Gadgetwise Blog: Three Noteworthy Apps for Children

Here are three recently released noteworthy apps to entertain children during the summer.

A screen shot of the Jungle Book app.

For preschoolers, the Jungle Book, which is available for $4 on Android devices, mixes visually rich 3-D page transitions with nine playful activities inspired from Rudyard Kipling’s story. The background illustrations can be controlled by the tablet’s accelerometers, giving the pages an eye-catching look. The narrated text is available in four languages.

A screen shot of the Toca Builders app.

For ages 5 to 11, Toca Builders ($2 on iPhone and iPad ) brings a new type of block play to your touch screen with six playful building machines and a floating grid. Figuring the controls is part of the fun and challenge; each has different controls and a gentle learning curve, so children learn common touch-screen control mechanics. Like the blocks used in Minecraft, the large blocks here don’t allow for much detail, and removing a misplaced block can be tricky.

Grandma’s Kitchen, created by Fairlady Media.

Four- to 7-year olds will enjoy Grandma’s Kitchen, which is $2 for the iPad and iPhone. Seven food-theme games are presented by an eccentric grandmother figure, who serves up jigs and snappy one liners along with math and reading games. You can customize this app for your child in the parent menu to turn on and off the activities. Don’t tell the children, but the brain behind the grandmother is Connie Bossert,  who has a doctorate in educational psychology.

Bits Blog: Like Apple, Google Now Has Devices That Come in Three Sizes

From top: the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.

With the addition of its new iPad Mini, Apple offers touch-screen devices in three sizes. Now Google is matching that by introducing a tablet that is meant to compete directly with the larger iPad.

Google on Monday unveiled the Nexus 10, a 10-inch tablet it developed with Samsung, and a new phone, the Nexus 4, that it made with LG. Google also said it would upgrade its seven-inch tablet, the Nexus 7, to include a cellular data connection.

Google’s Nexus line of devices shows off Google’s latest mobile software.

“We’re building pretty sensational world-class products here,” said Hugo Barra, director of product management for Android at Google, at a news conference in San Francisco on Monday. “You don’t find anything even remotely like that out there.”

Also on Monday, Microsoft held a press event in San Francisco to talk about the imminent release of Windows Phone 8, its new mobile operating system, which it announced in June.

Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.com are all building devices in part to recruit customers to use their other services and buy apps, music, books and other content from them.

The Nexus 10 tablet includes a high-resolution display and the newest Android software, which has a feature that allows the tablet to be shared by setting up separate user accounts, something the iPad does not have.

Most notably, the 10-inch screen size will allow Google to go after the market that Apple created with the 9.7-inch iPad: people who are buying full-size tablets instead of laptops. The iPad has been Apple’s most quickly adopted product ever, with 100 million tablets sold to date. Clearly, that market is a juicy target for Google, as well as for Amazon, which recently introduced a bigger 8.9-inch tablet.

With the Nexus 10’s starting price of $400, $100 less than the cheapest iPad, Google has a good chance of selling plenty of tablets, said Jan Dawson, a research analyst with Ovum. But Google would still not pose much of a threat to Apple because it has been selling its tablets at cost, Mr. Dawson said. Google’s goal is to build market share and profit from ads and content sales.

“Neither Google nor Samsung can afford to do that for long with the Nexus 10,” he said. “The more they sell, the more money they lose.”

The Nexus 4 phone has a few features that the last Nexus phone did not. Among them are wireless charging by setting the phone on a small charging station, faster processing, an improved screen, typing by moving a finger instead of pressing individual keys and panoramic photo-taking.

Google also had news about Google Play, its store for apps, books, music and videos, which has lagged other online stores because it has not offered as comprehensive a selection.

Its music service finally signed a deal to bring the catalog of the Warner Music Group — with Green Day, Madonna, Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and hundreds of other acts — to its Google Play store. This means Google’s millions of Android users will have an essentially complete catalog of MP3s to buy.

Google also recently signed deals with Time Inc. for magazines and 20th Century Fox for movies, filling other major holes in its offerings.

At its event, Microsoft said Windows Phone 8 would appear on new smartphones made by Samsung, Nokia and HTC starting next month. It also talked about some new features, like Data Sense, a tool that allows people to see how much data apps are using, so they can close data-guzzling apps and avoid exceeding their data plans.

Microsoft has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing and promoting its Windows Phone operating system since releasing it two years ago. But despite some rave reviews from critics, Windows Phone 7, the previous version, has been unpopular among consumers, with only about 2.5 percent of the American market to date.

Nokia, the Finnish phone maker, has staked its future on Windows Phone. It formed a partnership with Microsoft to ship Nokia Windows phones. But sales of its Lumia handsets featuring the software have been slow.

Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Windows Phone, said in an interview that he felt it was the right moment for the software, because it was getting strong support from manufacturers and carriers, and was coming out at the same time as Windows 8, Microsoft’s new desktop and tablet operating system. The architecture of Windows Phone 8 has been rewritten to share the core software in Windows 8, and many features will work between the operating systems, he said.

Ben Sisario and Claire Cain Miller contributed reporting.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 29, 2012

An earlier version of this post misidentified the company that Google worked with to create the Nexus 10. It was Samsung, not LG. Thanks to commenter Joie2 for spotting the error.

Three 6 Mafia Tell Elvis Presley & Al Green To Move Over

Saturday, Oct 20, 2012 2:45PM

Written by Cyrus Langhorne

Renowned rap crew Three 6 Mafia are reportedly headed to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame seven years after landing an Academy Award and decades since storming the rap scene.

Their induction will rank amongst other notable Memphis icons including the late Elvis Presley and Al Green.

The city of Memphis has a long and rich musical history, from Elvis Presley to Isaac Hayes, and the city is celebrating its legacy with the Smithsonian's new Memphis Music Hall of Fame. And controversial Academy Award-winning rap group Three 6 Mafia are among the first class of inductees into the new Hall. 25 artists will be enshrined in the hall initially, including Otis Redding, Elvis Presley, Al Green, The Staple Singers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Isaac Hayes and Three 6 Mafia. (Hip Hop Blog)

The official induction is slated to take place in late November.

The acts were selected by a voting body of historians, authors and industry executives. The ceremony is scheduled for November 29th,7:00PM at the Cannon Center for Performing Arts in Memphis. (Hip Hop Blog)

Despite their long run in music-making, Three 6 Mafia landed an Academy Award back in 2005.

Right after the Three 6 Mafia won the Academy Award for Best Song from a Motion Picture in 2005, "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart famously quipped "Three 6 Mafia 1, Martin Scorsese 0". It was a somewhat unlikely run, but it was the first time that many truly realized how far Rap had reached the mainstream. Three 6 Mafia did not reach their heights by selling out, but by delivering the same type of Hardcore Rap they always did. If this group can win an Oscar, can they win an induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well? (Not In Hall of Fame)

Last weekend, DJ Paul made headlines after getting arrested in New York City.

Three 6 Mafia rapper DJ Paul was arrested in NYC last night for possession of a weapon ... after cops say the Academy Award winner was illegally packin' a taser. According to reports, Paul was carrying an open beer out of a restaurant when he passed a couple of officers. When officers confronted Paul about the open container, he reportedly told the cops he had a taser on his person. (TMZ)

Three 6 Mafia Tell Elvis Presley & Al Green To Move Over

Saturday, Oct 20, 2012 2:45PM

Written by Cyrus Langhorne

Renowned rap crew Three 6 Mafia are reportedly headed to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame seven years after landing an Academy Award and decades since storming the rap scene.

Their induction will rank amongst other notable Memphis icons including the late Elvis Presley and Al Green.

The city of Memphis has a long and rich musical history, from Elvis Presley to Isaac Hayes, and the city is celebrating its legacy with the Smithsonian's new Memphis Music Hall of Fame. And controversial Academy Award-winning rap group Three 6 Mafia are among the first class of inductees into the new Hall. 25 artists will be enshrined in the hall initially, including Otis Redding, Elvis Presley, Al Green, The Staple Singers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Isaac Hayes and Three 6 Mafia. (Hip Hop Blog)

The official induction is slated to take place in late November.

The acts were selected by a voting body of historians, authors and industry executives. The ceremony is scheduled for November 29th,7:00PM at the Cannon Center for Performing Arts in Memphis. (Hip Hop Blog)

Despite their long run in music-making, Three 6 Mafia landed an Academy Award back in 2005.

Right after the Three 6 Mafia won the Academy Award for Best Song from a Motion Picture in 2005, "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart famously quipped "Three 6 Mafia 1, Martin Scorsese 0". It was a somewhat unlikely run, but it was the first time that many truly realized how far Rap had reached the mainstream. Three 6 Mafia did not reach their heights by selling out, but by delivering the same type of Hardcore Rap they always did. If this group can win an Oscar, can they win an induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well? (Not In Hall of Fame)

Last weekend, DJ Paul made headlines after getting arrested in New York City.

Three 6 Mafia rapper DJ Paul was arrested in NYC last night for possession of a weapon ... after cops say the Academy Award winner was illegally packin' a taser. According to reports, Paul was carrying an open beer out of a restaurant when he passed a couple of officers. When officers confronted Paul about the open container, he reportedly told the cops he had a taser on his person. (TMZ)

Gadgetwise Blog: Three Tips for Better Google Searching

Want to improve your Google search skills?
Here are the three tips — basic, intermediate and advanced — from Dan Russell at Google. He studies how people use the search engine and teaches classes on how to do it better, including a free online course this month, for which registration started Tuesday. He promises these tips will make you happy, and he cares a lot about that — his official title at Google is über tech lead for search quality and user happiness.
Basic tip:
Say you know you were mentioned in an article online, so you search to read what was said about you. But when you click on the link, you get the entire article and no idea where to find your name. The solution is simple: Control- F. Typing those two keys allows you to enter a term to find it anywhere it appears on the Web page. Ninety percent of United States Internet users do not know how to find the word they are looking for on a Web page, according to Mr. Russell’s studies. “Control F changes the way you read anything.”
Intermediate tip:
You tried to snowboard and ended up back at your computer with a possibly broken arm. Instead of typing “What do I do with a busted arm” into Google, try to use words that you imagine someone else would have written about broken arms, Mr. Russell said. “Put yourself in the mind of the author of a perfect Web page,” he said. “Emulate the language of the person you want to read the answer from.” But do not take that too far, by making up words that you think are expert, but are not real words. “Don’t overdo it using words you think are medical, like ‘fracturated,’ because you will find results, at which point you’ll be in even bigger trouble,” Mr. Russell said. Which leads us to his final tip.
Advanced tip:
Before you ask Google what to do with a “fracturated” arm, look up the word, or any word, by typing “define:” followed by the word. Mr. Russell advises promiscuous use of the word “define” followed by colon. “Before you search, make sure you’re searching the right word. The worst thing you can do is to search for something you think means one thing but in fact means something else, but you believe the answer when you asked the wrong question.”