Copy your Angry Birds progress \ save game from one device to another without rooting for FREE

For those die-hard Angry Birds fans who do not want to buy a new phone or tablet because you are afraid that your Angry Birds progress will not transfer, fear no more. XDA forum user, OstrichSak, has come up with a simple tutorial on how to do it and it is Free.
There are free apps in the Android Market for each version of Angry Birds which you may know about, but apparently there are some additional steps that you need to do to make them work.

1) Install one (or more) of the following apps on both devices:
AngryBirds backup                             apps database / android market
AngryBirdsBackup(seasons)           apps database / android market
AngryBirds Rio backup                     apps database / android market
2) Complete ONE level on the new device (do NOT skip this step or you won’t be able to complete the process successfully) and then create a backup to your device using the app.
3) Install the same app on the old device and create a backup for the same game on the old device. Now you have backups of current progress of the same game on both devices and you need to get the old to the new.
4) Use a file explorer (I like ES File Explorer best out of all of them but some prefer Astro… either will work for this DIY) to locate the folder that was created on the new device which will be named the same as the backup app. Within that folder you will find two files which I think are .bkp or something similar. One is scores and one is something else. You want to delete those two files from the new phone and then copy the same two files from the old phone and place them in the same location on the new phone.
5) Back out, launch the backup app that you installed and select restore.

Google Maps gets updated to 5.4.0

Google Maps has been updated to 5.4.0 and brings the following changes:

1. View your Google Maps searches in Google Web History for your account.
2. See additional business details for each search result on the map
3. Report “destination not here” in Navigation (Beta)

If you enable web history in your account, you will now be able to see all of your Google Maps searches across all of your devices. Do this by logging into your gmail account in Chrome and click on your log in name (top right) and choose account settings, then web history. Within your web history there is a choice for maps and all of your searches will be saved there.
When you search for businesses you will now see a star rating within the main map view and when you tap on the business for more info, you will see a “details” section.
The “destination not here” option is for when Maps takes you to a destination that is not where it thinks it is. You can now report this error.

Only 4% of Android devices have Gingerbread

As of May 2nd, only 4 percent of Android users have Gingerbread. The break down is 3 percent for 2.3.3 and 1 percent for 2.3.
Gingerbread was released 5 months ago on the Nexus S. We are expecting Ice Cream Sandwich to be announced shortly.
This is not a good situation. I still believe that most mainstream consumers are not concerned with what version of Android they are running, but what about the hardcores? We knew that the custom UI’s (Sense, Blur, Touchwiz) that are being installed on top of Android were going to be a problem, but it seems like it is getting worse.

Taptu 1.4 android

Taptu — the “News DJ” application that lets you get your news the way you want it — that brought new customization options with version 1.3.  Well, they’re at it again, bringing three Android-exclusive features in the tablet-friendly version 1.4. The three new features that you will ONLY find on the Android platform are:

• A new theme, white text on a black background
• Full screen reading, for when you prefer to not use a tabbed look.
• Instapaper support: Don’t have time to read it now? Send it to your Instapaper account to read it later.

While on the surface this appears to just be a new version, as the look is very similar to what we’re used to with Taptu, it was actually rebuilt from the ground up to be tablet-friendly, while still keeping handset users in mind as well.  Full press release after the break, and you can grab it in the market today.

Death Worm For Android

Death Worm by Playcreek is a new game that has recently been ported from iOS to Android, where you play the part of a giant worm-ish creature set to wreak havoc on everything possible. CJ Lippstreu over at SmartKeitai has done an excellent video review, so I’ll let him take it from here:

You can snag this insane worm-on-human slaughterfest for $2.99 in the Android Market, which will get you 45 levels, 2 bonus games, 30 enemy types, and 3 different worms.

Android Market Link

Appbrain Link

Plants vs Zombies to Hit Android Soon

Acouple of months ago, it was announced that popular casual game developers PopCap Games would be porting their games over to Android. Today, they have announced via Twitter that smash-hit Plants vs. Zombies will be hitting Android in the next couple of months.

OM NOM NOM

A tweet by the popcap_games account said, “Ah, many requests for PvZ Android – it will be releasing soon folks! In the first half of 2011 – that’s within the next 2 months”. We think it’s quite safe to say Angry Birds has some competition, though just how many have not played PvZ on the absolute deluge of platforms it has already released for is a matter of contention.