E-books are already a fraught subject for many readers, writers, publishers and designers, but children's e-books are even more so. Is it rotting their minds? Is it as good as good ol' paper? Is it too interactive for their own good? Obviously there are no practical answers to such questions, but at least one children's e-book/app/thingie (what do we call these things, again?) is doing it very, very right. It's called "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore," and it's like a well-written bedtime story and an immersive animated movie at once -- without being "too much" of either.

According to the airline, that change will result in savings of about 2.4 million pieces of paper, and it says the cost of the project will be offset by fuel savings from the reduced weight, and additional savings that are expected from "fewer back and muscle injuries caused by pilots carrying flight bags," which can weigh up to 50 pounds.

AP

Ten percent of households with children aged 6-12 and pre-schoolers have iPads, according to Ipsos.

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Pre-teen and even pre-school children are key drivers for adoption of the iPad and other tablet computers, and a substantial number of kids, including two in five 11 and 12 year olds, now regularly use social networks even though they're technically not allowed, according to the LMX Family study conducted in early February by Ipsos OTX.

Ipsos also found pre-schoolers adopting digital habits or being exposed to new devices even faster than tweens, a sign of the speed with which digital technology is reshaping media and marketing habits for the youngest children. Of households with preschoolers, 38% had handheld gaming devices vs. only 24% among those with children aged 6-12. Preschool households also held an edge in laptops (82% to 76%), gaming consoles (76% to 63%) and internet-capable cellphones (69% to 65%).

Today, its co-founder and CEO Mike McCue confirmed the $50 million round at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, in a wide-ranging interview at the start-up’s Palo Alto, Calif., HQ.

“We’re obviously thrilled, because we think it confirms our focus that people want a beautifully designed way to interact with content and to share it,” he said. “And there is a lot more to come–on a scale of one to 10, we’re just at a two or three.”

Whut??

Straight out of the blocks for iPad 2 is the new “Magic Mirror” Augmented Reality iPad App using advanced facial tracking and user recognition features to deliver the magic mirror experience. While this demo presents a totally playful experience, it’s the tech smarts combined with the iPad 2′s features that will be quite exciting for brands and agencies to harness commercially.

Simon Dumenco

While plenty of critics piled on iPad newspaper The Daily within hours of its launch on Feb. 2, I held off because I wanted to give it a fair shot by really living with it for a while. Now, with more than a month of daily Daily reading behind me, I've got some unsolicited advice for the team behind News Corp.'s experiment in tablet publishing:

1. TWITTER IS FOR TWEETS; NEWSPAPERS ARE (THEORETICALLY) FOR DEPTH
In trying to be all brisk and app-y, The Daily often goes short -- too short. On Ronald Reagan's centenary birthday, for instance, it offered a full-page shot of him headlined "100 FOR THE GIPPER" followed by a three-sentence (total) "article" about the "bipartisan hero" (hmmm). A full-page shot of a bowl of shark-fin soup ("A FIN MESS" -- groan) topped a four-sentence (total) "article" about a proposed California ban. Elsewhere, page-hogging infographics aren't much different from what USA Today pioneered back in 1982, while gratuitously deployed video demonstrates that sometimes pictures can be worth way less than 1,000 words.

The other day during a Daily reading session at my neighborhood McDonald's (Dollar Menu coffee plus free Wi-Fi), the manager stopped by my table to tell me how much he loves his iPad. Turns out he's a Daily reader, so I asked his take on it. "A lot of times," he told me, "I'll read something in The Daily that I already read about the day before, but The Daily version I'll read and go, 'Hey, they're missing a lot of the story here.'" He's still in his free trial period, and says he's unlikely to pay for it. Why? "It's just really not that good," he said, laughing. This from a guy who peddles crap food!

via adage.com

Flipboard has just updated its social-feed reading iPad app to version 1.2. This new version adds a performance boost and bug-fixes, with the highlight being Instagram integration.

Grey’s Anatomy Sync [iTunes link] is powered by Nielsen’s Media-Sync Platform and will showcase interactive content in real time, based on what is happening on screen. Media-Sync technology works in conjunction with the microphone on the iPad to keep the app in sync with the show.

Using the audio watermarks that TV programs typically use for tracking TV ratings, the app can figure out where a viewer is in a program and offer up corresponding content on the iPad. This means that in addition to using the app when watching the show live, users can also use the app when watching on a time-shifted copy of the program or when fast-forwarding or rewinding the show.