Bolt Creative used to be just a company that made Flash designs.  The company started around 1999, but now they have switched it up.  They are making iPhone applications and maintaining contracts with their clients.  Some of the applications that they created include Pocket God, FWARP!, Slinky Inc, and now they are working on I’m a PC.

The biggest success story of Bolt Creative right now is Pocket God [iTunes link].  In Pocket God, you play the role of a fictitious god that oversees a miniature tribe living on an island.  You can slap them into a volcano, electrocute them with lightning, feed them to the sharks, make them do a dance for you, and drop coconuts on their heads.  The game costs $0.99 and there isn’t much else to it.

“We felt really guilty releasing our app for $.99 because people said there really wasn’t enough there,” stated a Bolt Creative co-founder Dave Castelnuovo in a phone interview. “Now people are saying the exact opposite.”

Pocket God is currently averaging about 12,000-15,000 downloads per day and it took the team about a week to put together.  However Bolt Creative has been updating the game every week for 11 weeks straight.  The 11th update has a feature called A Mighty Wind where a hurrican forces wind on the tribe.  Each update takes the team a couple of days.

Pocket God knocked out iDracula from the top spot.  So far Pocket God has sold well over 400,000 downloads of the game.

On TouchArcade.com, Castelnuovo hosts a real-time forum where he gets ideas for new Pocket God updates.  “Our strategy all along was to blatantly ask for reviews and input so users  could feel a part of it. We have over 11,000 reviews on the App Store,” added Castelnuovo. “The shark  was a huge one the community wanted and the hurricane too. The next update we haven’t announced yet, but it’s community driven. It will be a nice update not a mean one and it’s the closest we’ve gotten yet to making Pocket God a mini-game.”

Allen Dye, the designer and award winning animator is the other co-founder of Bolt Creative.

[via iPhone Savior]

Its 7AM and its time for you to eat breakfast and hustle to work.  You drop a couple of eggs in boiling water and just guess when its ready.  If the water is bubbling in a pot, then you know that your egg is boiled.  But sometimes you are multitasking and do not notice the water boiling.  But then you hear a song playing and you know its time to dine.

The music was being played from The Beep Egg made by Prezzybox.  The gadget plays the song when the temperature reaches about 45 degrees Celsius.  The tracks that the musical egg plays includes “Killing Me Softly,” “I Wish I was a Hen,” and “Caramina Burana.”

J.D. (thinking to himself): “Oh my God, his ex-wife. The tension actually hurts. You have to break it. Say something! Anything.”
J.D.: “Banana Hammock!”

That scene is what I think when I hear the words “banana hammock.” But to others, they know banana hammock as being a male’s Speedo swimsuit.

Fortunately in this case, this product doesn’t have to do with any sort of swimsuit. The Beechwood Fruit & Vegetable Hammock selling at Bed Bath & Beyond sells for $20. Fresh fruit ripens quicker when it sits in a hammock. The net is washable too.

Designers Kfir Schwalb and Orit Magia of Studio Shulab have come up with an interesting concept for a flower pot.  Not only does it hold plants and lights up a room, it makes nice decoration.  It is called the “Lightpot.”  The shade of the lamp can be shut down and opened up.  The LightPot has an LED in different shades.  It is available in brown and white.

[via DesignBoom]

Cricket Communications, subsidiary of Leap Wireless has a new phone in their arsenal, the black, sleek Nokia 3606 with external touch controls for music.  Cricket offers unlimited minute plans starting at $30 per month and unlimited everything at $50 per month.  Cricket doesn’t sell a lot of unique handsets so getting the 3606 is a major win.

The Nokia 3606 has a 1.3 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio, and microSDHC.  The phone costs about $179.99.

“The 3606 is a natural fit for Cricket’s services,” stated Ian Laing, VP of Nokia North America Sales. “The form factor is compelling and the phone’s core features make it a music powerhouse and a stylish communications device.”

[via BGR/Nokia PR]

CNET founder Halsey Minor, 44, is being sued for $60 million by several creditors.  Generally when one is sued by creditors it usually means that you have not been paying them even though you owe them. Minor currently owns his own venture capital firm in San Francisco, Calif.

Minor quit CNET in 2000 with a stake that was worth well over $100 million.  CNET was acquired by CBS for $1.8 billion in May 2008.  After leaving the company, Minor made $300 million from being an early investor in Salesforce.com.  Minor lost half of that when he divorced his wife Deborah in 2006.  Minor did not hesitate in buying up lavish real estate.

He bought a mansion for $15.3 million in Williamsburg, Virginia, a $20 million glass home in Bel Air, and a $22 million 18,000 square foot mansion in San Francisco.  Minor plans to sink an additional $15 million in the San Francisco mansion.  Minor also made plans to invest $30 million in a 9 story building in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia.  He hired Michael Smith to design the interior of all of his new properties.  Smith is the same man that decorated John Thain and Steven Spielberg’s homes.

Minor has seen its share of successful and failed investments.  Minor invested $4 million in Grand Central which Google bought for $50 million.  But Minor’s investment in 8020 Publishing, a glossy magazine went down in flames.  All of 8020′s assets were liquidated to private investors.

The Bel-Air mansion that Minor paid $20 million for is currently being sold.  He listed the 7,500 square foot mansion for $11.4 million after losing a lawsuit against the previous home owner.  There are several issues with the house that Minor was not happy about.

Some of the other lawsuits that Minor is dealing with revolve around the hotel project and painting payments.  Minor refused to pay for three paintings that he agreed to buy in May for $16.8 million.  Another auction company is accusing Minor for not buying $7 million worth of paintings that he bid on this past July.

The Landmark Hotel in downtown Charlottesville stopped receiving payments from Minor too.  Minor took a $23.7 million loan from Silverton Bank, but Minor has missed $10.5 million in payments so far.  Landmark is suing him for that reason.

On top of all of those real estate issues, Minor reportedly put down a $3 million deposit this past summer for a $58.5 million Gulfstream G650 jet, but last December he decided to get his deposit back.

[via PEHUB]

For those of you in Canada that love your touchscreen phones, here’s another one to add to the collection.  The Samsung Omnia is rumored to be arriving on Bell somewhere between April 9th and April 12th.  The Samsung Omnia is already very popular on Verizon in the U.S.

Some of specs include 240×400 resolution with a 3.2″ touchscreen with EV-DO Rev. 0/Rev. A, WiFi, GPS, and a 5 megapixel camera.  No word yet on the pricing of the Omnia on Bell.

Another phone to look forward to is the Samsung OMNIAHD.  This phone is able to take HD videos.

[via SlashGear]

Samsung Electronics Inc. announced that the introduction of the NC310 netbooks earlier this week.  There wasn’t a price tag attached with the netbook at the time of the announcement, but now it has been revealed.  There isn’t a price tag for the U.S. specifically yet, but when it hits the UK in May, the price will be about £399.

The Nc310 netbooks hitting the market will be painted in a glossy black and blue. Some of the other features include a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, Bluetooth, WiFi, and an integrated GMA 950 graphics card.

The Samsung NC310 is also referred to as the N310.

[via ElectricPig]