Hasta La Ideas

Animals roar to life in an educational app designed for kids

A new app for iPads or iPhones, Critteroos brings stock images of animals to life in an interactive game for kids (aged three-eight). The brainchild of renowned designer Clement Mok, Critteroos is the first in an imaginative series of iPad education software for children that draws on the CMCD Visual Symbols library.

Backed by a consistent beat of insect hums, the app erupts in an attention-grabbing cacophony of real animal sounds, including the occasional whinny of a horse, snort of a pig and bird’s chirp. While the sounds entertain, children delight over the app’s vibrant animal imagery. In “Flashcard” mode, each image is paired with the animal’s name, which is recited aloud for vocabulary building.

As memory develops, users can switch from the primarily educational “Flashcard” mode to test their skills in “Mix and Match.” Flipping through animals’ top and bottom halves, kids can rack up points by finding the corresponding half, tapping twice on the screen to confirm a match. An encouraging ding sound accompanies each correct pair.

For pure fun, kids can let their imaginations run free by creating their own “Critteroos” (mismatched animals). These humorous and dazzling animals can be given fun names (like the Rooztera) and saved to the iPhoto library for printing.

Critteroos sells for $2 on iTunes, as well as other related education applications and add-ons (like Critteroos II for additional animal sets) by CMCD.

Unexpected missions and odd adventures in a new iPad pub with a clever user interface

The brainchild of a creative group of friends in Berlin, Astronaut is an independent magazine designed specifically for the iPad. Intriguing editorials and clever interactivity lend the first issue—released last month—a comfortable feel which, nicely complimented by strong imagery and enthralling mini-documentaries, which tell tales “of amazing journeys, great missions and epic adventures.”

Although the overall package is compelling in its own right, the short documentaries are a fantastic device-specific enhancement. Ranging from four to 22 minutes in length, each film acts as an extension of the editorial content by diving deeper into the subject at hand. And after swiping through the issue numerous times, the documentaries alone seem well worth the magazine’s modest $4 price. Make sure to check out the study of eccentric Midwesterner “Zoomer” and the Polar Bear clubs of Australia, each a pleasure to watch.

In terms of interactivity, the navigation is a simple swipe-to-turn-pages model that’s enhanced by only having some components of the page turn from time to time. The article opened might move off the page to see the background picture full screen before moving on to the next page, for example. To further challenge the dynamic of traditional magazine format, some pages hold hidden imagery only discovered with a keen eye and the slide of your finger in just the right place. What could have been overdone, the clever user interface content finds a nice balance with the editorial content without getting in the user’s way.

Astronaut magazine can be found in the iTunes App Store—with twelve editorial features and over ninety minutes of film there is really no reason not to jump on board.

From Madonna to Al Gore, how one publisher reimagines books for the digital age

Charlie Melcher is, in his own words, a man of eclectic tastes. With a hand in some of pop culture’s most influential phenomena, from “South Park: A Sticky Forms Adventure” to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” Melcher has been redefining the publishing industry since graduating from Yale University in 1988. Conceptualizing projects like Madonna’s controversial “Sex” book is practically old hat to Melcher, who spearheaded the tome when he was with Calloway Editions. The progressive publisher explains the choice was obvious, “Madonna was going to get naked in an amazing book of erotica. What was not to like?”

Melcher worked his way up the ranks after college, re-launching what he’d called Melcher Press as Melcher Media in ’94, where he patented the technology behind DuraBooks. Waterproof, synthetic paper made of nontoxic resins and inorganic materials instead of wood pulp, the infinitely recyclable pages make for ideal beach reads or field guides. The technology also came into play for William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s environmentalist design manifesto,
“Cradle to Cradle.” Like Melcher, the game-changing book preaches a new kind of industrial sustainability—one that incorporates eco-consciousness from the ground up.

From the ground up is exactly how Melcher Media approaches all of its projects,
shepherding a new publication from its inception through various print and digital
incarnations. Working on “An Inconvenient Truth,” Melcher took Al Gore’s next project one step further, developing iPhone and iPad apps called “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.” The richly-colored pages, filled with interactive infographics, animations, maps and documentary footage, are all accessible with a swipe of a finger.

“For the last 20 years, I’ve labored to break out of the confines of the two-
dimensional Flatland of the printed page and redefine books as multi-sensory
interactive experiences,” Melcher said. The phrase that he uses, “deep
marketing,” is a type of marketing that creates a unique, immersive experience that
a reader will seek out on his own, which can range from reading a DuraBook in a
bubble bath to flipping through maps of Africa on the iPad while on the train to work.

If working on Gore’s books wasn’t enough of an indication, Melcher also exercises his strong interest in sustainability with his position on the advisory committee for Green Press Initiative and FSC certification for Melcher Media. Clients like HBO and MTV may seem off-brand, but Melcher insists, “The projects that we do are all things that I, or my staff, are personally passionate about. We love high culture and low culture. If it is [a book on] a serious subject, we try to find approaches that will make it as impactful and appealing to as large an audience as possible, and if it’s a pop culture project we try to find the angles that will make the most high-quality and innovative version available.”

As Melcher Media’s website points out, books have basically remained the same since the invention of the Gutenberg Press. If phones and other communication
devices have to keep updating themselves, there’s no reason why this venerable
technology should have to stay the same. “Pop-up books for adults, books with
sound chips and 3-D glasses and now interactive media-rich apps are all examples of an effort to reinvent the book in the digital age.”

The Audi Icons series, inspired by the all-new Audi A7, showcases 16 leading figures united by their dedication to innovation and design.

New Al Gore app spearheads the future of interactive books

Based on a fantastic user interface designed by Mike Matas, co-founder of Push Pop Press, Al Gore’s 2009 book “Our Choice” has been reinvigorated for the iPad as an app that launches today. We previewed the new version, produced by Rodale and Melcher Media, which lays out Gore’s take on the looming global climate crisis in a beautiful interactive format that allows the user to pinch and swipe their way through pages, infographics, videos and images.

The app opens with an introduction from the former Vice President who also offers a brief tutorial, which is helpful but inessential, thanks to the intuitive controls built into the application. A simple swipe left or right navigates between chapters and also turns pages within the app. Enhanced by a continuous bar along the bottom, you can quickly skip to interesting pages or images that catch your eye.

You can interact with any element within the pages; a quick two-finger pinch will pull out infographics or pictures, expanding them to full-screen. All of the expandable elements also contain geotags that display on a global map, giving the user a vision of how the facts presented fit into the big picture. Some infographics and videos contain further interactive features, letting users focus on certain areas or concepts.

A shining example of the potential of interactive media on the iPad, the dedication of the development team shows in how the app clearly presents the story, while enhancing the user experience with simple, elegant elements, without being overbearing or sluggish. In all, it’s an excellent demonstration of how to merge old and new media to produce an engaging, informative publication.

Pick up your copy from iTunes for $5.

Itty-bitty monitoring device turns iPhones into wellness machines

If Nike+ doesn’t quite meet your needs, Wahoo connects fitness monitors with the iPhone, integrating current telemetry tech with a device you’re already likely to be using (unless you’re the type to carry a Walkman). Using the cutting-edge ANT+ protocol—the same device-pairing tech used in other monitoring systems—the $130 runner package closes the gap between iPhones and cardio sensors, pairing with dozens of existing delivering physiological data that’s logged in real time.

The Fiscia connector weighs just 3.5 grams, runs off the iPhone’s battery and plugs straight into its data port, allowing you to log EKG data while enjoying the phone’s entertainment features at the same time. It’s part of an array of accessories on offer.

Wahoo also offers a pair of bike packages that not only track biorhythms but ground speed, relative cycle power and other variables germane to the technological fitness freak.