Rovio executive Peter Vesterbacka made an interesting comment today during the Game Developers Conference, claiming that the company has sold 2 million of the official 'Angry Birds' plush toys.

Vesterbacka says the company is now looking to expand the brand into other products as popularity for the game remains high.

The game has been downloaded over 60 million times, and continues to be the best selling iPhone game of all-time.

On Android, where the game is free, Rovio says the app is bringing in over $1 million a month in advertising.

Finally, the exec says around 40 percent of all Angry Birds downloaders also purchase the $1 "angry eagle" add-on that can be purchased in-game.

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New York Senator Charles Schumer has called on America's largest sites to make the HTTPS protocol the default for their sites in an effort to prevent ID theft when users hop on public Wi-Fi at places like Starbucks and McDonalds.

The Senator says the growth of public Wi-Fi spots is making it easier for hackers to steal info like credit card numbers and passwords for banking institutions.

Says Schumer (via Reuters):

The number of people who use WiFi to access the Internet in coffee shops, bookstores and beyond is growing by leaps and bounds.

The quickest and easiest way to shut down this one-stop shop for identity theft is for major Web sites to switch to secure HTTPS web addresses instead of the less secure HTTP protocol.

HTTP, says the Senator, is a "welcome mat for would-be hackers." Most major site operators, outside of the banking institutions, use HTTP as the default, even if they do have HTTPS versions.

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AT&T has announced this morning that it will begin selling the Amazon Kindle 3G in stores in the U.S., beginning on March 6th.

The device can connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi, as well as AT&T's nationwide 3G network.

AT&T will include the device in its "connected devices displays" throughout the store, allowing would-be buyers to test out the e-reader.

Says the carrier:

Amazon has without question pioneered the eReader space with Kindle, and it's exciting to not only connect this device through our network, but now offer it in our stores to readers around the country. As the first dedicated eReader offered in our stores, we are confident the Kindle will be an attractive addition to our in store connected devices lineup.

The updated Kindle 3G can hold up to 3500 e-books internally, and Amazon has 810,000 books available. The device has one month of battery life when not connected to Wi-Fi.

There are no contracts or data fees and the devices sells for $189.

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JPMorgan Securities has noted today that it expects the tablet market to grow into a $35 billion behemoth in 2012, taking a significant share from the PC market.

Furthermore, the increase in competition will lead to a steep price drop in prices, for both tablets and PCs.

Growth will be spurred by educational and enterprise customers and the continued improvement of tablet operating systems, like Android 3.0, iOS, WebOS and eventually Windows.

Says one JPM analyst:

We expect tablets to have an increasingly negative impact on PC shipments. More than 35 percent of tablets sold in 2012 will be cannibalistic, particularly as relates to netbooks and notebooks.

The bank raised its 2011 tablet revenue forecast to $26.1 billion, as well, on shipments of 48 million tablets.

It expects almost 80 million tablets to be shipped in 2012.

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According to Grandtheft5, Rockstar Games may be set to announce Grand Theft Auto V in the very near future, three years after the blockbuster release of GTA IV.

Take-Two, the developer behind Rockstar, has purchased five domains names already, just like it did prior to GTA IV, to house its fake websites seen during gameplay.

The domains are:

CashForDeadDreams.com
SixFigureTemps.com
StopPayingYourMortgage.net
HammersteinFaust.com
LifeInvader

Bloggers have speculated that HammersteinFaust is a parody of bank Goldman Sachs, while LifeInvader will be a parody of Facebook.

Furthermore, astute journalists have found the resume of stunt actor Declan Mulvey, who is credited as working on Grand Theft Auto V, right after Red Dead Redemption and right before Max Payne 3.

There is likely no chance the game will be released anytime before the holidays, if this year at all, it is still interesting to see that an announcement may be on the horizon for one of the biggest franchises in gaming.

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