stories

Pulse News for iPad gives you all the news from your favorite Web sites laid out in an intuitive interface. News sites are laid out vertically so you can swipe up and down to the latest news from all sites quickly, or you can swipe horizontally to read more stories from the same site. Each story heading has the headline and an included graphic, making for a more elegant approach than other news readers that show only text links. Touching a story heading gives you either a text-based summary, a mobile-optimized version for easy reading, or a way to view … Read more

Web Snapper is an app and Safari plug-in that provides a fast and flexible way to capture screenshots of web pages. The Mac OS provides some very limited screen-capture capabilities with Grab, but Web Snapper provides many more options (especially in terms of format, and in its easy-to-use integration with Safari), and it can capture multi-page vector PDFs with actual text, links, and styling intact.

Web Snapper gives you a few different options for your interface, which will likely vary based on your workflow and browser preference. Using any browser, you can drag and drop URLs onto Web Snapper's … Read more

Web Snapper is an app and Safari plug-in that provides a fast and flexible way to capture screenshots of Web pages. The Mac OS provides some very limited screen-capture capabilities with Grab, but Web Snapper provides many more options (especially in terms of format, and in its easy-to-use integration with Safari), and it can capture multipage vector PDFs with actual text, links, and styling intact.

Web Snapper gives you a few different options for your interface, which will likely vary based on your workflow and browser preference. Using any browser, you can drag and drop URLs onto Web Snapper's … Read more

A Wi-Fi bug has reportedly sidelined Apple's iOS 4.2 update, which was rumored to be launching today.

MacStories, Engadget, and other blogs have pinned the cause of the delay on a Wi-Fi connectivity bug affecting the iPad. Users who've been testing the Gold Master release of the update on Apple's popular tablet reportedly have been able to establish a connection but not able to actually connect to anything, or are simply losing the connection after a few minutes.

Though Apple never announced an official release date for iOS 4.2, CEO Steve Jobs has said that … Read more

OAKLAND, Calif.--"Computers don't create computer animation any more than a pencil creates pencil animation. What creates computer animation are artists."

Those words would ring true no matter who said them, but in this case, the source has just about the highest possible credibility on the issue at hand: John Lasseter, the chief creative officer for both Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios, and the director of four of Pixar's most loved films.

Lasseter's words hang high on a wall in the Oakland Museum of California here, where the exhibit "Pixar: 25 Years of Animation&… Read more

One of my favorite apps of 2010 just got a major update. Tales2Go, which provides on-demand access to nearly 1,300 children's audiobooks, updated the app to add multitasking support, story caching for offline listening, new subscription options, and more.

Intended for children between the ages of 3 and 11, Tales2Go offers a huge range of listening material--everything from two-minute fables to full-length novels. These aren't just public-domain works, either: you'll find well-known series like "American Girl," "The Boxcar Children," "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," and "Encyclopedia Brown."

For … Read more

Pulse News Mini gives you all the news from your favorite Web sites laid out in an intuitive interface. News sites are laid out vertically so you can swipe up and down to the latest news from all sites quickly, or you can swipe horizontally to read more stories from the same site. Each story heading has the headline and an included graphic, making for a more elegant approach than other news readers that show only text links. Touching a story heading gives you either a text-based summary, a mobile-optimized version for easy reading, or a way to view the … Read more

The trajectory of the "Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy" story was fairly standard, as far as modern stories go. First, it was an illustrated book. Then a DVD. Then iStoryTime developed it as an iPhone app.

But it went a step further. As of last week, the award-winning children's book by Tina Turbin and illustrated by Aija Jasuna is the first to be available as an iPad app with a sign language mode.

"We are extremely proud to release the first-ever children's book app for the deaf community," says iStoryTime co-founder Woody Sears. "… Read more

A few months back I told you about five amazing iPad e-books for kids, noting that Apple's tablet is arguably the single best platform for reading (and, thanks to various interactive features, experiencing) children's books.

App developers and book publishers seem to agree, as the App Store is now home to dozens, if not hundreds, of kid-friendly e-books.

Here's a look at five more (seven if you count the Seuss stuff) that are sure to please wee readers and parents alike.

1. Aesop's Wheel of Fables  No children's book collection is complete without Aesop's Fables. This app serves up 20 tales, all of them showcased in a spinning wheel that adds a bit of tactile fun to the story-selection process. It also has spot-the-difference games that get unlocked as you read, and an option for parents to record their own voices for kids to listen to in place of the prerecorded voice. The app's on sale for $6.99 until August 5, when it goes up to $8.99.

2. More Dr. Seuss  Oceanhouse Media continues to crank out terrific Seuss classics, all of them optimized and enhanced for the iPad. The latest releases include "Green Eggs and Ham" ($3.99), "Gertrude McFuzz" ($1.99), and--yay!--"Yertle the Turtle" ($3.99). If only my kids weren't on the verge of outgrowing these! Hmm, maybe I should have one more...

3. "The Little Mermaid"  Not the Disney version, but the classic Hans Christian Anderson tale, here brought to life with animated, interactive elements reminiscent of the now-classic "Alice for iPad." Beautifully illustrated and thoroughly engaging, the $8.99 app also includes "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Happy Family."… Read more