretary, when asked about the deal. "Now they will have to take the necessary licences from the DGCA. They can start operating now once they get the licence."

The DGCA is India's aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Earlier on Wednesday, Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said he does not expect any major hurdles for the venture.

India's aviation industry, which has been plagued by losses due to high operating costs and fierce competition, was opened to foreign investors in September last year. Foreign carriers are now able to purchase up to 49 percent of local airlines.

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Microsoft fined 561 million euros over web browser choice

Reuters, March 07, 2013

The European Union fined Microsoft Corp 561 million euros on Wednesday for failing to offer consumers a choice of web browser, a charge that will act as a warning to other technology firms involved in antitrust disputes with the EU.It said the U.S. company had broken a legally binding commitment made in 2009 to ensure consumers had a choice of browser, rather than defaulting to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
An EU investigation found that Microsoft had failed to honour that obligation in software issued between May 2011 and July 2012, meaning that 15 million users were never made aware that they could choose.
"Legally binding commitments reached in antitrust decisions play a very important role in our enforcement policy," said Joaquin Almunia, the EU's competition commissioner.
"A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly."
Wednesday's fine is the first time the European Commission, the EU's antitrust authority, has fined a company for non-compliance with agreed commitments. It could have charged Microsoft up to 10 percent of its global turnover, or as much as $7.9 billion.
In that respect, the fine is relatively light, but still marks a firm sanction by the EU and will not go unnoticed by the likes of Google, which is involved in a dispute with the Commission over how it ranks search engine results.
Google is under pressure to offer concessions to prevent the antitrust authority moving to the next stage in the case, which could involve fines. Other major technology firms are also in the Commission's crosshairs in other cases.
Microsoft has a long and bitter relationship with the EU's powerful antitrust authority, which has now issued fines totalling 2.16 billion euros against the U.S. firm.
In 2004, the Commission found that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position in relation to the tying of Windows Media Player to the Windows software package and imposed fines.
Then in 2009, in order to resolve other competition concerns, Microsoft undertook to offer users a browser choice screen allowing them to download a browser other than Explorer.
The Commission made that obligation legally binding for five years, until 2014, and initially the company complied. From March 2010 until November 2010, 84 million browsers were downloaded via the screen, the Commission said on Wednesday.
But the Windows 7 service pack 1 rolled out between mid-2011 and mid-2012 failed to offer the choice, leading to the investigation that resulted in Wednesday's fine.
Microsoft has said the failure was the result of a technical error and that procedures have since been tightened.
In what was seen as an acknowledgement of the severity of the mistake, the board cut the bonus of chief executive Steve Ballmer last year, according to company's annual proxy filing.
The Commission said it had taken into account in calculating the fine that Microsoft had cooperated by providing information that had helped speed-up the investigation.
Analysts always found it odd that Microsoft would have purposefully failed to offer a choice of browsers via its software given that the potential fine for such a failure would far exceed any potentialincome from not offering it.
Microsoft's share of the European browser market has more than halved since 2008 to 24 percent. Google's Chrome has a 35 percent share, followed by Mozilla with 29 percent, according to Web traffic analysis company StatCounter.

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Google to add password sync to new version of Chrome

The beta version of Chrome 26 will let uses sync their passwords across multiple devices, including Android phones and tablets.

Chrome 26 will add a password sync feature.

Google is finally adding a full password sync feature to Chrome.

Currently in beta, Chrome 26 is due to receive the new sync feature over the coming days, according to the Chrome team's latest blog.

The password sync will work only with devices running Chrome version 26 or higher. But that includes both the desktop and mobile editions. Chrome users will be able to keep their Web site passwords in sync across their computers, smartphones, and tablets. The Chrome mobile browser supports Android and Apple's iOS.

Chrome already offers a way to save and sync your passwords, but that feature doesn't support Android devices.

Also on the sync list is Autofill. Suggestions that appear when you enter a URL or other item will sync across your various Chrome installations.

The latest beta of Chrome also address bugs with the keyboard and authentication for mobile devices.

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Google+ updates with bigger photos and local reviews

A day ahead of Facebook's News Feed event, Google moves to freshen up its social network.

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The new Google+ profile pictures feature larger cover photos.

Google continues to tweak the design of its social network, updating Google+ with changes to the way profiles are displayed.

A day ahead of Facebook's event to show off changes to the news feed, Google rolled out new profiles that make three key tweaks:

Huge cover photos -- 2,120 pixels by 1,192 -- that display at 16x9, or about twice as tall as they did previously. ("This way more images can be used as cover photos, and there's more room for your selection to shine," Google said in a post outlining the changes.)

YouTube's updated Google+ profile shows off the larger cover photo.

A redesigned "About" tab, organizing your information into cards that resemble Google Now. A "Story" tab outlines basic information about who you are; "Places" shows where you have lived. Fine-grained controls let you decide which of your circles can see which cards.

Profile cards in the updated 'About' tab.

A new "Local" tab gathers any reviews of places that you may have done into a single place. If reviews aren't your thing, you can hide the tab via Google+ settings.

The new Local tab in Google+.

By themselves, none of the changes are likely to drive significant new traffic to Google+. But they show the way Google is moving into the second phase of the Google+ project -- having first used it to establish an identity platform for all of Google's services, the company can now focus on turning it into a destination.

And it's not the only move Google made today on that front. The company also announceddeveloper boot camps to promote its new "Google+ Sign-In" feature. Responding to what it called "huge interest" from developers, the company will host nine five-day boot camps in Mountain View, Calif.; London; New York; Berlin; Bangalore, India; Sao Paulo; Sydney; Seoul; and Tokyo. The boot camps will take place between March 11 and April 12.

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Why Facebook needs a new News Feed, and now

If News Feed were a window, the frame would be dilapidated and the glass distorted after years of wear and tear. The window, if it is to provide an engrossing enough view, needs a remodel.

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Tomorrow, Facebook will do more than window-dress News Feed, its most important asset. The social network will take nine years of intelligence on how members consume content to fashion the stream into a brand-new window that ideally provides people with the most optimal view at all times.

The company, according to TechCrunch, will allow for new ways to dive into News Feed. Members will reportedly be able to scan a photos-only feed of Facebook and Instagram images, or check out the listening habits of friends in a feed dedicated to all things music. Images will be bigger. Ads will be harder to ignore. You may also get individual feeds for news, videos, and apps.

The changes, whatever they turn out to be exactly, will be significant, have far-reaching consequences that affect how people use Facebook, and will determine whether the social network can capitalize on its most prized asset without driving people away.

The updates could be the most noticeable alterations to the News Feed since the product was first introduced in September 2006. That spells trouble. Even the slightest adjustments, like the ability to sort by Top Stories or Most Recent -- a feature added in late 2011 -- have stirred the pot and incited Facebook users who resent change.

Get ready for big changes to Facebook's News Feed.

But change is needed. If Facebook's News Feed were a window, an analogy the company itself has employed to describe the stream, the frame would be dilapidated and the glass distorted after years of wear and tear. The window, if it is to provide an engrossing enough view, needs a remodel.

Facebook has lost its luster with teens, a group of digital trendsetters who will determine whether the social network can withstand the test of time or become the next Friendster. An image-centric feed may give these youngsters, who clearly have a predilection for Instagram, a reason to stay and browse a little while longer.

The company also has a perception problem with adults, particularly when it comes to how it ranks and prioritizes stories in News Feed. Facebook employs an internal system called EdgeRank to algorithmically determine what to show each member. The system is far from perfect, and many believe that Facebook is holding their status updates hostage in the hopes that they'll pay to promote their stories for wider distribution.

Should Facebook reorganize News Feed with content-specific options, the company will help members discover more of the content they want to see and possibly quiet a few critics.

Facebook wholeheartedly believes that presenting the right content to people will keep them around for the long haul. In a interview at a recent investor conference, Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman talked about the significance of sorting content in News Feed. The social network's ability to chose the most interesting information for you "will be core to our ability to continue to have engaged users even as they contemplate other services," he said.

Remodeling News Feed is also Facebook's way of getting advertisers to pay more attention to Sponsored Stories. With Sponsored Stories in News Feed, or News Feed ads as they're also called, brands pay to promote their own status updates in the stream. Should Facebook make images in these ads larger, as is rumored, the company would make the units more fetching to advertisers and, perhaps, users.

News Feed ads, which only rolled out last June, bring in a small fraction of Facebook's total advertising revenue -- Facebook made $1.33 billion from advertising products in the fourth quarter -- though the company continues to talk about them as the ad unit of the future. The appeal, Ebersman said, is that when done well, News Feed ads blend in to the stream. In theory, should Facebook get the look and flow of News Feed ads just right -- and bigger images could help with that challenge -- the company would be able to show more and more of the units without annoying too many of its members.

What's clear is that News Feed needs to evolve to fit the changing needs and wants of members and advertisers. But in remodeling News Feed, Facebook has a lot stake. Though the renovations are likely designed to beautify and better organize the social network, not everything about tomorrow's curtain-lifting will be pretty -- member reactions included.

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Samsung's investment in Sharp could prick Apple

While the Korean electronics giant says it's not going to intervene in Sharp's business management, it could end up with early insight into new tech and influence future products. And that could be a risk for Apple.

The 110-inch Samsung 4K TV dwarfs the 85-inch UN85S9 in the background.

Apple just can't get away from Samsung.

With Apple reportedly trying to reduce its reliance on Samsung, things just got a bit harder with the Korean company investing $111 million for a 3 percent stake in another big Apple supplier: Sharp.

While Samsung says it won't get involved with Sharp's business management in "any way or form," it will be getting a "steady" supply of LCD (liquid crystal display) panels used for smartphone and tablet displays. And it probably will get a line of sight into Sharp's future products and customers, as well as early access to Sharp's cutting-edge technology. It may even influence Sharp's future products.

None of these prospects are particularly comforting for the folks in Cupertino. Apple is believed to buy about a third of its LCD panels from Sharp, and it closely relies on the company for some of its most advanced products, according to analysts. When Sharp has problems, it can slow down the release of Apple devices. So if Sharp starts to favor Apple's chief rival, Samsung, that could have big implications for Apple.

"It's not like Samsung is going to write a memo to Sharp to have unfavorable terms with Apple," said Susquehanna analyst Mehdi Hosseini. "But they could influence Sharp or indirectly influence Sharp's relationship with Apple...and it gives them better market intelligence on their competitor and is a way of putting more pressure on Apple."

Samsung declined to comment. We've contacted Apple and will update the report when we hear back.

The concept of "frenemies" or "coopetition" -- competing with companies in certain areas while partnering in others -- is nothing new for the tech industry. Apple and Samsung are fiercely battling in court, but Apple still buys a lot of components from Samsung. There's talk that Apple is trying to move away from Samsung, including by having its processors built somewhere else, but it has yet to make any such moves (at least not publicly).

Apple may not see a big impact in the short term from Samsung's new partnership with Sharp, but issues could pop up longer term. Apple is known for tightly controlling its vendors, but it may one day find Samsung has priority when it comes to Sharp's LCD shipments. If a lot of Sharp's "steady" supply is going to Samsung, it could mean fewer panels for Apple. And that could result in delays, or shortages in new hit products, like the iPhone, which uses Sharp displays.

Also, Samsung executives won't be influencing business matters, but Sharp could still end up tailoring its road map to fall more in line with Samsung's needs than those of Apple.

A Sharp TV.

In addition, Samsung could benefit from its access to Sharp's LCD innovations. Display technology has become more important as electronics makers strive to build the top-selling smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Screens are one of the most power-hungry components in a mobile device, and they also can limit what a device looks like and how much it costs. If a smartphone maker uses unique technology, it could provide a big boost.

And relying on Sharp for LCDs could free up Samsung to focus on its OLED business, an area where panel makers have the potential to actually make money.

All of this means Apple may need to beef up its display supply chain outside of Sharp or get contract manufacturer Foxconn to pull the trigger on an investment in Sharp. (Remember that? Foxconn was going to invest in Sharp but then backed out because of Sharp's falling value. The companies have since been talking, but their negotiations are reportedly scheduled to end this month.)

If Foxconn makes the investment in Sharp that it had planned, it would give Apple more heft over its vendor. Even if that doesn't happen, Sharp isn't likely to do anything that would hurt its biggest customer. After all, it needs Apple just as much (or possibly even more) than Apple needs Sharp.

Apple has brushed off concerns about its supply chain sources before, most recently during the company's latest quarterly earnings conference call in January. CEO Tim Cook attempted to assuage fears that the company had cut its order of iPhone 5 components, including screens, saying it used "multiple sources for things," and that any "single data point" was "not a great proxy for what is going on."

But if Samsung becomes an even bigger customer for Sharp and takes more market share in mobile, things could change. And with all the issues Apple has had in recent weeks, the new Samsung/Sharp tie-up is just something else it has to worry about. The top brass in Cupertino is likely looking at this situation pretty closely.

Your move, Apple.

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Police to wear video cameras on sunglasses

It's not quite Google Glass, but police in Laurel, Md., have decided it's time they started filming the public, just like the public films them.

What will they catch?

You think you're so clever whipping out your iPhone to film police when they're giving someone an ill-judged whipping.

Well, the police can fight back, you know -- technologically speaking.

Officers in Laurel, Md., have decided that the way to prove that they are fine, upstanding policemen -- and sections of the populace are not -- is to get into wearable tech.

It's not quite Google Glass, and they won't look quite as manly as Sergey Brin.

However, attaching a little video camera to their shades or, say, their hats will apparently avoid doubt.

Perhaps he's never heard the term "lawyer" before. Perhaps he's never watched a slick-haired smoothie persuade a jury that black is white and gray is merely dirty.As Laurel Police Chief Richard McLaughlintold CBS Baltimore: "It's kind of easy to have a he-said-she-said scenario, but when it's on video, you can't argue the facts."

There's a certain joy, though, to expect from technology that is more mobile than a dash cam.

There's a certain expectation that these cameras will produce new angles on old facts.

On the other hand, this new police-infused version of Google Street View will surely throw up images of ordinary law-abiding citizens in the throes of intimate or even embarrassing private activity.

What if those images leak online?

Conversely, what if an officer forgets that he's off-duty and leaves the camera rolling? What delights might we expect from the shades-cams then?

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Light it up: Epic LED show to wrap SF Bay Bridge in swirls and stars

After years of planning and fundraising, artist Leo Villareal's 1.8-mile-long Bay Lights Project will be officially turned on Tuesday night. Viewing the bridge will never be the same.

Artist Leo Villareal's Bay Lights Project, which features 25,000 LEDs, and which is the world's-largest LED art project, officially turns on Tuesday night.

With the flip of a switch Tuesday night, the San Francisco Bay Bridge, already known as one of the world's most amazing bridges, will undergo an epic transformation.

Starting tomorrow evening, anyone looking at the San Francisco side of the Bay Bridge at night will be wowed by the ever-changing swirls, bursts, star fields, and other patterns of the Bay Lights Project, the world's largest LED art installation.

Inside the Bay Lights Project (pictures)

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Created by artist Leo Villareal, the project features 25,000 1-inch LEDs strung for 1.8 miles along the bridge's cables that together make up the pixels on what might well be the world's-largest electronic canvas.

The privately-funded project, which took two years to manifest, cost about $8 million (of which $2 million must still be raised), and required the the approval of several public agencies. Underlying it is tons and tons of patterns, with algorithmic rules governing them and ensuring that nobody ever sees the same pattern twice. The project is based on a deep library of pre-programmed imagery that will be continuously blended together and layered on top of each other in random ways, and for random amounts of time, all automatically by a computer mounted on the bridge itself.

The concept is for the system to generate specific patterns that can do any number of things -- explode, blossom, rise, fall, dissolve, and so on -- and blend them into an essentially infinite set of possibilities.

Although the project has been running on and off during tests for the last few weeks, its official launch is Tuesday night. And finally, after two years, the project's many fans will be able to delight themselves each and every night -- for at least the project's minimum two-year run -- by standing anywhere that the north side of the bridge can be seen and watching Villareal's artistry at work, and on a scale that has never before been attempted anywhere on Earth.

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