App Store hacked to allow free in-app purchases — A Russian hacker has found a way to circumvent Apple’s App Store security and allow users to get in-app purchases for free reports 9to5mac. The process does not require a user to jailbreak their phone, but does require users to install two certificates and change their DNS record. The workaround sends information about device and the purchase back to the Russian developer.

IMDB’s apps pass 40 million downloads — IMDB’s mobile apps have been downloaded more than 40 million times on iOS and Android Since they were launched last year, reports the company. This week the company revamped the apps, adding message boards, check-ins and other social features.

Many free app contain aggressive Adware — Mobile security company Lookout reports more than 5 percent of free apps come bundled with adware — aggressive software that accesses personal information and changes a device’s setting without asking for a user’s permission first.

Chinese iOS developers don’t see much money – Chinese iOS developers earn just $0.03 per download reports Tech in Asia, citing high piracy rates in the country and a general unwillingness to pay for apps as the reason Chinese developers have a difficult time monetizing at home. According to the Chinese-only App Annie report Tech in Asia translated, Japanese developers earn the most, taking home $.040 per download and U.S. developers take home $0.28 per download. The worldwide median is $0.19. It also reported that the top 10 developers in China generate 90 percent of their revenue overseas.

Urban Airship partners with GamesAnalytics – Urban Airship and GamesAnalytics have entered into a strategic partnership. Under the terms of the deal, game developers and publishers will be able to offer push notifications based on behaviors identified by GamesAnaltyics’ Predict platform.

PlayPhone’s social gaming network grows to 45 million users — PlayPhone’s mobile-social gaming network has grown substantially in the last six months, growing to 45 million users and 4.1 million monthly active users according to VentureBeat.

Chinese smartphone market grows 164% year-over-year — China is now the biggest smartphone market in the world, according to Apple Insider. Smartphone shipments in the country were 33.1 million units in the June quarter, up 164 percent year-on-year. Apple’s share of the market was 17.3 percent.

Tencent invests in Chinese ROM maker — Tencent may be the latest Chinese company to produce its own branded Android phone says Tech in Asia, which reports the company has invested $7.9 million (50 million RMB) in Lewa Tek, a Chinese startup that develops its own version of the Android ROM.

3 billion Blackberry app downloads – The beleaguered RIM reports its app store Blackberry App World has now surpassed 3 billion downloads.

DeNA’s Mobage gets friendly with Facebook — DeNA’s popular Mobage gaming service now allows users to log in with their Facebook accounts reports industry watcher Dr. Serkan Toto. Toto speculates the move was prompted by low user interest in the Mobage network outside of Japan.

Slice updates app to version 2.0 — Mobile shopping app Slice has overhauled its iOS and Android apps to version 2.0, adding new personal finance features in addition to its shipment tracking functions.

iVentureCapital launches games-only advertising network TrafficCaptain – German company iVentureCapital has launched its own advertising network TrafficCaptain. The game-only network will be for mobile, social and online games, and will focus on Western European and North American titles.

Kendo UI adds tablet support — Telerik has added support for tablets and server-side wrappers for ASP.NET to its HTML5 and JavaScript development framework.

Gamevil adds $10 million more to partner fund – South Korean publisher Gamevil has added $10 million more in funding to its publishing partner fund. The fund has been used to publish previous Gamevil hits such as Air Penguin and Cartoon Wars, both of which were extremely popular on Android.

[Funding] Eruptive Games nets $1 million for hardcore mobile games — Vancouver Eruptive Games has received $1 million in funding from Russian game developer Plarium, Kevin Colleran and Guitar Hero creator Kai Huang, according to TechCrunch.

[Funding] The Echo Nest closes $17.3 million fourth round – Music service provider The Echo Nest has closed a $17.3 million fourth funding round according to VentureBeat. The new funding was lead by Norwest Venture Partners. The company has now taken more than $27 million in total funding.

Google improves mobile search ads — Google has added several new features to AdWords to improve its mobile advertising tools. Advertisers can now advertise both their website and their app through the new Mobile App extension and Mobile ads units now show more information about mobile apps. Advertisers can also track downloads through AdWorks and a new AdMob SDK allows for custom search ads in tablet apps. More information can be found on the Google mobile ads blog.

Newzoo: 91 percent of mobile game revenue comes from in-app purchases — According to a study from Dutch research firm Newzoo, 91 percent of mobile app revenues on iOS and Android (excluding ad revenue) come from in-app purchases, not up from App purchases. 36 percent of all mobile gamers in the U.S. are now paying for in-app purchases and other virtual goods.

Kingdom Age racks up 1 million downloads in 12 days – Funzio’s latest iOS game Kingdom Age has seen more than 1 million installs and 20 million player-vs-play battles since its release on April 19. The company’s success was a major reason behind GREE’s $210 million acquisition of Funzio, according Shanti Bergel, GREE’s SVP of business and corporate development. For more information on the deal read our interview with Bergel and Funzio COO Anil Dharni.

Zynga adds paid advertising into Draw Something — Zynga has found a new way to monetize Draw Something. Advertisers can now pay to have words added to the popular game. According to AdAge, new words sponsored by Coca-Cola, Doritos and the National Hockey League have all bought brand advertising.

CyberAgent becoming mobile social network — Japan’s CyberAgent, best know for its cross-platform Ameba blogging service is pivoting. Starting next month the Ameba platform on smartphones will be a social network with a focus on social games, reports Dr. Serkan Toto. The move will put CyberAgent in direct competition with DeNA and GREE, two of the most profitable game companies in the world.

Angry Birds Space hits 50 million downloads — Angry Birds Space is now the fastest growing mobile app in history, passing 50 million downloads in 35 days according to Rovio. The previous record holder was Zynga’s Draw Something, which took 50 days to reach 50 million downloads.

Instagram up to 50 million users – Photo sharing service Instagram now has more than 50 million users, and is adding more than 5 million new users a week, reports Mashable.

More Android earnings figures emerge from Google/Oracle trial — According to the latest numbers revealed in the Google/Oracle trial over the use of Java in the Android OS, Android was a net loss for Google every quarter of 2010. Reuters has more information.

Kindle Fire shipments crash and burn? — Amazon shipped just 750,000 Kindle Fire tablets in the first quarter of 2012, down from the 4.8 million it shipped in Q4 2011 according to AllThingsD. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads in the same period.

Gameloft commits to BlackBerry 10 — Gameloft has announced 11 of its games are being optimized for BlackBerry 10. Shark Dash, N.O.V.A 3, Ice Age Village and Oregon Trail: American Settler will be available on BlackBerry App World at launch. The other seven titles will follow.

Mobile Roadie launches native iPad app and mobile website products — Self-service mobile app creation service Mobile Roadie has expanded its product offerings. Clients can now use Mobile Roadie to create native iPad apps and mobile websites.

It’s now easier for Unity devs to use Kontagent — Developers creating games in the popular Unity Engine can now use Kontagent’s plug-in to add the company’s analytics service to their apps, streamlining the implementation process.

Citron unveils new mobile game studio — OpenFeint co-founder Jason Citron has founded a new mobile game studio called Phoenix Guild, reports Gamasutra. The former GREE executive will be targeting hardcore console gamers.

Appssavvy’s Adtivity celebrates first birthday — Appssavvy’s Adtivity advertising platform is celebrating its first birthday. The service has almost 100 publishers signed up, and counts Ubisoft, TheBroth and Coca-Cola among its client list.

RIM promises certified apps will make at least $10,000 – In order to attract app developers to BlackBerry RIM is promising that all certified apps that can earn at least $1000 on their own will earn $10,000 in its BlackBerry App World app store. If not, RIM will pay developers the difference, reports The Verge.

CocoaChina wants Apple to open WWDC ticket exchange — Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference sold out in less than two hours, leaving many without tickets. Chinese iOS developer community CocoaChina is trying to convince Apple to open a ticket exchange (as tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable) to help developers without tickets attend the event. The group has created the WWDC waitlist website: http://www.wwdcwaitlist.org/ in order to coordinate developers who missed out on tickets.

[Launch] GREE launches Dino Life on Android — GREE’s has launched its first Android exclusive title, the free-to-play animal care game Dino Life. The game is free-to-play.

[Funding] SocialCam raises celebrity Angel seed round — TechCrunch is reporting SocialCam has raised a round of seed funding from several well known investors such as Ashton Kutcher, Tim Draper, Yuri Milner. The amount of funding SocialCam raised is not yet known.

[Funding] Appthority nets $6.25 Series A — Mobile app security company Appthority has raised $6.25 million in Series A funding. The round was lead by Venrock and US Venture partners.

[Funding] Pindrop raises $1 million seed round – Mobile phone security company has raised $1 million in seed funding. Its seed round was lead by Andreessen Horowitz.

50 percent of U.S. smartphones are Androids — According to ComScore’s latest mobile subscriber report, Google’s Android is now the most popular platform with 50.1 percent market share, up from the 46.9 percent it held in November. iOS was second with 30.2 percent, up from 28.7 percent. RIM and Microsoft declined to 13.4 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively.

ODIN looking to set new UDID replacement standard –  Following Apple’s move to begin rejecting apps that use UDIDs to track users, mobile advertising companies Velti, Jumptap, RadiumOne, MdotM, StrikeAd, Smaato, Adfonic and SAY Media are teaming up to create a focus group called ODIN. According to TechCrunch, the companies are hoping push the mobile advertising industry to quickly decide on a UDID replacement. The group currently favors using a secure, hashed version of the iOS MAC address.

Zynga’s Draw Something cloned in China — With the blockbuster success of Draw Something, its not surprising others are looking to get in on the social-Pictionary action. According to Tech in Asia, the game has been cloned in China by Tencent as Guess What and MelonZone as Draw I Guess.

Diamond Dash hits 11 million downloads — The iOS version of Wooga’s Diamond Dash has been downloaded 11 million times in four months. 64 percent of iOS players log in with Facebook.

Angry Birds coming to the small screen – Rovio has revealed it is working on an Angry Birds animated series. Each of the 52 episodes will be about three minutes long, according to VentureBeat.

Indie hits coming and going from iOS — Indie games are crossing to and from mobile. Team Meat is working on a brand-new iOS version of punishingly difficult platformer Super Meat Boy, and Canadian studio Capy Games is bringing its award winning iOS game, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP to the PC via Steam.

Glu Mobile buys Deer Hunter brand – Glu Mobile has bought the trademark to Deer Hunter from Atari. Glu has been releasing mobile Deer Hunter apps for seven years, earning more than $21 million in revenue from the brand.

Windows Phone Marketplace up to 80,000 apps – All About Windows Phone reports that the Windows Phone Marketplace now has 80,000 apps, some of which may have been directly financed by Microsoft itself, according to the New York Times.

Latest version of Android OS only on 2.9 percent of Android devices — According to the latest update from Google’s Android developer platform data, Android 4.0 — aka Ice Cream Sandwich — is installed on just 2.9 percent of Android devices. The most popular Android OS is still 2.3, aka, Gingerbread, with a 63.7 percent market share.

Flurry ditches UDID in latest SDK, adds more features – Flurry has updated its iOS SDK to version 3.1.0. According to the Flurry blog, the SDK no longer collects the iOS UDID. The company has also added Funnels, Alerts and Custom Dashboards to its iOS, Android, HTML5, BlackBerry and JavaME analytics products.

Halfbrick gets in on GetJar Gold — Halfbrick is the latest developer to integrate GetJar’s GetJar Gold virtual currency. The currency, which is only available in GetJar’s independent Android app store, is based off advertising, but players can use the currency to purchase premium in-game items.

Kontagent adds new data mining tools — Kontagent has launched a new kSuite DataMine platform. The cloud-hosted tool allows developers to create detailed, custom queries in order to mine user data.

Samsung launching own mobile ad network — Samsung is partnering with OpenX Technologies to create its own mobile advertising network, reports the Wall Street Journal. The as-yet-unnamed network will launch in the second half of the year.

[Funding] The Tap Lab untaps $550,000 — Cambridge-based The Tap Lap has raised $550,000 in investment funds to work on location based games and its own location-based game engine.

[Launch] MocoSpace debuts HTML-based True Night — HTML5 gaming platform MocoSpace has launched its thirty third HTML5 game, the vampire themed True Night. It was developed by New Game Town.

DeNA news roundup — It’s been a busy week for Japanese gaming giant DeNA.

The company has announced a new deal with Disney Japan to launch three Disney-branded games. The games are scheduled to come to North America sometime this summer. The games, which are based on Disney’s original characters and the Marvel superheroes brand, will be the first titles jointly developed by DeNA to be released outside of North America.

In other DeNA news, it also announced this week it has signed deals with all three of China’s major mobile carriers: China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. China Mobile subscribers will now see Mobage transactions showing up on their monthly phone bill. China Unicom and China Telecom will be rolling out carrier billing for Mobage by the summer. All three carriers (with a combined customer base of 976 million customers) now offer Mobage games in their Android app stores.

Apple products in 51% of US homes — According to a survey conducted by CNBC, 51 percent of American households have at least one Apple product. The average US home holds 1.6 Apple devices, with nine percent of home reporting more than five apple products.

RIM announces major restructuring — Following a disappointing earnings report, Canadian smartphone maker RIM has announced it is refocusing on enterprise. As part of the effort, several senior executives are on the way out. Former co-CEO Jim Balsillie has left the company and Mashable is reporting the company’s COO and CTO have also departed.

Angry Birds Space hits 10 million downloads in three days — Angry Birds Space has been a big hit, racking up 10 million downloads worldwide in its first three days, reports Develop.

Level-5 Signs Deal with GREE – Professor Layton publisher Level-5 has signed a deal with GREE that will see three games from the company come to the GREE platform in the second quarter of this year.

Rovio buys Futuremark Games, hiring for Swedish office — Rovio has purchased game developer Futuremark Games for an undisclosed sum, reports TechCrunch. The company is also opening a studio in Sweden, according to a job posting on the company’s website for a general manger. Rovio is aiming to hire between 20 and 30 employees in Sweden. The company established a Shanghai studio last year.

Bump gets into mobile payments – Contact and photo-sharing app Bump has released a new app called Bump Pay. Powered by PayPal, the standalone app allows users to transfer funds between smartphones.

Outfit7 partners with Autism Speaks — Outfit7 has partnered with Autism advocacy organization Autism Speaks to promote Autism Awareness Month through the Light It Up Blue Campaign. For a limited time, users of Outfit7’s Talking Tom app on iOS and Android will be able to download a virtual Light It Up Blue shirt for Tom.

Aeria Games launches mobile division — Santa-Clara based Aeria Games has launched a mobile spin division called Aeria Mobile. The company’s first three games will be Tuff Tanks, Eden Eternal Monster Hunter and Armygeddon. Tuff Tanks is being developed by Swedish developer Junebud.

The Dark Meadow gets a free-to-play version — Phosphor Games has released a free-to-play version of its critically acclaimed iPad game Dark Meadow called Dark Meadow: The Pact. The free version of the game will launch on Android next month.

[Launch] Fitocracy comes out of beta with iOS app — Social Fitness startup Fitocracy has come out of beta. To celebrate, the company has released an iPhone app, one of the features most requested by the service’s users.

The popularity of the iPhone 4S and new, lower prices on older iPhones are helping Apple narrow the smartphone sales gap between iOS and Android in the U.S., according to the latest data from consumer research firm the NPD Group.

According to a factsheet the company released at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the hotly anticipated iPhone 4S noticeably boosted iOS’ market share of smartphone sales to 43 percent in October and November, up from 26 percent in the third quarter. Apple reported it had sold more than 4 million iPhone 4S’ in its first weekend of the device’s availability.

While the jump between the third and fourth quarter seems dramatic, it is important to note that Apple’s market share in the third and fourth quarters was artificially distorted by the 4S, as many of those those planning to buy an iPhone waited for the new device’s release in October.  Overall however, what was good for iOS proved to be bad for Android, with the popularity of the 4S and the new lower prices on Apple’s older iPhones cutting Android’s share of new smartphone sales to 47 percent in October and November, down from 60 percent in the third quarter.

NPD’s figures also indicate new smartphone sales are now almost exclusively a contest between iOS and Android. RIM’s BlackBerry devices continued to lose market share in the fourth quarter, accounting for just six percent of new smartphone sales. At the beginning of the year, BlackBerry devices were almost as popular as iOS devices, holding 21 and 23 percent of sales respectively.  In response to its declining presence the Canadian company has made a variety of changes, and will soon be licensing BlackBerry’s security features to other manufactures. The company’s co-chairmen, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are under intense pressure to step down.

Meanwhile Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile offerings continued to remain marginal, accounting for about one percent of total sales each.

Smartphone sales are also continuing to increase at the expense of traditional feature phones, and now account for 67 percent of all new device sales in the U.S. The top three selling smartphone phones in the fourth quarter were the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS according to NPD.

PapayaMobile Launches Incubator Contest – PapayaMobile has created a mobile game incubator called the The Game Academy. The incubator will not provide seed funding, but will instead provide office space and mentorship. At the end of the four month program the best game will win 100,000 installs.

$100 Million Year for Angry Birds – Reuters is reporting that Rovio earned nearly $100 million in revenue in 2011. Rovio’s marketing chief Peter Vesterbacka provided the figure to Finnish paper Tekniikka & Talous. Vesterbacka also revealed the franchise has now exceeded 600 million downloads.

Apple Drops Prices on iAds to $400k - The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is dropping the minimum commitment on its iAd service to $400,000, down from the $1 million minimum commitment that the company originally required. According to the WSJ, the US mobile ad market will bring in $630 million in revenue this year. Google  controls 24 percent of the market with AdMob, Millennial Media has 17 percent and Apple has 15 percent.

Lees Out as Head of Windows Phone Division - Microsoft’s Windows Phone president Andy Lees is being moved to an as yet undefined position, and will be replaced by VP Terry Myerson according to an internal Microsoft memo leaked to AllThingsD. Lees and Myerson will retain their current titles. Currently Windows Phones are a distant third place in smartphone market share.

Pocket Gems & Rovio Have Highest Grossing Apps in 2011 - Apple may have chosen NimbleBit’s Tiny Tower as its game of the year, but Pocket Gems and Rovio may be the real winners. Pocket Gems’ free-to-play game Tap Zoo was the highest grossing iPhone app of the year, and Rovio’s paid title Angry Birds was the highest grossing iPad app of the year.

DeNA Teams with Alibaba to Expand Mobage in China – DeNA is expanding the Chinese reach of its Mobage network in China. The Japanese company has signed a deal with the Alibaba Group to pre-load the mobile-social gaming network on K-touch W800 Android smartphones. Chinese developers will now be able access to DeNA’s ngCore game development engine through Alibaba’s cloud service, AliCloud.

Beeline Bringing Shrek to iOS – Capcom’s Beeline Interactive division has announced it will be creating a free-to-play game based on DreamWork’s Shrek series. Shrek’s Fairytale Kingdom will be available in the first half of 2012.

Mobile Malware Threat Growing - According to a new report from mobile security company Lookout, the mobile malware industry will be profitable in 2012, especially on Android, where users now have a 4 percent chance of downloading malicious apps. In total the company has identified more than 1000 infected applications, double the amount it had found in July. In related news, VentureBeat is reporting that Google has just removed 22 apps from the Android store. The apps posed as legitimate apps and then accessed the phone’s sim card to send and charge users for fraudulent texts.

Indonesia Threatens RIM Over BBM Service – TechCrunch is reporting that Indonesia is the latest country to threaten to shut down RIM’s services in the country unless RIM sets up BBM servers in the country. RIM’s popular BlackBerry Messenger service (BBM) is a secure messaging service that governments cannot easily monitor as the data is processed in Canada.

OfferMobi Reports 2011 Mobile Ad Stats – Mobile marketing affiliate network OfferMobi has announced its mobile ad network generated 4 billion impressions and 40 million clicks in 2011. Overall consumers now spend 65 minutes a day looking at mobile devices, according to a new study from research firm eMarketer.

Former EA Staffers Form PlaySide – Employees of EA’s shutter Visceral Melbourne studio have united to form a new Australian mobile development studio called Playside according to Gamasutra. The studio will be headed by Gerry Sakkas, a former game designer.

Happy “Birdday” Angry Birds - Angry Birds turned two on December 11th and Rovio is celebrating the milestone with a an iOS update on December 18th that will add special Birthday themed levels and achievements to Angry Birds. According to the Angry Birds blog, other platforms will follow soon. In other Angry Birds news, Kotaku is reporting that Rovio’s latest venture is Angry Birds themed playground equipment. Two Finnish towns will be the first to see an Angry Birds themed playground, but Rovio is targeting the asian market for the new toys.

[Update] WebOS Not Dead, Just Open Source – HP has announced it will not be shelving its WebOS software, and it will instead will be making the code open source.

[Funding] xAD Nets $9 Million – US based local-mobile ad network xAD has raised an additional $9 million in funding from Emergence Capital Partners and its existing investors SoftBank Capital, Palisades Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. The company will be using the new funding to improve and expand xAD’s technology and tools.

[Launch] PopCap Brings Best Sellers to Android Market – PopCap’s smash iOS hits Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies are now officially available in the Android marketplace. Plants vs. Zombies was previously available in the Amazon marketplace.

Apple Picks its Favorite Apps of the Year - Apple has selected Instagram and Nik Software’s Snapseed as its top iPhone and iPad apps of the year in its iTunes Rewind showcase. Apple named NimbleBit’s Tiny Tower as its iPhone game of the year and EA’s Dead Space was the iPad game of the year. Rovio’s Angry Birds was the top selling paid app of the year, Facebook was the most downloaded free app and Pocket Gems’ Tap Zoo was the Highest Grossing app of the year.

OnLive Takes Console Games Mobile – OnLive has released a new multiplatform app that allows users to stream console video games onto almost any mobile device. Almost all of OnLive’s library is compatible with the new app, but most titles will require players to purchase a separate wireless controller. OnLive has adapted 25 of its titles for touch controls.

Twitter Releases New App – Twitter has released a new version of its iPhone app to accompany its redesigned website. The new app is simplifies the Twitter user interface into four tabs: Home, Connect, Discover and Me. In other Twitter news, TechCrunch is reporting that Twitter’s iOS integration has boosted the social media service’s monthly signups by more than 25 percent.

Consumers Slow to Adopt Geo-Location Apps - According to a study by Forrester Research, awareness of geo-location apps like Foursquare has increased 14 percent year-over-year but usage of those apps has only gone up by two percent. Out of the 37,000 people surveyed, just two percent of respondents indicated they used any geo-location app on a weekly basis according to VentureBeat.

MoPub to Power Mobage’s Advertising - Mobile ad startup MoPub has signed a deal with DeNA subsidiary ngmoco:) to power the the  much of the advertising in the growing Mobage Network. MoPub also announced its platform was compatible with the popular game engine Unity, which now has more than 750,000 developers in its fold.

Will Zynga’s Next Game Be ForestVille? - Fusible has discovered that Zynga’s next game may be called ForestVille. The company has registered several domains for the as-yet-unannounced game and for a brief time there was a Facebook page for the game that described its premise, but it has since been taken down.

A Million Apps - There are now more than a million individual apps in the world. Apple’s App store accounts for 60 percent, Google’s Android marketplace follows with 35 percent of all apps and RIM and Microsoft make up for the rest. On average, 2,000 new apps are added to the market every day according to Mobilewalla, the company that conducted the study.

Indie Devs Pledge Profits for Charity – 12 independent developers have pledged to donate 25 percent of their game profits to charity. From now until the end of December purchasing apps created by Galcon, Imangi Studios, One Man Left, Godzilab, Pixelocity Software, Acceleroto, Sykhronics Entertainment, GRL Games, Magicule, Celsius Game Studios, Retro Dreamer or Fargoal will contribute money to either Doctors Without Borders or Child’s Play, a charity that donates toys and money to children’s hospitals. $1300 has been raised so far.

EA Pushes the Limits of Freemium – VentureBeat is reporting that EA’s new iOS game Theme Park is pushing the boundaries of the freemium model. The game is free to play, but some attractions can only be unlocked via an in-app purchases that cost as much as $60 dollars. The game is not yet available in the US.

Playfirst Lays off Employees – Diner Dash publisher Playfirst has laid off an unspecified number of employees according to Gamasutra. It’s unknown at this time how many employees were affected by the layoffs.

RIM Loses BBX Fight – New Mexico based developer Basis International has won its fight with BlackBerry maker RIM for the BBX name, forcing RIM to change the name of its new operating system to BlackBerry 10. In October Basis International took its case to the US courts, claiming BBX infringed on its trademark of the term BBx.

GREE Teases First Games for New Social Mobile Platform – GREE has revealed more details about the initial lineup of games it will be offering on its upcoming mobile social network. According to a new Japanese GREE portal site, Square Enix, Capcom, Sega, Namco Bandai and Taito will all have games on the new platform.

[Launch] BBC iPlayer Now Available Outside of the UK – The BBC’s popular iPlayer, a service that allows residents of the UK to stream BBC programs online for free up to 30 days after they’ve aired, is now available in the US and Canada as a free app for iPad and iPhone.

[Launch] Chrono Trigger Comes to iOS - Square Enix‘s classic game Chrono Trigger is now available on iOS for $9.99. Andriasang is reporting that an Android version of the game will be available before the end of the year.

[Launch] Rebels & Rulers Coming to Android - San Jose-based PlayPhone will be releasing the Chinese MMORPG Latent Dragon before the end of the year. It will be renamed Rebels & Rulers when it debuts on the Android marketplace. PlayPhone originally announced it struck a deal to bring the game to its network in July.

[Funding] SwiftKey Raises $2.4 Million in Series A – London based company TouchType, maker of the popular Android predictive typing app SwiftKey, has raised $2.4 million from a round of funding lead by Octopus Investments. The company will be using the money to hire new employees at every level and to increase its presence in the US and Asia.

[Funding] Poshmark Nets $3.5 Million for Clothing Swaps – San Francisco-based clothing swap startup Poshmark has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from the Mayfield Fund, SoftechVC and SV Angel. Poshmark’s service allows users to buy and sell used clothes in an app-based marketplace.

“Cyber Monday” Big Business for Mobile Shoppers -  Cyber Monday, the online shopping sale that follows Black Friday was big business this year. IBM reports that mobile devices accounted for 10.8% of visits to retailer’s sites, up from 3.9% of visits in 2010. Mobile purchases were also up, accounting for 6.6% of total sales.  PayPal also had a banner day, reporting a 514% increase in mobile payments over the same day in 2010.

Unity Will Support HTML5 When HTML5 is Good Enough – Unity CEO David Helgason has said his company’s game engine will support HTML5 once the platform is able to meet Unity’s standards. In an interview with Develop, Helgason said that HTML5 was a good platform, but falls short for gaming due to issues with JavaScript.

iOS & Android Control 71% of US Smartphone Market – The race for domination of the US is narrowing, even as more choices become available. According to a study by Nielsen, Android and iOS devices account for 71% of all smartphones – leaving RIM (17.8%), Windows (6.1% for Windows Mobile, 1.2% for Windows Phone 7), Palm (2.2%) and Symbian (1.7%) far behind. 44% of US mobile subscribers now have smartphones.

This Week in RIM - It was a busy week for beleaguered smartphone developer RIM. The Canadian company announced earlier this week it would make its industry leading security features available for non-BlackBerry devices, which will give the company a way to keep its hold on corporate communications as users switch to other devices. In other RIM news, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company would be taking a $485 million charge after marking down the value of its large inventory of unsold PlayBook tablets.

Games Return to South Korean Android Store - Google is reintroducing games into the South Korean Android market now that the country’s mobile games ratings requirement has been lifted. Apple reintroduced games to the South Korea App store earlier this month.

HP Will Decide Fate of WebOS Before End of Year - HP CEO Meg Whitman has revealed the tech giant will make a decision on the fate of its WebOS operating system within two weeks, according to an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro.

Kindle Fire Outsells iPad at Best Buy – Amazon’s $199.99 Kindle Fire has had a strong sales debut. Amazon has already increased its order for the tablets, and Techcrunch is now pointing out that according to electronics retailer Best Buy, the device is now the most popular tablet it sells, beating out the iPad 2.

Siri Isn’t Anti-Choice, Just in Beta - Apple’s digital assistant Siri came under fire this week for directing women looking for abortion clinics and birth control to pro-life organizations. In response to a letter from Nancy Keenan, president of the Pro-Choice America Foundation, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote, “these are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone, it simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks.”

Yandex Picks up SPB Software for $38 Million - Russian search engine company Yandex has bought another Russian company, SPB Software. According to TechCrunch, the deal was worth $38 million. A Yandex press release revealed that the company bought SPB to integrate its search and cloud services into the popular SPB Shell 3D Android app.

Fake Apps Infest Android Store – Scammers pretending to be Rovio infiltrated the Android market earlier this week with fake games according to The Gadgets. The apps, which made themselves out to be popular titles such as Angry Birds 3D and Tiny Wings,  did not work and customers could not get refunds. Google has since removed the offending apps. The Android market has come under scrutiny recently for its lack of a vetting process, which makes it far easier for malicious and fake apps to become listed in its store. The Juniper Global Threat Center released a report earlier this month reporting that the amount of malware in the Android market has increased by 472% since July.

Match.com Removed from App Store for Bypassing Apple’s 30% Fee – TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has kicked Match.com’s app from the App store. The app promoted users to pay for subscriptions through a external link, rather than as an in-app purchase, which dodged Apple’s 30 percent take on all in-app purchases and violated Apple’s terms of service.

Square Teams with DeNA for Final Fantasy Social Game - Andriasang is reporting that Square Enix and Mobage operator DeNA are teaming to release a new social game called Final Fantasy Brigade. The game will include standbys of the Final Fantasy IP like airships, jobs and summons. The game will debut in Japan on feature phones, but will be coming to the web and smartphones at some point.

Angry Birds Discover Love of Pistachios With New Branded Game - Rovio has signed a deal with Paramount Farms to promote its Wonderful Pistachios brand with a new branded Angry Birds game. The game is called The Hunt for the Golden Pistachio and offers more than $300,000 dollars in prizes for players who can successfully find and crack a golden pistachio while playing.

Notch Passes Minecraft Torch – Gamasutra has learned that Minecraft creator and lead developer Markus Perrson, aka Notch, has passed the reigns for the hit sandbox game to fellow Mojang employee Jens Bergensten. Minecraft started life on the PC and has gone on to sell more than 4 million copies. The mobile ports of the game are best sellers on both Android and iOS.

[Funding] Mobile Ad Company Burstly Raises $5.5 Million in Series B - Mobile advertising startup Burstly has raised $5.5 million from GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners and Softbank Capital to launch its Burstly Rewards program. The program allows developers to mix and match third party networks and providers.

Adobe confirmed today that it is no longer adapting its Flash Player to newer mobile devices, instead guiding developers to package native apps with Adobe Air or build cross-platform applications in HTML5.

The move indicates just how badly Apple’s ban of Flash hurt Adobe in terms of getting traction with mobile developers. Apple frequently called out the inefficiency of the Flash platform on mobile devices, most recently in an April 2011 blog post from the late Steve Jobs. A ZDNet report came out last night, breaking news of Adobe’s decision.

There were a handful of apps (e.g. iSwifter) that could more or less convert or run Flash apps on iOS devices, but this doesn’t seem to have been a long-term solution for most game developers looking to take their Flash-based games cross-platform. This leaves Flash-loyal game developers with two options: write native apps for each mobile device, or explore alternatives that can produce a single product that runs on various devices.

With a big push from industry giants like Google and Facebook, HTML5 has emerged as an alternative to writing native applications, despite frame-rate issues that present challenges for game developers. Facebook recently launched its own mobile platform with support for HTML5 games from a test pool of established mobile and social game developers.

A handful of indie developers are currently launching HTML5-based arcade and board game titles on Facebook, iOS and Android. Though some of these titles are experiencing growing pains in their early days, they are functional on both web and mobile. Most developers have told us, however, that it’ll be at least another year before HTML5 comes into its own for game development.

Adobe says that it will now take a larger role in contributing to HTLM5 development both through investment and by working with Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM. Hopefully this will yield better HTML5 tools more quickly than a year out from now, as Adobe’s strength has always been tools.

The rest of its mobile work will focus on native app packaging with Adobe Air and the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. The developer will also supply bug fixes and security updates for existing Flash mobile apps. Adobe Flash Player 11 and Air 3 launched in October with a keen emphasis on high-end gaming graphics and HD video for PCs; Adobe says it’s already at work on Flash Player 12.

This article originally appeared on our sister site, Inside Social Games.

Android may be increasing its smartphone market share, but its gains are not coming at the expense of Apple, according to the latest report from Nielsen. In the third quarter, Android captured 43 percent of the smartphone market in the U.S., up from the 40 percent it held in the last quarter. Apple, meanwhile, held steady at 28 percent market share.

The overall smartphone market is bigger than it was three months ago, as 43 percent of mobile phone users now reporting that they own smartphones, up from the 40 percent who said they owned the devices earlier this year. This means that while Apple is being buoyed on a rising tide of smartphone ownership, it isn’t growing its overall market share. This is despite consumer surveys in the second quarter indicating that one-third of consumers who said they were likely to get to get a new smartphone wanted an iPhone. One-third said they wanted an Android device, while the remaining one-third were undecided.

Android’s rapidly growing market share seems to come mainly at the expense of RIM, which saw market share for BlackBerry devices dip slightly from 19 percent to 18 percent. Other platforms dropped to a four percent market share. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile also failed to capitalize on the growing market, sitting in a distant fourth place with 7 percent penetration.

While the smartphone penetration rate has increased in every demographic group Nielsen surveyed since the second quarter, the most enthusiastic adopters are still adults between 25 and 34. Sixty-two percent of consumers in that age group reported owning a smartphone in the survey. The fastest growing group of smartphone users were those between the ages of 55 to 64, where 30 percent reported owning the devices. That’s up five percentage points from July.