عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Technology

Rovio Reports Angry Birds Games Growth Again

Angry Birds game characters are seen at the Rovio headquarters in Espoo, Finland March 13, 2019. Picture taken March 13, 2019. (Reuters)
Angry Birds game characters are seen at the Rovio headquarters in Espoo, Finland March 13, 2019. Picture taken March 13, 2019. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Rovio Reports Angry Birds Games Growth Again

Angry Birds game characters are seen at the Rovio headquarters in Espoo, Finland March 13, 2019. Picture taken March 13, 2019. (Reuters)
Angry Birds game characters are seen at the Rovio headquarters in Espoo, Finland March 13, 2019. Picture taken March 13, 2019. (Reuters)

Finnish game maker Rovio, best known for its Angry Birds franchise, on Friday reported a rise in its fourth-quarter operating profit, boosted by growth from its top three games.

"All our top three games Angry Birds 2, Angry Birds Dream Blast and Angry Birds Friends grew year-on-year," the Helsinki-based mobile game maker said.

Rovio said it expects strong top line growth for the year but its adjusted operating profit to decrease year-on-year due to investments in new games development and marketing.

Rovio is seeking growth from diversifying its portfolio, having acquired Turkish Ruby Games in August and by partnering up to create new mobile games for Moomins, cartoon characters originally popular from a series of books and a comic strip.

"We continue our M&A efforts, aiming to build new growth avenues within casual games, grow our audience network, and establish value through synergies across our game portfolio and studios," Rovio Chief Executive Alex Pelletier-Normand said in a statement.

Rovio reported underlying operating profit of 13.1 million euros ($14.90 million) for the October-December quarter, up around 75% from a year earlier.

Rovio's board proposed a dividend of 0.12 euros per share.

Most Viewed

 
 
Technology

Amazon Offers Free Computing Power to AI Researchers, Aiming to Challenge Nvidia

(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
TT
TT

Amazon Offers Free Computing Power to AI Researchers, Aiming to Challenge Nvidia

(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)

Amazon.com's cloud computing unit on Tuesday said it will offer free computing power to researchers who want to use its custom artificial intelligence chips, aiming to challenge Nvidia's popularity among those researchers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) said it will offer credits to use its cloud data centers that it values at $110 million to researchers who want to tap Trainium, its chip for developing artificial intelligence models that competes with chips from Nvidia, as well as Advanced Micro Devices and Alphabet's cloud division.

AWS said researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California, Berkeley, are taking part in the program. The company plans to make 40,000 of the first-generation Trainium chips available for the program, Reuters reported.

The move comes as AWS, still the largest cloud computing company by sales, has seen a sharp challenge from Microsoft as software developers look to harness new types of chips for AI work. AWS is hoping to gain attention for its own AI chips by taking a different strategy than Nvidia, said Gadi Hutt, who leads business development for the AI chips at AWS.

To program Nvidia's chips, most AI developers use what is called Cuda, Nvidia's flagship software, rather than programming the chip directly. AWS instead plans to publish documentation about the most fundamental part of its chip - what is called the instruction set architecture - and let customers program the chip directly.

Hutt said the approach is aimed at luring large customers who might want to make small tweaks that could add up to big gains when using tens of thousands of chips at a time.

"Think about folks that are using infrastructure and putting hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more" toward rented computing power, Hutt said. "They would take any opportunity possible to increase performance and reduce the cost."