My son, age eight, is quite attached to our iPod Touch. And the computer. And sometimes to the television and the Nintendo DSi. (And my iPad when I let him touch it.) For the most part, he plays educational games, …
Continue ReadingPick your routes, place your cars, and get your tickets punched. This week’s episode of Geek & Sundry’s Tabletop features all-time favorite train game Ticket to Ride and this week’s guests are actor Colin Ferguson, Wil’s friend and huge comic geek Amy …
Continue ReadingI’ve actually gotten to play with the Etcher myself: Krupnik sent me an earlier prototype (ugly, but functional) when he found out I’m an Etch-a-Sketch artist, and I wanted a first-hand impression of how the thing actually works. Because really, …
Continue ReadingMother’s Day around our place has frequently featured video gaming sessions, where my wife is given the opportunity to play a game, theoretically without interruption — anything in the Zelda series is a typical choice. This might not sound like …
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As much as I love a nice necklace or a great looking outfit, those aren’t the things I usually wish for on Mother’s Day. As a lover of all things geeky and shiny, I would like to present the GeekMom Mother’s Day Gift Guide for the tech oriented mom.
Continue ReadingHere’s what happened. I was ready to dive into German with my 11- and 13-year-old daughters, who are homeschooled — but I can’t find our Rosetta Stone CD. The first disk in the set, I mean. It’s floating around the house somewhere. The rest of the program is right there in its slipcase on the […]
Continue ReadingIt’s not everyday that a company sends you an iPad 3 and a case and asks you if you’d kindly put the iPad in the case and roll over with your vehicle. But that’s what the folks that make the …
Continue ReadingI have a 4 year old son who loves mazes. He’s not yet graduated to the more complex mazes that are abundant on book store shelves and magazine racks so the few maze books I’ve found for his age group …
Continue ReadingA while ago, I reviewed the adorable book My Little Geek by Andrew & Sarah Spear with illustrations by Edit Sliacka, and I’m back once again to let you know that it’s now an app! If you are looking for books to read on a plane or car trip, this is a must-load for the iPad […]
Continue ReadingMy music lessons at school were a little uninspiring, and at home my Bontempi keyboard failed to inspire me — even with its seven preset voices. I was slightly skeptical when I stumbled across the DJ Rig app for iPhone …
Continue ReadingThe Avengers Origins: Assemble! and Avengers Origins: Hulk apps from Disney Publishing Worldwide, read by Stan “The Man” Lee are, in a word, glorious! For the child, both apps are the perfect introduction to the Assemble story and the Hulk story. Not only is Stan Lee a great narrator, reading in such a fashion as […]
Continue ReadingAbout a year ago I was introduced to the MeeGenius library — this is a company that is celebrating its second birthday on Thursday, April 26. A very young company! Besides accessing their large digital book library (currently over 700 …
Continue ReadingNeed some game play this Earth Day? Guide Slippery the Harbor Seal as she swims from San Francisco to Alaska eating yummy clams and avoiding dangerous predators like sharks and jelly fish. But don’t worry Slippery can keep her enemies …
Continue ReadingI hate to admit it, but chess hurts my head. I love playing games, finding patterns, devising strategies, but there is something about chess that frustrates me. I think it is because I end up planning elaborate schemes, having to …
Continue ReadingAt last, the galaxy far, far away has come to Legoland Windsor. Just over a year after the Star Wars Miniland opened in Legoland California (read Dave Banks’ excellent write up of that one here) the Lego master builders have …
Continue ReadingFoxTrot creator Bill Amend has begun offering collections of his long-running comic strip in an iPad-friendly format which he likens to collectible card-game booster packs.
Continue ReadingCoco Loco is a new game iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch developed by Twiitch and published by Chillingo. I must admit, when I first saw the game, I thought “OH NO! Another Angry Birds clone! But, then I was pleasantly …
Continue ReadingI’ve got a mixture of things to share with you as I wrap up Titanic Week. The anniversary is still over a week away, but I wanted to provide some interesting stuff that parents and kids might find useful for …
Continue ReadingI’m afraid I may receive some hate for this post, but I am in desperate need for some insight and some help. I, like a few others here at GeekMom, stepped into the world of the iPad with the release of Apple’s third generation tablet. I also had my own expectations as, three weeks ago, […]
Continue ReadingMuch has been made about the Retina display on the new iPad, so much so that it’s easy to dismiss all of the talk as hyperbole. But looking at these new screens from Ticket to Ride, perhaps the new display …
Continue ReadingA couple of months back I reviewed Algoriddim’s Djay software for the Mac and found it to be a fantastic app with an intuitive interface and powerful effects and tools that made it simple for anyone to use and start …
Continue ReadingTangled was one of the first Disney movies made after the buyout of Pixar and I think it’s safe to say it was one of the best to come from the house of mouse in a long time, thanks in …
Continue ReadingEducational apps that teach something to everyone, no matter what age, are great for filling your iPad. By now I’ve accumulated a decent collection of them, but I only recently discovered one that teaches basic geology, from mountain building to …
Continue ReadingI spent the first five years of my life unaware that my bedroom had what we used to proudly call in the ’80s a “popcorn ceiling” — a plaster spray treatment that could be quickly applied and hide all those …
Continue ReadingCrowdsourcing — the practice of using a large collection of people to move mountains. There are plenty of examples such as raising funds for a potential product (Kickstarter), making improvements on an open source operating system (Linux), or pulling together …
Continue ReadingEarlier this week, Brad Moon wrote an excellent piece justifying iPads for kids, full of reasons why iPads are great for kids. There were lots of good reasons, but what about when there are a bunch of kids and only …
Continue ReadingMy daughter (9) came running into our bedroom this morning very excited. She held in her hand my iPad 2 and was waving it around exuberantly. “It’s so much better dad, I love it. When did you get it?” Having …
Continue ReadingSure, iPads are expensive, but when you consider them as a replacement for some of the other gaming hand-helds they beg for, the economics might just make sense.
Continue ReadingSo the new un-numbered iPad release is wowing people everywhere with its gorgeous “Retina” display, and there’s little doubt it will continue to sell well from now until whenever the next version is announced. But that awesome new screen has …
Continue ReadingMadPad – $.99 iPhone, $2.99 iPad MadPad is another brilliant music-making community-minded app from Smule. The tagline is “Remix Your Life,” and that’s a pretty good explanation of what it does. Using your iDevice’s camera and mic, you can collect …
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