A variety of pretty good games have dropped today that hopefully fits your tastes. One thing is certain; Windows Phone app situation is doing pretty darn well and getting better.

Mass Effect, Infiltrator
YOU’RE A CERBERUS AGENT – GONE ROGUE! As Commander Shepard battles Reapers across the galaxy, veteran Cerberus agent Randall Ezno procures aliens for illicit experiments at a secret facility. But when the Director of the facility goes too far – Randall fights back and vows to bring Cerberus down! $6.99
WP Store Link: Mass Effect: Infiltrator

Real Racing
Test your racing prowess on a 16 car grid against highly skilled AI drivers – or battle it out against other racers over WiFi! • Select from 30 officially licensed cars including the 2010 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500, 2010 Nissan GT-R (R35), 2012 McLaren MP4-12C, and more! • Work your way from rookie to pro in a robust Career Mode, offering 10 hours of exhilarating gameplay. Jump into a Quick Race for instant fun – or try to beat the clock in Time Trial Mode. • Race in 15 beautiful locations, with 40 miles of highly detailed race tracks, speedways, and city circuits – including twilight and night races. Exclusively for Nokia Lumia $4.99
WP Store Link: Real Racing 2

Tiger Woods PGA Tour
Play through world famous PGA TOUR courses with Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12 and see how you stack up with real PGA TOUR pros, including Tiger Woods himself! Now, you can earn XBOX LIVE® Achievements for great golfing – like scoring birdies, sinking a hole-in-one, winning the PGA TOUR, and more!Play as, or alongside, Tiger Woods and other PGA TOUR greats. Create your own male or female golfer, too! Tee off from the Championship tees of 8 stellar courses, including Pebble Beach, St. Andrews, TPC Sawgrass, Hazeltine, Doral, Greenbrier, TPC Boston – plus the fan favorite, the PREDATOR. Exclusively for Nokia Lumia $2.99
WP Store link: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12

NBA Jam
BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!! Jam with your favorite stars from all 30 NBA teams in over-the-top, high-flying, 2-on-2 arcade basketball just like you remember it – and like you’ve never seen before! PLAY NOW! PLAY CLASSIC! PLAY HEAD-TO-HEAD AGAINST A FRIEND! 3 modes of play let you ball the way you want: • Play Now – Select a team and jump right into the ballgame. • Classic Campaign – Defeat all other teams to win the championship and unlock legends, hidden players, and outrageous cheats. • Local Multiplayer – Go big head 2 big head against a friend via local WiFi.Exclusively for Nokia $2.99
WP Store Link: NBA Jam

Other games released today: Parking Mania $2.99, The Game of Life $2.99, SPY Mouse $2.99, Trivial Pursuit $2.99. Again, the app and game situation continues to improve on the Windows Phone platform. Word is that a couple more major and heavily requested apps will be arriving in June and July.

Get psyched suckas!

Verizon (VZW) showed up big time and is clearly putting its money and creative agencies to good use with its new Nokia Lumia 928 ad. The ad checks all the desirable boxes for me and I suspect most others. Taking on the heavyweights directly shows you’re confident in your product. Naming a specific feature that is heavily used and weighted by smartphone users and producing side-by-side superiority shots is taking it to another level. Showing the camera in fun situations that most of us really encounter makes the commercial golden. Lastly, getting the geek speak out of the way and letting the phone’s capabilities sell itself makes this commercial priceless. In short, way to go Verizon. You’re the long lost carrier partner Windows Phone needed to show off such a great phone to the roughly 50% of smartphone users in the U.S. that don’t belong to AT&T.

Business Insider got their hands on the Lumia 928 in advance and they don’t have nice things to say about it. “…the Lumia 928 is still noticeably thicker and heavier than other top-tier phones like the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S4, and HTC One. The plastic also feels a bit cheaper than the materials used to build the Lumia 920, and its squared-off design isn’t nearly as attractive. This model is an improvement in many ways, but it’s hardly ideal for those who like thin and light phones.” The Galaxy has almost no build quality to it so I can’t imagine it’s below that standard.

This is about all they have so far. They noted the camera was good but they haven’t put it through its paces yet and they still need time for a full review. They did provided these photos and state “Finally, this isn’t the only new device Nokia has for us this week. It will announce another phone with a metal body and 41 megapixel camera called the Lumia 925 at a press event in London Tuesday morning.”
You can read it in full (with high resolution photos) here.

Its hard to stand apart in the smartphone market these days, it is even more difficulty to do so in a positive way. With a market dominated by a handful of devices and everything else scrambling to live up to the hype, purpose built platforms or devices in general are none existent.

Ever since the Lumia 920, Nokia has been a blip on people’s radar. Strong sales, though nothing to challenge the heavy hitters thus far, would indicate the Lumia 920 is at the very least a consideration for some. Thanks to Nokia, the Lumia’s strong suit has been not only photography and specifically low light capabilities, but videography as well.

This is a trend Nokia is looking to improve upon with the upcoming Lumia 928 release on the Verizon network. Besides the iPhone 5, there is currently no challenger in sight on that network, coupled with strong interests, I expect the Lumia 928 to do well. The one key feature I think will sell that device is without doubt its camera abilities. Last piece to the puzzle, give the people INSTAGRAM!!!!

Check out this amazing video show entirely with the Lumia 928 showcasing the phone’s OIS features.

Well that was fast. VIsiting Walmart’s online site (Walmart.com) and searching for the Nokia Lumia 521 just released in the US brings up a rather disappointing message. The 4G budget handset from Nokia has managed to sell out of its initial stock for the national retailer. This is not to say that they had a large number to begin with but it is also true that people jumped quickly on that amazing price.

The Lumia 521 has garnered very good reviews from an extensive list of reviewers and looks to be a sleeper hit for Nokia. This shows that as Nokia continues to push down their technology to lower priced devices there is room to gain market share.

Specs:

• Windows Phone 8 OS
• 5MP camera with auto focus
• HD video recording at 720p, 30fps
• 8GB internal memory, expandable up to 64GB
• 1430mAh battery
• Quad-band 4G UMTS/HSPA+42
• 1GHz, dual-core Qualcomm 82270 processor
• WiFi for data (802.11b/g/n/e)

Source: Nokia Lumia 521 at Walmart

Remember that sneak peak at a qwerty phone that many correctly surmised was an Asha device and not a Windows Phone device? Well here it is. It is Nokia’s newest phone that features a variety of eye-popping colors and a physical qwerty keyboard.It’ll cost $72 USD.

The Asha 210 is designed to be the most social-centric phone yet for Nokia. It even includes a dedicated WhatsApp button on the front of the device just below the screen. There is also a version (depending on what market you’re in) that swaps out the WhatsApp button with a Facebook button. Both versions of the phone includes Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp built in. I’d pick one up for a backup phone if I had the chance because you can’t beat that $72 price tag.

Video: Nokia’s YouTube Page

Sure, we can argue about the iPhone 5 vs. the Lumia 920 until the cows come home, but any self respecting technologist will tell you, the mobile market is old news! Oh, and forget about the TV market as well, the battlefield as we know it has been evolved, and this time, Nokia steps out in front. We’ve all made joke about an iToaster, and how Apple is no loner a tech company, but a consumer company instead; as it turns out, Nokia was secretly working on snatching the would be crown from the fruit empire. The fight for your kitchen is on like Donkey Kong!

We are delighted to announce a significant new extension to Nokia’s product offering with the Nokia 5AM-TH1N6 Constellation, a touch-screen microwave oven. The Constellation sets itself apart with a superfast, water-cooled 8-core high-voltage transformer, which brings a combined performance of 5,000 watts to end-users, letting them heat up turnkey meal solutions within seconds.

“Nokia has a proven track record and extensive IPR in working with microwave radios, so for us this was a logical next step. We can attack our competition in their core business,” says Olavi Huhtikuu, Nokia’s director of household innovation.

“That’s why we developed the highly innovative 5AM-TH1N6 Constellation, which will revolutionize everything from single households to canteen kitchens”

The new Nokia 5AM-TH1N6 has even more innovative features. The device comes with the latest eye-tracking technology, which stops the food from rotating when you look at it, and it automatically adjusts the temperature depending on how hungry you look.

Screen dream

In addition, the device has a highly sensitive touch display which can be operated with oven mitts, enabling you to conveniently select one of 25 different performance levels in order to heat up the 40-litre cooking chamber. Reflecting Nokia’s strong design heritage, the device comes in a variety of colors including blue cheese cyan, lemon yellow and liquorice black.

The product also comes with a selection of apps, sensors and a high-resolution PureFood camera that automatically shares pictures of ready meals with friends and family via social networks. People can also rate the food and comment immediately.

The Constellation will begin shipping in Q2 at a suggested retail price of €399 before taxes or subsidies. More models, including a mini variant targeted towards people with small appetites, and a 10-inch variant aimed at no one in particular, are also planned.

Nokia as bagged another whale of a partner. Zinio, the popular and enjoyable, digital magazine stand has announced that they are forming a mutual partnership with Nokia and will be launching an app on Windows Phone. It will begin as a Nokia exclusive. The best part for Windows Phone fans is that the upcoming Windows Phone 8 version is being reimagined to deliver a better experience on a smartphone. Put simply expect this version to not only look different from its Android and iOS counterparts but feel different in a very good way.

We’ve seen enough first class apps delivered by Nokia in partnership with companies (ex. the recent Burton app)  to vouch for the beauty and quality the Zinio app will bring. GQ, National Geographic, Newsweek, Elle, Maxim, MacWorld, PC Magazine and thousands more the content promises to be rich and diverse. The app is due to arrive in the coming weeks.

Check out a gallery of images below.

Source: Techcrunch

Its March Madness time. The time where people who are even remotely interested in basketball tune in to hours and hours of college basketball. It is one of the highest rated television periods each year. Companies try to maneuver and debut new commercials for their products & services taking advantage of the tens of millions of viewers tuning in each day and grab as much exposure as they can. The two mobile phone OSs most consider serious candidates for third position behind Android and iOS (BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8) have launched commercials during the games. If you’re going to have a commercial it better be effective or it is just a giant money pit. Let’s see how each of them stacks up and who’s advert is the most effective.

BlackBerry Z10 Commercial (feat. BlackBerry Z10)

Windows Phone 8 (feat. Nokia Lumia 920)

For my money the Windows Phone 8 commercial is more effective because it shows one of the most popular tasks consumers use their phones for (pictures) in a simple and related way. It then has a simple tag line and call to action statement. The statement “its like a professional camera” will resonate with consumers. People like to repeat things they see or hear on TV as if it was gospel. The commercial then ends with a look at what Brittany’s Lumia looks like. Its personalized to suit her.

BlackBerry is clearly trying to invoke a positive visceral response when we hear BlackBerry Hub. They also spend much of the commercial drawing your attention to the moving scenes and not towards the device itself. Finally the commercial is 30 seconds in length. The device appears for a total of 10 seconds and of those ten seconds 3 seconds were wasted trying to show off the Peek feature. They didn’t show the device being superior or better in any way. Very few people in the U.S. have BlackBerry devices anymore or know people who do so the draw to BlackBerry Hub is negligible at best.

Winner: Windows Phone 8

Nokia is continuing the good fight to consolidate support for Instagram on Windows Phone. They have basically made it their mission to get the popular photo sharing social network app to come to the Windows Phone platform. First they launched #2InstaWithLove campaign complete with an app that allows Windows Phone users to upload and share photos with a stock photo filter that automatically generates the hashtag #2InstaWithLove. I’m sure Instagram is aware of this by now.

Nokia has now started advertising the movement with banner ads. The banner ad is meant to help drive awareness of the #2InstaWithLove app and get more Windows Phone users using the app. The more the merrier as it is important to show that the Windows Phone community wants Instagram on the platform sooner than later.