There’s no doubt that Apple’s latest iteration of the iPad
is a hit with consumers. Day one sales are estimated at 500,000 or above and people are still lining up outside their nearest Apple store to get their hands on one.
But the iPad 2 is entering a much different world than its predecessor. And while Apple still holds a commanding market share position, it may be in for a much tougher fight this time around.
With bullying a common problem in schools, Horton Hears
a Who! teaches an important lesson to children about sticking up for people who are unable to defend themselves. The creatures that share the jungle with Horton (and who do not hear the Whos) taunt and mock him for his actions and ultimately try to punish him, but he maintains his watch over the Whos, underlining how critical it is to stick by your virtues, even when there is peer pressure to abandon them. The message alone makes this a five-star app, but the added bonuses of charming narration and wonderful educational elements, such as highlighted words and picture identification, put it over the top.
Your high school drama teacher might 
have suggested that the best place for you when it comes to acting is in the audience, but does a PhD give him the ability to spot raw talent? No way!
Fortunately, with the help of an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, you can finally show the world your star potential by acting it out in some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.
Sandra Boynton is one of the most-loved modern authors 
of children’s books and it is fun to see her beloved board book become an app. This app has a soothing reader (Billy J. Kramer), great highlighting of words read, the ability to tap any word to hear it spoken aloud, and lots of interactive hotspots. Plus the interactive elements vary greatly from tilting the iPad to make the animals slide to turning on the hot water in the sink, which causes the screen of the iPad to steam up (you wipe it clean with your finger). However, The Going to Bed Book has a few navigational issues. The onscreen animations are generally well-done, but some are positioned on the screen near where the user is likely to try to swipe to the next page, making it sometimes hard to advance the book. Even with this shortcoming, the book’s message and characters are as charming on iDevices as they are in the original board book form.
BitTorrent isn’t usually a service studios want to 
partner with. The favorite application of movie and software pirates, the service is widely demonized throughout the state of California.
But the makers of The Tunnel will world premier their direct-to-DVD film on the service on May 19 – and they’ve doing so with the full cooperation of Paramount.
When Nintendo’s global president Satoru Iwata rocked this 
year’s Game Developers Conference with his controversial comments about developers of social and mobile games, there were a lot of questions. Was the company showing fear? Was it being too rigid in its thinking? Was Iwata actually right on the money?
A few people, though, were asking a more practical question: If the company felt this new breed of garage developers (like Rovio in its early days or Tiny Wings developer Andreas Illiger) were undervaluing their games, why not establish an opportunity for them to sell to the Nintendo audience at higher prices?
Glasses free 3D is still a fair ways from 
making it to the living room, but Samsung is starting to test the waters.
The electronics giant is showing off a 55-inch prototype this week of a set that doesn’t require any sort of dorky headgear. Before you get out your credit cards, the company says it will be at least three years before something like this will hit the market.
There are still a lot of looming questions about 
the 2011-2012 NFL season – most notably, will there be one? Now that uncertainty is starting to seep into the video game world.
Electronic Arts has already made it very clear: No matter what happens between the players and owners, there will be a new Madden game in stores this August. But if the season is substantially shortened or cancelled altogether, it could have a devastating impact on the game’s success.
We certainly have no problem getting caught 
up in the fun of playing games, but the people who create them have their pocketbooks to worry about, too. In this column, finance expert and GameSpy contributor Chris Morris guides you through the tricky corridors the gaming industry’s financial side, touching on big-time business decisions and how they matter to the common gamer.
Change is on the way for casual games titan PopCap Games. The question is: What sort of change?
Investors in the video game space are hoping it will be the odds-on favorite: A public offering by the beloved independent game company. But with all the cash floating around the video game space these days, no one is ruling out a takeover.
Good news, married folks! You can 
still play The Dating Game.
The legendary game show debuts Wednesday on all major social media sites — including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Sadly, it does not star Bob Eubanks.
Chris Morris: Journalist 