Once a parent decides they would like to use the iPad to aid in their child’s entertainment and education, the next step is decided what apps you want to introduce to your child. Here are some free educational apps that each parent should evaluate.
Abby Monkey
The app opens to a screen of animals at the zoo and each one takes a turn making their sound. When the toddler is finished with this screen, they can press a button to play a matching game. Across the top of the screen are outlines of four animals. Across the bottom of the screen is a picture of the animal. The child must press and drag the picture of the animal over the correct outline.
What I did not like about this app is how the main screen has a start button in the middle, but also has eight equally large pictures that advertise the developer’s other apps. The child helping me test this app out kept pressing the other buttons, which then links to the app store in order to purchase the other apps. There is also a large button in order to purchase the full, paid version of the app right in the corner of the screen the child uses to select their character.
Jumping Grasshopper
This is a very simple counting game. The main play screen shows a grasshopper sitting, facing away, on a snow covered leaf. Pressing the grasshopper makes it jump to another leaf while a number appears across the screen. After ten jumps, the grasshopper appears facing the screen and the game is over.


Toddler Toy Factory Free
This is another app that is advertising the paid version across the top third of the main screen with instructions to slide finger across in order to upgrade. The toy factory has three different types of play. The Make game has scrambled letters that the child must drag to the beginning of the machine in order to make the toy. The next section is called Find. This is a memory matching game with both an easy and medium level (the hard level is included in the full version). The child must press the boxes and match two items together. Ship is the third game in this app and also has an easy and medium level. A barrel is at the bottom of the screen and a shelf full of toys is in the middle of the screen. The child must drag the toys into the barrel in order to ship them.
Paint Sparkles Draw – my first colors HD
This app allows the child to use their creativity to draw pictures. This app is easier than many others because the buttons are across the bottom of the screen. The large trash can and eraser makes it easy for the child to know what tools to use. An easel button opens a gallery of pictures the child can choose to color. There is also an option to choose a color of “paper” to draw on.

Calls & Texting
Aside from the obvious music storage (thus replacing the iPod), what else can the iPad do? Not only can you make calls and send messages from your iPad, but you can do it for free. There are several options available for this, allowing you to replace your costly Apple or Verizon plan with your iPhone with free apps on your iPad.
Skype*
Skype was one of the first internet calling based applications, and undoubtedly still one of the best. Although they have yet to come out with an app specifically formatted for the iPad, the iPhone version works just as well. It offers free calls to other Skype users, regardless of whether they’re calling from a Mac, PC, iPod…and so on. Also, it offers free international calls to other Skype users. It has affordable credit purchasing options to use if you need to call a landline or cell phone, too. While the iPad can call both ways, it only receives video feedback, due to its lack of a camera. Only the iPad 2 offers true face-to-face chat over Skype.
EasyTalk*
EasyTalk offers free calls, both domestic and international, to fellow EasyTalk users. This app is based off of your Facebook contacts.
HeyWire
A popular texting option for not only fellow HeyWire users but for sending free SMS messages to anyone in over 45 countries, HeyWire has been a great replacement for paid texting services through the cellphone companies. HeyWire is also available for free on the iPad, making it the perfect alternative to texting on a cellphone.
TextNow
This is a widely-used app that allows users to send and receive unlimited text and picture messages for free. You are given a free phone number to use, and there are also free or cheap call services available.
Textie Messaging
This free app also allows you to send and receive text/picture messages from anyone. For Just $1.99, you can turn off the ads, too.
Tribair*
This free app is unique in that it not only allows users to make free calls over the internet to other fellow users, but it offers text, picture, and video messaging!
Other useful apps you may want to consider include: Vtok, textPlus (up to $4.99), Mobyler*, and GV Connect ($2.99). All in all, paying for monthly minutes and text message fees are becoming a thing of the past with these useful apps. The only advantage the smartphone has over an iPad would be its compact size.
Documents
Pages
At just $9.99, is one of the best investments you can make as an iPad owner. There are sixteen different page styles to help you create anything from normal documents, resumes, letters, flyers, reports, and more. Documents can be saved as Pages, PDF, or Word Documents, and easily exported to a variety of outlets. There is bluetooth technology available to those wishing to buy a separate keyboard, thus transforming your iPad into a full-blown laptop. Creating, working on, and saving documents is effortless with Pages, making it no different than a regular computer.


FileApp
For document viewing, FileApp offers fantastic storing capabilies, which also allow you to organize all of your documents in whichever way you please. It supports most file types and even allows you to archive webpages for easy offline viewing. It even includes a media player. Best of all: this is all completely free.
Keynote
For Powerpoint-type presentations, there is Keynote, a priceless app priced at just $9.99. There are hundreds of different design and animating options available, making this the go-to app for anyone needing to create a professional-looking presentation from their iPad.
Numbers
Numbers allows you to create extensive spreadsheets within minutes with your iPad. There are over 16 different templates currently available, and over 250 functions (including a practical guide for anyone needing help finding their way around the app). Finished spreadsheets can be saved in Numbers, Excel, or PDF formats. The price, like the others in its range, is $9.99.
Camera
With the iPad 2′s camera capabilities, you now have another option. Uploading photos to various sites and emailing them to family and friends takes just seconds, making memory cards and troublesome downloading a thing of the past.
Fun and useful apps to enhance your photography experience include:
Camera Flash Pro Effects HD ($0.99)
This app allows the user to changing the lighting settings on pictures for prime results.
Adobe Photoshop Express (free)
This adobe app allows the user to improve, edit, and customize pictures on the go.
Live FX Lite (free)
Live FX Lite allows you to add cool and interesting special effects to the pictures stored in your iPad.
E-Book Reader
For those looking to read electronic versions of their favorite books and newspapers, there are free Kindle apps from Amazon and Nook apps from Barnes and Noble available to iPad users. Other options include Kobo eBooks (free), QuickReader ($4.99), and Ebook Reader (free).
With the right apps, you can now make your iPad your go-to device for any need, be it texting a friend, calling a family member, or writing a business letter. With newer and better apps coming out everyday, your iPad’s usefulness will only improve over time.

While moviegoers are being distracted with the release of X-Men first class this weekend, iPad users have something else to get excited about. At least iPad users who remember the 1990’s will have something to get excited about as Konami has ported over the popular arcade game to the Apple tablet in what appears to be all of its former glory. X-Men in the arcade was a fairly simple game with very simple graphics. You merely chose which hero you wanted to be and then attempted to stop Magneto’s army of Sentinels as well various other assailants as you simply walk a straight line through several sets of enemies, punching, kicking or powering your way through the enemy hordes.
In the newest iPad version, released on June 2nd, the X-Men app has the look and feel of the arcade game down to the most minute detail. The graphics are not amped up or brought into the future, they are exactly as they appeared in the first game. That doesn’t mean the game isn’t fun to play. Throwback games have always had a special niche on the iOS devices and this one is no different. There isn’t any need for shiny new uniforms or 3D like effects in order to make the game incredibly addictive. The story line is still the same, which makes it fairly easy to skip past the opening explanation and jump right into the action.

The first step when booting up the game is to select whether you want to play a solo game or a “local multiplayer” game. While the ability to play with or against someone else who owns an iPad is a nice bonus, there is no way to play online versus someone across the country. If the game wants to gain huge popularity it’s going to need to add some sort of multiplayer function like the one that Infinity Blade just added, using Gamecenter as the way to find an ally or opponent.
Not having any friends who have an iPad, I could only sample the solo game, but it was fun enough all by itself. Once you have chosen the game you want to play you select the difficulty, ranging from “easy” to “expert” and then you choose your champion. You can be Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Night Crawler or Dazzler and each hero you pick will have different strengths and weaknesses as well as different powers you can use on the enemy. Once you pick your first hero you jump into the game and starting fighting for your life.


The control are as simple as they were in the arcade, with a directional control area and “buttons” on the screen to push to punch, kick, jump and use your power. One very nice function that the app has added is that in the settings menus you can actually lay out exactly where on the screen you want the different controls to be if the default positioning doesn’t sit right with you.
The only area where the game has been brought into the 21st century is in its “social features.” When you open the game up you can choose both to connect to Open Feint’s servers in order to record your progress and you can connect to Facebook, allowing you to tell the world what evil mutant butt you just kicked.
In all, the game is fantastic old-school fun, but that fun could be lost on the “under 30” crowd unless they are simply hungering for any old X-Men action. At just $2.99 it is also affordable old-school fun.

Here is a dock for your iPad 2 that looks like a log and is made from the woods collected from the Nashville area (which was affected by floods in 2010). The dock is made entirely handmade and has a small rectangular hold at the bottom that allows you to connect the normal cable that came with your iPad box.

iPad 2 Wood Dock
Here is a dock for your iPad 2 that looks like a log and is made from the woods collected from the Nashville area (which was affected by floods in 2010). The dock is made entirely handmade and has a small rectangular hold at the bottom that allows you to connect the normal cable that came with your iPad box.

Prices start at 90 dollars (the soldier) and go up to 160 dollars (the swimmer). All of these look different and come in different shapes and sizes.

Order processing takes somewhere between 4-6 weeks.

Fox News has rolled out its very own iPad app and the popular news website and TV channel promises to bring all that exiting news in a very visual and easy to use app. Fox News iPhone app is touted as the most popular news app, beating NYT and CNN by a long shot. The app has two sections – Happening Now and Story Timeline. Upper half shows the related images and clips of the most viewed stories of the day.



Download iPad Fox News App
Fox News has rolled out its very own iPad app and the popular news website and TV channel promises to bring all that exiting news in a very visual and easy to use app. Fox News iPhone app is touted as the most popular news app, beating NYT and CNN by a long shot. The app has two sections – Happening Now and Story Timeline. Upper half shows the related images and clips of the most viewed stories of the day.

They have even managed to throw in the epic Fox News ticker to give ‘channel-like’ feel to the end user. Other nifty features include the ability top share a story by Facebook, Email or Twitter. Oh, and as expected with Fox News, you get loads of advertising. Right now, an ad from Exxom has a very prominent position in the Fox News app.

Overall, it is a nice app but compared to CNN and ABC, it does not offer live video. Nevertheless, I would still recommend it since it is free. [Download here]

It is a wide known fact that iPad does not allow you to expand the internal storage by any means. So, if you run out of storage space, you have no option but to delete some data or more some of it to your computer. Now, a new solution has popped up called Wi-Drive which provides a solution to get rid of this limitation.

iPad Wi-Fi Drive

It is a wide known fact that iPad does not allow you to expand the internal storage by any means. So, if you run out of storage space, you have no option but to delete some data or more some of it to your computer. Now, a new solution has popped up called Wi-Drive which provides a solution to get rid of this limitation.


So how does it work? Well, iPad can access the data in this drive by making use of Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi). The drive also acts as access point which enables you to use it on the move. This is done by the an iPad app which can be downloaded from AppStore. The drive is powered by its own internal battery that lasts up to 4 hours on a single charge.

It comes in storage capacities – 16GB (costs 130 dollars) and 32GB  (costs 175 dollars). The drive is also compatible with PCs. [Image credit – pcwatch]

iPad 2 Melkco Case Review

Melkco is one of the oldest, yet very popular case manufacture. Few days back, I bought myself a Melko case that the company released for the iPad 2. This case is meant for those who want to combine the functionality of smart cover and back cover cases .

iPad 2 Melkco Case Review

Melkco is one of the oldest, yet very popular case manufacture. Few days back, I bought myself a Melko case that the company released for the iPad 2. This case is meant for those who want to combine the functionality of smart cover and back cover cases (such as Belkin Snap Shield).


The Melkco Slimme case has a very professional look to it and is perfect for carrying into meetings. The case is made from leather which has a very nice smell to it. It has a bit of vintage look to it and looks much better than the Apple’s black leather smart cover. The case has all the cutouts for connecting cables and other peripherals, allowing the user to use the iPad normally without ever taking it out of the case.
  
The Melko case adds a significant weight to the device. After its installation, the iPad weighed in at 1 lb, 12 ounces. Also, I wish they could do something about its price tag. The company does provide free worldwide shipping though. Costs 108 dollars.

One of the cooler uses for the iPad since its release has been as a full color eBook reader before there really were all that many full color eBook readers on the market. Some of the first batches of iPad apps that were available way back in April of 2010 were digital comic book apps from some of the top comic book producers in the market. Marvel and DC Comics, as well as indie comic book producers like Dark Horse, have been combining for well over a year now to bring comic book addicts their drug of choice in digital form.

Of course one of the neatest features of these iPad apps is that they allowed the comics aficionado the ability to read long ago printed copies of their favorite heroes including such long ago issues as Marvel’s first ever Captain America books as well as the first Batman and Superman issues. One drawback to this digital delivery system was that it became a bit harder to keep up with current storylines because the digital copies were so far behind the paper copies. Over the last year some of these digital comic apps have started to realize they are missing out on revenue by not offering the newer issues at a faster pace and Comixology specifically has worked hard at getting some of their more popular indie comics – such as “The Walking Dead” – out the exact same time as the paper copies hit the shelves. Earlier this week, DC Comics joined the fray as they announced that they will begin release all of their comics – not just a select few as the other companies have done – on the same day and date as the hard copies.
Unfortunately we do have to tell you that before you start popping champagne corks, there is one caveat. The actual releasing of the day and date digital copies is still a ways down the pike. DC Comics has announced that in August, they will be releasing the culmination issue of their superhero universe changing “Flashpoint” on the 31st. While this was originally going to be the only digital issue they released that day, the company has announced that the latest issue of the new “Justice League” will be released on the same day and from September on the company will be launching every digital issue alongside those that land in stores.


Along with this massive shift in philosophy will be a vast renumbering effort that will allow users of the digital comics to better follow along in whatever storyline they find themselves enamored with. While not the first company to offer this service they were able to beat Marvel to the punch and have made a play that will most likely make their nemesis have to punch back. Of course this means that all digital comic book users will win in the end as there really is no drawback to the two biggest comics companies having to work harder at getting their product to the masses just a little quicker.

Once a parent decides they would like to use the iPad to aid in their child’s entertainment and education, the next step is decided what apps you want to introduce to your child. Here are some free educational apps that each parent should evaluate.
Abby Monkey
The app opens to a screen of animals at the zoo and each one takes a turn making their sound. When the toddler is finished with this screen, they can press a button to play a matching game. Across the top of the screen are outlines of four animals. Across the bottom of the screen is a picture of the animal. The child must press and drag the picture of the animal over the correct outline.
What I did not like about this app is how the main screen has a start button in the middle, but also has eight equally large pictures that advertise the developer’s other apps. The child helping me test this app out kept pressing the other buttons, which then links to the app store in order to purchase the other apps. There is also a large button in order to purchase the full, paid version of the app right in the corner of the screen the child uses to select their character.
Jumping Grasshopper
This is a very simple counting game. The main play screen shows a grasshopper sitting, facing away, on a snow covered leaf. Pressing the grasshopper makes it jump to another leaf while a number appears across the screen. After ten jumps, the grasshopper appears facing the screen and the game is over.


Toddler Toy Factory Free
This is another app that is advertising the paid version across the top third of the main screen with instructions to slide finger across in order to upgrade. The toy factory has three different types of play. The Make game has scrambled letters that the child must drag to the beginning of the machine in order to make the toy. The next section is called Find. This is a memory matching game with both an easy and medium level (the hard level is included in the full version). The child must press the boxes and match two items together. Ship is the third game in this app and also has an easy and medium level. A barrel is at the bottom of the screen and a shelf full of toys is in the middle of the screen. The child must drag the toys into the barrel in order to ship them.
Paint Sparkles Draw – my first colors HD
This app allows the child to use their creativity to draw pictures. This app is easier than many others because the buttons are across the bottom of the screen. The large trash can and eraser makes it easy for the child to know what tools to use. An easel button opens a gallery of pictures the child can choose to color. There is also an option to choose a color of “paper” to draw on.

Nvidia, an emerging power in the world of ARM processors for smartphones and tablets, has published a demonstration game called Glowball the company says shows what can be achieved with its quad-core Kal-El mobile processor project.

In the demo, an internally lit ball rolls around a playing board. With "dynamic lighting," shapes on the ball's exterior casting shadows on stacked barrels, lurking jack-in-the-boxes, hanging rugs, and a creepy clown face. The game's physics engine is wired into the tablet's accelerometer to determine how the ball rolls, the rugs hang, and the barrels tumble.
"All this is being simulated in real time. There's no canned animations," Nvidia says in the video. It generally runs smoothly, though it's not clear what the lag is between when the user tilts the tablet and when the game responds.

The company has carved out a niche compared to traditional mobile chip rivals such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm with its dual-core Tegra 2, used in the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1--the two current flagship Android tablets. Kal-El has five times the performance, Nvidia boasts, though it's not clear exactly what measurements it bases this conclusion on. Part of the project is a 12-core graphics processing unit, too.

Clicking a button restricts the game to two of the Kal-El's four cores. "Now the simulations are happening on two cores, and it becomes unplayable--very low frame rates," Nvidia said.

"This is preproduction silicon," the company adds. "The production chip will be 25 to 30 percent faster than this."

That's good, because the game, while smooth when the ball was just rolling gently, was pretty hard to follow when bumping into the jack-in-the-boxes triggered fast-paced moments.

Mobile processors are a hot market--but a tricky one. Smartphone customers want high performance--lavish games with smooth graphics, Web applications that don't crawl compared to desktop equivalents, touch screens that respond immediately for a light feel. But they also don't want a high-powered chip that exhausts the battery in only a few hours.

What's not yet clear is the tradeoff between multiple cores and fewer, faster cores. Chipmakers have run into power-consumption limits running processors at faster clock speeds and have responded by trying to get more work done in each tick of a chip's clock and by spreading work across multiple cores.

However, programming for multi-core chips isn't always easy. Physics engines in games like Glowball can use the power by running instructions in parallel, but a lot of computing tasks depend on how fast a chip can run a single sequence of instructions.
Nvidia's mobile push, at least in the near term, is heavily dependent on the success of Android tablets. Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang expects Android tablets to outsell iPads within three years. Huang also blamed Android tablets' lackluster debut on retail, marketing, and prices.

Customers are planning production of Kal-El-based devices for August to go on sale in the 2011 holiday season, Nvidia has told CNET.

Nvidia plans several other generations of Tegra mobile chips after Kal-El, each with improving performance. In 2012 comes Wayne, in 2013 comes Logan, and in 2014 comes Stark. The company claims that Kal-El outpaces an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, though it's not clear which model or on what performance measurement.
People will be able to try their own hand to see if Nvidia's demo matches their own results: Nvidia plans to put Glowball on the Android market so people can try the app themselves. How about an iPad version too?

In an interesting turn of events, Samsung's legal team has asked Apple to hand over next-generation versions of the iPhone and iPad to make sure its own future devices will not be subjected to the same infringement claims the company currently faces as part of Apple's lawsuit from last month.

The motion, filed on Friday with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., and discovered by This Is My Next, asks the court to make Apple provide samples of the "final, commercial version(s)" of the iPhone and iPad, along with whatever retail packaging those products come in. Again, these aren't announced products, they're named in the filing as the "iPhone 4S," "iPhone 5," "iPad 3," and "third generation iPad."

The news comes a week after Apple filed a motion to see final production samples of a number of announced, though unreleased, Samsung products, including the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 tablets, and smartphones like the Galaxy S II, Droid Charge, and Infuse 4G. The idea behind that was to evaluate whether these devices would fall under the same intellectual-property infringement claims Apple had already placed on Samsung devices like the Nexus S, Captivate, Continuum, and Mesmerize in its original court filing.

Nilay Patel, of This Is My Next, notes that as with Apple's handling of the request to see Samsung's unreleased products, the Samsung request asks only that Samsung's lawyers, and not the company's product teams, be allowed to see the Apple devices. That said, the retaliation preys on the element of surprise, historically one of Apple's biggest strengths when introducing new products.

Apple's lawsuit against Samsung (PDF), back in April, alleged that Samsung had copied Apple's mobile devices both in terms of user interface and design features. Apple also alleged that the Samsung devices in question infringed on Apple's patents, and resulted in Samsung practicing unfair competition. Samsung fired back by launching a wave of patent infringement lawsuits targeting Apple's products in multiple countries.

The case continues to generate intense interest from tech onlookers. While the two companies compete, Apple and Samsung have historically been close business partners, with Apple making use of a number of Samsung components across the range of its devices. Nonetheless, the relationship has not kept Samsung and its telecommunications group from being targeted.

Samsung is requesting a court order to have Apple provide the samples by June 17, 2011. Samsung's filing can be seen here.