Independent publisher Nosy Crow is pleased to announce that its Cinderella App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is now available on the App Store. Cinderella, an interactive picture book app for children, is the second in Nosy Crow’s series of 3-D fairy tale apps, recommended for children ages 3 and up.

The Cinderella App is a fresh take on the favorite fairytale. It features beautiful and witty illustrations by Ed Bryan; sophisticated animation; an original score by BAFTA award-winner Robin Beanland; and lively narration by child actors.

But it’s the rich interactivity that brings this book app to life. In Cinderella, readers make the magic happen. By tapping, swiping, dragging and dropping, they can help Cinderella clean the kitchen and find things the fairy godmother can transform into the magical carriage. They can even choose Cinderella’s dress for the ball. These activities give children an active role in advancing the story.

There’s also a special treat for readers using an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch that has a front-facing camera. Their faces will appear inside the “magic mirror” in some scenes of the story!

“With Cinderella, we’ve taken advantage of the features of the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to deepen children’s engagement with the plot and characters,” says Kate Wilson, Managing Director of Nosy Crow. “Our touch-triggered activities are a seamless part of the narrative. This makes the reading experience exciting and different every time.”

Availability and Pricing
Starting September 13th, the Cinderella App is available from the App Store for an introductory price of $5.99 on iPad (regularly $7.99) and $3.99 on iPhone and iPod touch (regularly $4.99). Visit http://www.itunes.com/appstore/.

Links To Download
Cinderella for iPad
Cinderella for iPhone
Visit the Media Kit on Nosy Crow’s website for videos, screenshots and additional resources.

Device Requirements:
Compatible with all iPads. For iPhone and iPod touch, requires minimum iPhone 3GS or 3rd generation iPod touch running iOS 3.1.3 or higher.

About Nosy Crow
Nosy Crow is a London-based children’s book and app publisher founded in 2010 by veterans of the children’s publishing industry. In 2011, Nosy Crow will publish 26 books for children and young adults, as well as 4 interactive book apps for children. In the U.S. and Canada, the Nosy Crow imprint is published under the umbrella of Candlewick Press. In Australia and New Zealand, Nosy Crow partners with Allen and Unwin. (PRWeb)

It’s well-known that the option to post photos online is the reason why Facebook is still the leading social networking site, especially with teens and tweens. According to statistics more than 200 million photos are uploaded on the site each day. And while your teen may be somewhat cautious of the photos they post and tag online—any incriminating or suggestive photos can be found by college admission officers, employers and predators— the social networking site may just become even more of a danger zone due to its new face recognition software.

The software, which digitally scans the faces of uploaded photos and uses facial recognition technology to identify a user’s “friends,” is technically designed to simplify the tagging process—it can become somewhat of a hassle to individually tag photos with large groups of people. But the software is stirring much controversy, especially because the technology enables a lot of “unwanted” tagged photos to pop up on friends’ Facebook walls and increases the chances of having incriminating photos permanently available online —not only does Facebook own the rights of all photos posted on the Web site, but once a photo is uploaded into cyberspace it is permanently there no matter if you delete them from the original source.  Not to mention that the software has its issues; it’s only designed to suggest tags that it “thinks” matches a user’s friend’s face. It can accidently suggest a wrong person and there can be photos floating around in cyberspace that are misrepresenting who the person is.

Fortunately there are some ways that your teens can try to safeguard their reputation and protect photos from getting into the wrong hands (or from being seen by the wrong set of eyes). The first is to disable the face recognition software called “Tag Suggestions.” It’s important to note that disabling this feature will not prevent your teen’s friends from tagging them; it will only remove the automatic tag suggestion which will hopefully make your teen’s friends think twice before tagging an inappropriate photo.  With that said, to disable the feature follow these directions:

1. Log-in and go to the home Facebook page.

2.  Go to “Account” located on the top far right of the home page.

3. Go to “Privacy Setting.”

4. Go to “Customize Setting.”

5. Scroll down to the section that reads “Things Other Share” and click on “Edit Settings” next to “Suggest Photos of Me to Friends”

6. Click “Disable”

7. Click “Ok”

Other ways your teen can prevent unwanted tagged photos can include deleting (or blocking) friends that have no scruples when it comes to tagging unflattering or incriminating photos; or at least catching tagged photos early on and removing them. To do this, your teen should definitely request to have immediate notifications to be sent to his or her phone or via email. To do this, go to Account>Account Settings> Notifications > Scroll to “Photos” Section> Check either SMS or Email under the “Tags You in a Photo” section.  If your teen uses the Facebook app on their cellphone, they can also change the notification settings to refresh every 30 minutes.

Additional note: Always remind teens to never befriend strangers on Facebook and to always protect photo albums by using the strongest “Friends Only” privacy setting.

Author Bio:

This guest post is contributed by Leslie Johnson, who writes about health, green living, parenting related articles at masters in health administration.

Summer time means your kids will have plenty of leisure hours and these days, that actually means playing on gadgets like the iPad, iPhone or any Android device. If you allow your kids use of these in the house, there are a lot of child-appropriate applications you can download or buy online.

Some of these aren’t just brainless games, as they also encourage creativity and a good thinking process. Below are just some of the stuff you can get for your kids for their gadgets:

1. Faces I Make Application — I love that this application is so fun to play with and at the same time, it helps children come up with creative ideas. I myself can get lost for hours on this, so imagine what it can do for your kids. This application is about a less than two dollars at the Apple store and can work on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

2. Doodle Buddy — my nieces have this in their parents’ gadgets and I can tell you how much they’re having fun. This application has finger painting and offers really colorful and vivid images where children can also make stamps out of. The best part? This is a Free application for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

3. Kids Doodle — this is slightly similar to Doodle Buddy except that it works only for the Android. This is a painting application and your child will be amazed with all the colors and drawings he can do with it. You can get this for $1.49 at the Android Market.

For a lot of parents who own an iPad, the device is really not something for their own use only. Kids as young as three or four already know how to use this gadget, and may even know this works better than the adults. But some of the games installed for this gadget aren’t fit for a young mind. Fortunately, there are a few kiddie applications parents can install for their budding computer geeks.

Here are just two examples —

Elmo Loves ABC’s iPad App

This application is developed for Sesame Street and features Elmo, a favorite of many kids. The game helps kids learn alphabet easily with videos, sing-along and coloring pages. The children can also trace letters as part of the game and some surprises are surely going to give kids a worthy time playing and learning.

The application cost about $4.99

· Over 80 classic Sesame Street videos
· New Sesame Street videos
· 78 Sesame Street coloring pages
· 5 different ways to play hide and seek
· A game mode where children can practice finding the letters they’ve learned

Griffin Crayola Trace and Draw Case for iPad 2

This application is perfect for those who already have the iPad 2 and a child wanting to test its power and capacity. I actually love this one myself as it allows children of any age to be creative. There are over 35 templates including one that encourages children to learn to write their name. The only drawback is that the application can be a bit expensive at $49.95. Still it’s packed with so many features.

With kids as young as 4 years old playing with the iPad, there are actually some very useful and kid-friendly iPad cases you can use so that the gadget doesn’t get easily damaged. While the gadget may be so easy to understand by children, they may not, however, understand just how expensive this is. I’ve known of parents who have newly-bought iPads only to discover that their children have accidentally dropped this while using it.

One such protector is the Big Grips Frame which comes with the Big Grip Stand:

This item is constructed using lightweight foam that is quote durable as well. The grip frame actually works as a soft protective case. It’s designed to be easily grabbed and very comfortable to hold. The frame is mounted on a grip stand that can work in either a portrait or landscape orientation.

Using these Big Grips add on is ideal for web surfing while on the table or couch, or for watching movies and playing games. The parent will not have to worry about mishandling it. The grip frame and stand keeps the iPad secure.

These cost about $34.95 and $24.95 respectively, but you can get it a discounted price of $49.95, if you buy this as a set. This grip and stand come in bright, exciting colors the kids will love — Fresh Green, Electric Blue, Carnation Pink and Steel Grey.

You can buy the item and check the specs further on this site.