The Buzz: App Happy, Roll Your Own Ebooks
RSSBy Kathy Ishizuka
Looking to Make Your Own Apps? Ever dream of creating your own educational app? A new service called EduPad lets you do just that. Simply complete text and Excel templates with the structure and exercises related to your learning app, and EduPad does the rest. No coding is required. You can supply your own icon or Edupad can help with the design. The service will publish your creation in the App Store on your behalf at a price you set, and you’ll receive 20 percent of each sale. Wouldn’t it be interesting to get students involved in developing their own apps? Hmmm. If the thought of losing power on your iPhone makes you anxious, you might want to check out the new Super Juice Power Case from Dexim. Packed with a 2000mAh lithium battery, Super Juice will extend your iPhone talk time up to six hours, with 10 hours for gaming, or 40 hours of music. But wait, there’s more. It’s also a tough case and features a handy kickstand, so you can enjoy all that extra video viewing time. Pricing not yet available at press time. App Happy Two classic tales enhanced for a new generation of readers and a multimedia take on the Kennedy presidency are among the latest apps to have crossed our feed. PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit (above left) has been among the bestselling book apps for both the iPad and iPhone. Created by Vancouver-based Loud Crow Interactive, PopOut! boasts interactive features such as pull tabs, spring-mounted elements, and objects that literally pop out of the page, and users can choose from “read to me” or “read it myself” modes. A new iPad app, JFK: 50 Days (above center), pairs narrative text with rare video from the NBC News archives in an interactive format. Produced by NBC News and the Perseus Books Group, the app is a companion to the print book, JFK: Day by Day (Running Press). Finally, an enhanced version of the H. G. Wells classic War of the Worlds is available for the iPad. In this first enhanced ebook from digital media outfit Smashing Ideas, users can engage with a variety of interactive elements—as a human or Martian. A limited number of free access codes are being made available to SLJ users. We’ll announce these via Twitter. Aspiring writers have yet another option for self-publishing their work. Borders has partnered with publishing service BookBrewer to enable independent authors to produce and sell ebooks through major ebook retailers in addition to Borders’ own Kobo-powered store. “Borders - Get Published” offers a basic $90 package for production of a book in ePub format, an ISBN, and distribution to major ebook stores at a price set by the author, with varying royalties based on the vendor. BookBrewer’s existing service lets you turn your blog content into a book via RSS. Soundbar for Laptops Laptop owners can experience variable audio quality depending on their machine, with quite a few of us having to settle for sound that, frankly, stinks. Enter the Edifier Soundbar. Designed to work with Mac or PC models, the USB-powered soundbar measures just 1.5 inches tall x 10.5 inches wide and can purportedly fill a room. With an AUX-in port for hooking up other devices like a phone or music player, the sleek aluminum accessory is fit for travel and will set you back $49. You might also like:
Super Juice for the iPhone
Roll Your Own Ebooks
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