Week in review: Eighth grader tops Angry Birds in the App Store

Here’s our roundup of the week’s top tech business news. First, the most popular stories published by VentureBeat in the last seven days:

Eighth grader knocks Angry Birds out of the top free spot on the App Store — Angry Birds and its variants have dominated the top ranks of iPhone games for the past year. But a game called Bubble Ball just ousted Angry Birds: Seasons from the No. 1 spot on the App Store’s top free apps list.

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Does Google get games? Kongregate mobile arcade banned from Android Marketplace — Whispers of Google’s social gaming service had gone quiet since Facebook marched to the top of the hill and planted its feet at the front of the social gaming pack. But it might still be alive and in the works. That, or Google just doesn’t know what the heck to do with games.

Black (Ops) Tuesday: Prepare to get nothing done February 1 — They walk — or rather, sit — among us. At any given time there are hundreds of thousands of people playing the multiplayer version of the Call of Duty Black Ops combat game. And you’ll know them from their absence from the rest of the world on Tuesday, February 1.

iPhone 5, iPad 2 rumors abound: dual-core processors, high-resolution display — Less than a week after the Verizon iPhone was announced, it looks like the tech world was already hungry for Apple’s next major products.

What makes a great entrepreneur? — Attorney Scott Edward Walker tries to answer one of the biggest questions in the startup world.

And here are five more posts that we think are important, thought-provoking, fun, or all of the above:

Meet Google’s new CEO, same as the old CEO: Larry Page — One of the longest, most successful runs as chief executive of an Internet company has come to an end: Come April 4, Eric Schmidt will step down as Google’s CEO, and cofounder Larry Page will resume the position.

Facebook confirms $1.5B funding, leaves $500M on the table — For the most part, this just marks the official acknowledgement of what has been reported already, but Facebook’s press release added a couple of suggestive details.

Will eBay reveal street artist Banksy’s secret identity? — Not all things can stay secret in the age of the Internet. An intrepid seller on eBay is offering the identity of the anonymous artist for a cool $1 million.

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Bloom Energy “not focused” on fuel cells IPO, no plans for a mini-Bloom Box — Bloom Energy is toning down talk of its much-speculated IPO plans this year and looking to expand its reach with a new, more affordable offering that sells electricity generated from its fuel cell-packed Bloom Box.

Gamification gets popular, but it’s still finding its feet — Gamification, or using game mechanics in non-game applications, is the new black.