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Angry Birds soda release makes for huge sales jump
Yes indeed: Angry Birds soda. A Nordic beverage company named Olvi got the rights from Rovio to make some Angry Birds-branded sugar water, and apparently it's a huge hit for them, raising the company's sales by 85 percent. Exports were especially huge, going from 3 percent of Olvi's market to a whole 20 percent, with exports focusing primarily on Spain, Norway and the UK. There's no indication that any of this drink has made it over to the United States for sale just yet, so if you have a chance to try some, you'll have to let us know how it tastes. Hopefully "eggy" isn't a word included in the description. This is far from the last we'll hear about Angry Birds merch, especially with that movie set to arrive in the next few years. You can bet that even bigger companies are looking at sales figures like this, and then lining up to make a deal with Rovio as fast as they can.
Daily iPhone App: Roboto
Roboto is a solid platformer for iOS that features you controlling a little robot around a series of levels, 30 in all. Gameplay is pretty strictly action/exploration based, very much in the vein of Super Mario Bros., though the robot has a few extra movies that Mario didn't have. Specifically, he can glide for a short amount of time, as well as switch gravity as certain points, which adds a little more complexity to your search for golden gears throughout the game. Other than that, this one plays as you'd expect, and the general polish and quality makes it stand out among the many various platformers available on iOS. The one issue I had was with the on-screen thumbstick -- it's almost too close to the left edge of the iPhone's screen, so whenever I headed left, it would drop off and stop my movement, sometimes right over a gap. Other than that, though, controls are precise and intuitive, which is what you want in a platformer like this. Roboto is available in an HD version that's universal across iPhone and iPad, complete with OpenFeint and Game Center integration, and a whole bunch of minigames and unlockable powerups and weapons. It's a solid buy, even at the current price of $3.99.
