Archive for the ‘ipad book apps’ tag
Nancy Drew ebook/game for iPad & iPhone no comments
Her Interactive, which has been making Nancy Drew computer adventure games since 1998, has released the first in a line of mobile apps, 
Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch.
Part book, part game, Shadow Ranch lets readers/gamers decide how the story will unfold as they solve mysteries and play games. Both reading and game play are necessary to solve the mystery of Shadow Ranch.
Nancy, along with best friends Bess and George, travels to Arizona and the rustic Shadow Ranch. But when they arrive, Nancy quickly discovers that Shadow Ranch hides a sinister past. A recent rash of ghost sightings and a series of accidents are driving customers away. It’s only a matter of time before the ranch closes its doors for good. Play the story to piece together the mysterious events and uncover the dark secret before it’s too late. There are items to collect, numerous hidden object and other mini-games to solve, and stories to unlock. Shadow Ranch can be read and played repeatedly to fully explore all the twists and turns.
“With our new Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries apps, we’re melding the elements of a great mystery novel with the interactive experience of a video game to introduce a story-based gamebook,” says Megan Gaiser, CEO of Her Interactive. “You’re no longer just reading a Nancy Drew
mystery; you’re fully engaged and influencing how the mystery unfolds as you play the story. The iPhone, iPod touch and iPad provide the ideal platforms for this new game play experience with their elegant, Multi-Touch interfaces, gorgeous graphics and on-the-go portability.”
“Nancy Drew has and continues to inspire girls and women the world over,” continues Gaiser. “By introducing a modern twist to this timeless classic, we expect to see more moms and daughters, grandparents and grandkids, and mystery-lovers of any age embrace the never-give-up attitude of Nancy Drew.”
The Nancy Drew amateur detective series has been going strong for over 80 years, with over 80 million copies of the books being sold.
Shadow Ranch is now available at iTunes in both an HD version for the iPad ($9.99) and a version for the iPhone and iPod touch ($2.99).
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eReader & Tablet News 8/28/2010 no comments
A roundup of some of the news from the past few days.
Amazon is selling more of the Wi-Fi only version of the latest generation Kindle 3 than the model with 3G. This according to the Bestsellers in Electronics pages
Graphite seems to be the hot color. The white 3G + Wi-Fi is third place on the bestsellers list in the US, but not in the top 10 in the UK. In the US the Kindle DX appears at number seven on the list.
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Apple has released iWork Update 4, one of the features of which is the ability to export from Pages in the standard ePub format. More info at the Apple support pages.
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Kobo has announced that you can now import your own PDF and ePub documents and ebooks into the Kobo iPhone, iPad and iPod touch apps. This means that you can add books from other sources, as long as they are unencumbered by DRM.
Kobo also says that the Samsung Galaxy is now a supported device on which you can read your Kobo books.
Kobo has added an iPad to its various sweepstakes prizes. This particular contest will end on August 31, 2010. Each ebook you purchase is an automatic entry. For more info and other details, such as how to enter without a purchase, see Kobo.com.
Besides the new contest, Kobo also has a $2 off discount coupon code – 2dollardeal – which should work on all ebooks except those published by Hachette, Grand Central, Warner and Little Brown. This coupon will expire at midnight August 31, 2010.
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You may remember back at the beginning of the year that LG Display unveiled a large format flexible epaper display based on the same metal foil technology that the Skiff ereader was supposed to use.
PCWorld has found an SEC filing by LG Display for 9.7-inch and 19-inch flexible color epaper displays. Only speculation on what plans exactly LG has up its sleeve for these displays, but 19 inches would be large enough to display a newspaper quite nicely.
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Wireless charging coming for the iPad and Kindle? Harvest free energy from the ether? GoSolarUSA, Inc. announced that it is working with PREE Corp to configure the proprietary PREE wireless charging technology so that it can be used with the iPad and Kindle. From the press release:
The PREEcharge technology captures electrons from LAN and Bluetooth waves and converts it into power to recharge batteries for wireless devices. The technology also incorporates a small solar panel to augment the charge with solar energy. To date, the entire product development has been focused on configuration for use with smaller wireless devices such as Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android, and Research in Motion’s (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry. Now with the funding from GoSolarUSA, PREE will be able to accelerate the development of the PREEcharge for use with wireless PC tablets.
“Why are the iPAD, Kindle and other PC tablets ideal for the PREEcharge?” asked Mr. Rohde. “The answer is simple,” he continued. “The surface area of an iPhone is 10.39 square inches, and the surface area of an iPAD is 71.41 square inches. More surface area means bigger circuit boards, more antennas for receiving wireless signals, and ultimately a lot more power. In fact, if this proportion holds, the PREEcharge could have the potential to generate seven times more power for the iPAD than it makes for the iPhone,” he concluded.
By no means is this a new idea. Products to charge our devices by harnessing energy from Wi-Fi and other signals have been in the works for some time, but don’t have a good track record when it comes to actually making it to market.
One of the relatively unsung gadgets at CES 2010 was 
the Airnergy charger from RCA. The Airnergy harvests energy whenever it comes into contact with Wi-Fi signals and stores it in an internal battery. You can then use the Airnergy to recharge your devices at your leisure.
RCA had working demos at CES and the device was said to be coming to market this summer for around $40. The last I saw about the Airnergy (sorry, can’t find it now) was that RCA was still planning to release it later this year, but I’m not holding my breath. Where’s Tesla when you need him?
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iStoryTime publishes illustrated and narrated ebooks for young children on the iPad and iPhone as well as for Android devices. A new title for the iPad and iPhone – Danny the Dragon: Meets Jimmy – is the first iPad book for the deaf. The ebook includes sign language narration. $2.99 at iTunes. (via NYT)
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Another new interactive children’s iPad book app was announced by Touchoo. Thumbelina is based on the classic Andersen fairytale and is available in English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese. Available at iTunes for $1.99 until August 31, after which time the price will go up.
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A few days ago Sony had an event to introduce some of the company’s new products. I was hoping that Sony would take the opportunity to unveil their new ereaders, but unfortunately this didn’t happen. If you are interested in what new gadgets were revealed, PCMag has a picture gallery and details.
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The Pillars of the Earth – Multimedia Book no comments
Penguin Group (USA) and Starz, LLC have launched what
they are calling the Amplified Edition of Ken Follett’s bestselling novel The Pillars of the Earth. This iPad app is a tie-in to the Starz Originals 8-hour mini series based on the book.
The Amplified Edition has a number of multimedia and other added features:
- An interactive Character Tree, housed in a virtual stained glass window, grows as characters are introduced in the book, allowing the reader to learn more about the selected characters and their corresponding relationships. As the story progresses, the stained glass window becomes more intricate and reveals more and more about the characters.
- Contextual video footage and still images are carefully blended into the eBook from the corresponding section of the Starz series, so readers can choose to watch beautiful clips of cathedrals, horses and men in shining armor while inside the eBook. Or if they prefer, they can watch clips as well as longer scenes in another section of the Amplified Edition.
- Ken Follett’s Multimedia Diary, which is the author’s on-set impressions of the process of bringing "The Pillars of the Earth" from page to screen.
- Behind-the-scenes insights into the making of the event series, looking at how the filmmakers captured Follett’s vision and created the medieval world of "The Pillars of the Earth," including interviews with the actors, director and producers.
- A Listening Lounge features music – including hymns, soundtrack themes, and battlefield scene scores – from the Starz Originals series.
- A sneak preview of Ken Follett’s next book coming this fall.
Updates to the book app will, “occur repeatedly while the TV series airs so that consumers who purchase the Amplified Edition will have a dynamic user experience that complements the story and the viewing experience of the 8-part series.”
The Pillars of the Earth is a great book; it remains to be seen if it will be helped by the addition of multimedia. Nonfiction, how-to and children’s books are examples of material that can benefit from multimedia. Adding multimedia to a fictional work requires a lot of finesse or it starts looking tacked on and forced and becomes a distraction.
Available now at iTunes.
