Have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend! If you’re looking for something to do this weekend take advantage of all these game sales from Chair Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Rockstar Games and even with Apple’s new “Free App of the Week” promo.

Apple begins “Free App of the Week” Promotion - Apple is doing some new tricks on the App Store, and this week Cut the Rope: Experiments is free. It’ll be interesting to see how this program continues over the following weeks.

EA cut prices in Big Memorial Day Sale - EA’s entire catalog of incredibly recognizable (and good) games are on sale. Almost all iPhone games are 99¢, and almost all iPad games are $1.99.

‘Grand Theft Auto’ Games drops to 99¢ in Memorial Day Sale - For two bucks you can have both GTA games and load your phone up with countless hours of stupidly deep gameplay. GTA III is damn good.

‘Infinity Blade 2′ On Sale In Celebration of ‘Vault of Tears’ Release - The best technical showpiece for state of the art iOS devices is down to $2.99 to celebrate the new ‘Vault of Tears’ update that just landed which made this great game even… greater. Xverse10 Editor’s Choice

Also, making games temporarily free has proven to be an important promotional tool to gain visibility and increase a user base for your game on the App Store. This has created a whole new market of 3rd party free app promotion websites and services, but it appears that even Apple might be getting in on the free game bandwagon as well.

Cut the Rope: Experiments [Free / Free (HD)] is their “Free App of the Week”, which as far as we can tell is the first of its kind.

Cut the Rope: Experiments is an excellent game and you should go download it immediately if you haven’t already, no matter what the promotion is. But it will be interesting to see if this is something that Apple keeps doing each week, and I’d be curious to know how they decide on which games or apps to promote.

Also worth pointing out are a couple of changes to the App Store itself, like the disappearance of the Staff Favorites section, the changing of the iPhone/iPad Game of the Week banners on the front page of the App Store to “Editor’s Choice”, and the ridiculously large banner text denoting Cut the Rope: Experiments as the App of the Week right on the game’s App Store page.

I’ll keep our eye on the App Store to see how this free app promo works out, but it’s nice to see Apple exploring different promotional ideas on their own.

App Store Link:
Cut the Rope: Experiments, Free
Cut the Rope: Experiments HD, Free (iPad Only)

 Burnout™ CRASH!, $0.99  - Burnout Crash is a little like pinball, but with cars. Inspired by a mode in Burnout proper, Crash is a delightful and goofy game that challenges you to smash cars into each other over and over. At this price, it’s recommended.

 Dead Space™ for iPad, $1.99  - Sharp visuals, smart control options, and play that stays honest with the franchise are the things that make us love Dead Space for iPad.

 NBA JAM by EA SPORTS™ for iPad, $1.99  - This new NBA Jam is a welcome return to the breezy, action-filled arcade basketball play many of us grew up with. If you enjoy over-the-top commentary and basketball at its most pyrotechnic “He’s on fire!”

 SPY mouse HD, $0.99  - Let’s be frank: most stealth games suck. Spy Mouse HD, on the other hand, doesn’t. A super intuitive control scheme and great level design keeps the action steady.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat™ 3 for iPad, $0.99  - Mortal Kombat on touch devices is a whole new experience. If you like punching things until they explode into pieces, Mortal Kombat at this price is hard to pass up.

Both Grand Theft Autos are on sale because of Memorial Day by the way, which means their sale prices will go up after the long weekend. Act fast! I’ve included some handy links below to assist you with the purchasing process.

Grand Theft Auto 3, $0.99 – Grand Theft Auto 3 introduced the concept of a “living, breathing [and 3D] world” with plenty of people to run over and things to blow up or steal. Its mobile companion is a solid port that sees this vision through on both the iPhone and iPad.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, $0.99 – Chinatown Wars was once a high-profile DS title that didn’t see the kind of sales it needed, despite being an otherwise clever top-down take on the series. On iPhone, Chinatown feels intuitive and the scale of its content is insane.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD, $0.99 – Chinatown feels better on iPad thanks to the larger screen real estate. If you had to pick one or the other, definitely get this version.

This sale, of course, is in celebration of the release of the game’s latest expansion, Vault of Tears. The new area, which has a ton of new monsters and items, is available now as a part of a free update that also adds a treasure map and an annoying sounding new social media tie-in that gives Twitter and Facebook users the power to participate in ClashMob events without actually playing up the game.

App Store Link: Infinity Blade II, $2.99 (Universal)

Apple CEO Tim Cook was awarded 1 million RSUs upon his promotion to CEO last year to entice him to stay with the company for the foreseeable future. Half of the shares vest in 5 years, and the other half in 10. Cook has specifically declined the dividend equivalents, turning down more than $75 million in dividend payments over the life of the RSUs.

From an Apple SEC filing today:

On May 24, 2012, the Compensation Committee (the “Committee”) of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. (the “Company”) approved amendments to each outstanding and unvested restricted stock unit award granted by the Company to its employees (other than Timothy D. Cook, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer). The amendments provide that if the Company pays an ordinary cash dividend on its common stock, each award will be credited with an amount equal to the per-share cash dividend paid by the Company, multiplied by the total number of restricted stock units subject to the award that are outstanding immediately prior to the record date for such dividend. The amounts that are credited to each award are referred to as “dividend equivalents.” Any dividend equivalents credited to an award will be subject to the same vesting, payment and other terms and conditions as the unvested restricted stock units to which the dividend equivalents relate. Depending on the domicile of the employee, accumulated dividend equivalents will either be paid in cash or used to offset employee taxes due upon vesting of the restricted stock units.

The Committee determined these amendments were appropriate in light of the Company’s announcement on March 19, 2012 that it intends to commence paying ordinary cash dividends of $2.65 per share to its shareholders on a quarterly basis sometime during the fourth quarter of its 2012 fiscal year. As restricted stock units are not outstanding shares of common stock and thus would not otherwise be entitled to participate in such dividends, the crediting of dividend equivalents is intended to preserve the equity-based incentives intended by the Company when the awards were granted and to treat the award holders consistently with shareholders.

At Mr. Cook’s request, none of his restricted stock units will participate in dividend equivalents. Assuming a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share over the vesting periods of his 1.125 million outstanding restricted stock units, Mr. Cook will forego approximately $75 million in dividend equivalent value.

The new standalone application is available for free on the App Store, separate from the existing Facebook and Facebook Messenger applications. With the new software, called “Facebook Camera,” users can swipe through a feed of pictures from their Facebook friends, and tap to enlarge an individual photo.

The new software also allows users to share multiple photos quickly, all at once, rather than needing to post one at a time. Users can just select the shots they want to share by tapping the check-mark on each photo, then hitting post.

Facebook Camera also features a built-in photo editor that allows users to crop, rotate and add filters to any picture in the iOS Camera Roll. The photo filters are somewhat similar to options in Instagram, the photo taking application and sharing service that Facebook acquired in April for $1 billion.

While the application appears to compete with Instagram, the new Facebook Camera lacks some defining features of Instagram, such as hashtag sharing for specific topics, and mobile-only social circles. The Facebook Camera team has been working on this application for months, and likely did not know about the company’s plans to purchase Instagram ahead of time.

App Store Link: Facebook Camera, Free

The OS X Lion system-level compatibility update allows RAW data from the following digital cameras to be used in editing programs like Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’11:

• Canon EOS-1D X

• Nikon D800E

• Nikon D3200

• Olympus OM-D E-M5

• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF5

• Sony Alpha SLT-A57

The 8MB Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.13 requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or OS X Lion 10.7 or later and can be downloaded via Software Update or through Apple’s Support Pages.

In the 2012 brand rankings released today, Apple tops the list for the second year in a row, scoring a brand value of nearly $183 billion as compared to last year’s $153 billion figure that saw Apple move into the top position for the first time. Apple’s 19% growth was the strongest among the top ten brands.

David Roth for WPP said “Brands help businesses create competitive differentiation, command a price premium and become more resilient to crises or economic turbulence. This year, those businesses that leveraged technology, focused on the customer experience or boosted control of their brands thrived.”

Apple continues to innovate and maintain its ‘luxury’ brand status, but faces future competition from Samsung. Now worth more than $14.1 billion, thanks in part to the success of its Galaxy handsets, Samsung is successfully outpacing Apple in a significant number of markets by positioning as a cool, well-priced alternative to the ubiquitous iPhone.”

Still, Samsung’s brand value of $14.1 billion for a 55th place ranking paled in comparison to Apple, and the company’s 16% growth in brand value was unable to match Apple’s performance.

Among other top brands, IBM passed Google to take the second spot in the rankings with a brand value of nearly $116 billion as seven of the top ten spots were held by technology or communications companies. Facebook saw the largest percentage gain among top companies, with its brand value jumping by 74% to $33 billion, a leap of sixteen places to number 19 in the rankings.