Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan 25 years ago today on the Famicom, the Japanese version of what Americans call the Nintendo Entertainment System. Since then, Mario has become one of the most iconic characters and entertainment brands in the world.

Mario had previously appeared in the arcade games Donkey Kong and Mario Bros., but it was Super Mario Bros. that propelled the Italian plumber to icon status and contributed significantly to making video games commonplace in homes around the world and reversing the video game crash of the early 80s.

The game was bundled with the Nintendo Entertainment System in the U.S., and it’s tough to say whether it was successful because of the NES or vice versa, but either way, Super Mario Bros. has sold more than 40 million copies over the past 25 years. In fact, it was the best-selling video game of all time until just recently. That title now belongs to Wii Sports, the game bundled with the Nintendo Wii.

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary, Nintendo released a video, which we’ve embedded below. It’s a sort of video timeline of the major Mario releases, though it omits Super Mario Kart and other genre-bending spinoffs that have featured Mario and friends.

We’ve also included Nintendo’s Mario timeline graphic in case you don’t want to sit through the video. The Guardian also listed 25 fun Mario facts and Nintendo launched a star-studded ad campaign to commemorate the date.

* The bulk of this text came from Mashable.

Yesterday, it was reported that Apple has lifted some of the restrictions that it has on iPhone App development in which shot off two additional stories of Google and Adobe smiling across all the micro-circuits of their smart phones.

Story Number 1:

Google Voice May Be Returning To The App Store
More than a year ago, Google voice had submitted it’s own app to the app store to try and allow users to make calls, not through their carrier (AT&T or Jailbroken to T-Mobile), but through an app, allowing user to save minutes and use the new (acquired) service from Google. The app never saw the light of day, rejected and not even the last one picked in playground kickball.

– At least Google was smart enough to make a browser based version of this app to allow Apple connoisseurs to use the Google Voice Service. But with the new contract restrictions lifted, there may be hope for the Google Voice App — an app that would be one of the first I’d install on my iPod Touch, that I would like to get.

Cross you’re fingers! the app that is available to blackberry and android users might actually make it over the iPhone!

Story Number 2:

Adobe To Resume “Dev Work” On Flash-to-iPhone Tool
The battle on the Apple iPod front and App development in recent months has been that apple says it will NEVER support Flash, a product from Adobe… Well, maybe that has changed with the new restrictions being lifted. While Apple says that it will not support it in the mobile safari browsers for the iPod Touch and iPhone devices, the new news may allow for continued support for developing Apps in Flash…. Sweet! Score one for the *non-programmers-but-wanna-be-app-developers* team! I might be cool enough to be a developer yet! Now just to get Flash CS5; my little gnome is working on that as we speak.

I do understand that that this story is still evolving and only REALLY beginning — and Apple may fire back with the notion to kill Adobe’s efforts — but I sure hope that we can all get along and play nice, and make the world a better place for you, me, Android, Blackberry, and the iPhone.

For April Fool this year, all people are doing funny April Fool’s joke, like Google “changing it’s name to Topeka,” and youtube.com turning videos in ASCII text (which is pretty ingenious, I think),…

And even GroupOn.com built a small microsite to allow people to buy “elite” items like metal shirt’s with only sleeves and no shirt (pictured to the right) for $6100, faceless watches for $14,500, or Royal crowns for $68,099. this may sound silly, but the site sells it much better than I can explain it.

See the site Groupöupon at http://www.groupoupon.com/.

Even once you click to try and buy some of these ridiculous items, you are prompted to be scanned for coolness to make sure that you are even cool enough to even buy such items. The text reads: “Please align your eye with the retinal scanner below so we can check your identity against our online database of confidential tax records and confirm your worthiness as a potential member of Groupöupon.” — Funny stuff.

For other great listings of April Fool’s jokes from the tech world for 2010, see Mashable’s best of April Fool’s post.