Pinball Arcade sure plays a mean pinball, with more than two dozen classic tables.

True story: Attracted by the sounds of Star Wars, my kids wandered over to where I was playing a game on my iPad. "What's that?" they asked. "Star Wars Pinball," I said. "What's pinball?" they replied.

I told them pinball was a game people used to play at the arcade, before video games came along. They said, "Whats an arcade?"

I said an arcade is where kids used to go after school when they got tired of listening to records. All together, now: "What's a record?"

OK, not all the story is true, but the first part is. I'd been playing Star Wars Pinball, which I'd previewed a couple weeks earlier, and finding it surprisingly enjoyable. (I'm not the only one; see CNET's review.)

So much so, in fact, that I started checking out other pinball apps -- and that's when I discovered Pinball Arcade. Available for Android and iOS (as well as Macs and all major game console... [Read more]

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Already on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art and released as a fully playable Google Doodle, Pac-Man has finally made its way to Android.

Known as Pac-Man + Tournaments, the gameplay is a faithful rendition of the classic '80s arcade game and includes all 256 levels. It also includes a tournament mode that includes new mazes, and keeps track of rankings and achievements for a modern twist. Best of all, it's free. If you're ready to relive the '80s, grab a roll of quarters, flip up your shirt collar, and press Start.

To play the classic version of Pac-Man, choose "Play Pac-Man." You can play it in portrait or landscape mode, swiping the screen to control the virtual joystick. You ca... [Read more]

(Credit: International Data Corporation) In a new IDC white paper commissioned by Microsoft, cleverly titled "The Dangerous World of Counterfeit and Pirated Software: How Pirated Software Can Compromise the Cybersecurity of Consumers, Enterprises, and Nations...and the Resultant Costs in Time and Money" (full PDF), there's a boatful of interesting statistics around "the prevalence of malicious code and unwanted software -- such as viruses, Trojan horses, keystroke-capturing software, authentication backdoors, and spyware -- in pirated software and on the Web sites and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks where such software is found."

"[U]sing information from a 10-country survey of 1,104 consumer respondents, 973 business user respondents, and 268 CIO/IT manager respondents," the IDC investigation alleges that piracy and counterfeit software runs rampant through the digital universe, and that many users might not even be aware that their software is fake.

Most of the business news will report the big numbers: the IDC report estimates that "the direct costs to enterprises from dealing with malware from counterfeit software will hit $114 billion this year" and that consumers will waste 1.5 billion hours of time dealing with malware. But below the headline numbers are a host of fascinating disc... [Read more]

Evernote Premium, the paid service from the productivity app maker, is coming to all of Deutsche Telekom's customers in Germany.

Evernote announced the deal today, saying that all of Deutsche Telekom's nearly 60 million customers will receive a one-year Evernote Premium subscription. Evernote has signed similar deals with a host of other international carriers, including NTT Docomo in Japan and Orange in France. The company ostensibly wants to be a value-add for service providers, helping it to work its way into more devices.

Starting today and running through September 25, 2014, Deutsche Telekom customers can simply download the Evernote app to their mobile devices and have access to the Premium services for a period of one year. Evernote Premium adds a host of benefits to the note-taking application, including more capacity for uploads, offline notebooks, PDF and document searching, and larger sizes for single notes.

Evernote premium costs $45 per year or $5 per month.

Also today, Evernote released a new version for Android, with new photo and search features.

In-app payments are coming to the Nook.

In-app purchasing will finally make its way to the Barnes & Noble Nook tablet.

Nook Media, the recently formed subsidiary of Barnes and Noble, announced the news today, saying that it's partnered with mobile-payment provider Fortumo to bring in-app payments to its line of Nook tablets. Fortumo will provide the tools to developers to integrate in-app purchases. The company's platform also includes real-time data on revenue and analytics.

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For the customer, the experience of in-app payments should be similar to what they've found elsewhere. The platform will allow for one-click buying; simply clicking the "Pay" button will ge... [Read more]