I have to start out by admitting that there was some really cool tech related story that I came across in the last 24 hours and wanted to share that I can’t find. I can’t quite remember what it was about! Those of you who are under a certain age may scratch your heads in wonder at that comment; however, I’m willing to bet that most people over a certain age have had that same experience too and know just what I mean! It is one of those things that is along the same lines as: “Where did I put my car keys?” and/or “Where on earth did I leave my reading glasses?” And if I remember later today what it was that I thought was a cool story I’ll do another blog posting and share it! In the meantime I came across a cool story from the New York Times that discusses music apps for children, several stories that relay the news that Amazon has finally opened a Kindle Store for India and correspondingly is offering its entry level Kindle for sale in India and that the electronics maker LE has just come out with what it describes as the “worlds biggest ultra definition television.”
Suggested Music Apps For Kids: The Times article that suggests several apps for kids is titled The Young Person’s Guide to the (Smartphone) Orchestra. The article mentions several apps that are instructional and fun for kids to use if your goal is for them to learn more about music. The apps include: Garage Band ($4.99), Music Sparkles (ios; Free), Keys Kids Play ($1.00), Go Go Xylo (ios; Free), Meet The Orchestra ($2.00), Kids Musical Challenges (Free) and Kids Piano Lite (Free and a “heavy” version is available for $2.49). The only one of these apps I’ve used myself is Apple’s Garage Band and I’ll admit that it is cool although it probably wouldn’t be the best app for young children to use to learn about music. However, for older kids and adults – Garage Band is great! You can create and record songs by using a variety of keyboards, basses/bass guitars, drums and guitars. The instruments display on the screen and you tap the strings, keys or drum pads to create sound. And you can change the style of your instrument too so if you want an acoustic guitar you can pick that over an electric guitar or you can pick a light bright sounding electric guitar to compose a country type song or a heavier electric guitar with effects if you’re in the mood to create a song that sound something like Steppenwolf. Now granted, I don’t have any kids so I’m not up on the popular musicians that kids like today and Steppenwolf might not be their proverbial cup of tea but they could certainly have a blast using the app to create songs!
Here’s the link to the New York Times article on the subject:
Amazon Kindle Available In India: The Amazon Kindle e-reader is now on sale in India for 6,999 INR (about $126 American dollars). And the accompanying Kindle India Store has also opened with more than one million titles all for sale in Indian Rupees (INR). The Kindle Store has also opened with its Kindle Direct Publishing service – that is the service that allows aspiring writers to quickly, easily and cheaply electronically publish their works via the Kindle Store. Thus all self published books in the Kindle Store will appear in the India Kindle store including titles originally self-published from other parts of the globe – so that is exciting as it shows how we can increasingly communicate with other people across the globe – in this case of course new writers will be able to get their works out to an even larger audience than ever before!
One of many articles on the Amazon Kindle and Kindle Store opening in India is from CNET and is simply titled Amazon Launches India Kindle Store and it can be accessed via the following link:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33198_7-57497924-286/amazon-launches-india-kindle-store/
The World’s Largest Ultra TV: Electronics maker LG has just issued what it is calling “The Worlds’ Largest Ultra TV.” It is an 84” Cinema Quality TV that costs a whopping $22, 010! And although the picture quality is supposed to be superb it is not actually the largest TV for sale commercially in the world at the moment; that honor currently goes to Sharp which has a 90” TV for sale.
Can you imagine owning an 84” TV?
I’d have to get a bigger living room!
And of course I haven’t seen one of these TVs myself as I don’t have $22,010 worth of pocket change on hand to buy one! However, I have no doubt that the prices of these TVs will eventually drop as the technology advances and eventually we’ll all have TVs in our living room like the wall size one seen at the end of Corning Inc’s A Day Made of Glass video which makes even an 84” TV look small.
Here’s the link to the BBC article regarding that new 84” LG TV:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19344834
And for those who haven’t seen it, here’s a link to the Corning Inc. video A Day Made of Glass from their YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38
Linda R.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 