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CES 2013: Crayola Light Marker for iPad
You may already own a stylus or two for your iPad, but when it comes to the small hands of younger users, Griffin's new Crayola Light Marker might be the ideal choice. Rather than requiring you to draw on the tablet's screen, the larger, marker-sized accessory allows you to draw in the air and watch your creations take shape on the screen. The Crayola Light Marker will work hand in hand with a free app that includes puzzles and games perfect for kids. There's also the option to draw freehand, choosing from various colors and other customization options. The magic marker will sell for US$29.99 when it hits retailers this coming spring.
Griffin and Crayola intro contact-free Light Marker, drawing workstations
Griffin and Crayola are already best of friends through their ColorStudio HD collaboration for the iPad. They're deepening that relationship at CES with a handful of iPad accessories and apps based around the quintessential crayon. Heading up the pack, the Crayola Light Marker you see above upgrades the earlier input by letting kids draw in the air; they can splatter (thankfully virtual) paint and play other games without scribbling directly on the tablet's screen. A pair of cradles are joining the marker, including the Digital Activity Center portable lap desk (after the break) and the briefcase-like Color & Play Workstation. The software side is being rounded out with special Barbie and Hot Wheels versions of the ColorStudio HD app, each of which has drawings themed around the perennial favorite toys. Griffin expects the Light Marker, Digital Activity Center and Color & Play Workstation to reach young artists' hands in the spring for $30, $40 and $20 respectively; the specialized iPad apps should arrive later in January, each for $3. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad swipes its way to your child's heart
The iPad is not childproof. It's fragile and expensive and we can't imagine why you'd want to hand it over willy nilly to your kids. That said, if you've got money to burn and don't mind letting small hands tool around with high-end consumer products, then this should tickle your parental fancy. Announced as a collaboration between Griffin Technology and Crayola, the Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad matches a marker-shaped digital stylus -- the inventively titled iMarker -- with your child's LCD-colored imagination. The chunky, kid-friendly stylus mocks the tip of a pen, crayon, marker or paintbrush as your doe-eyed youngin' swipes along 30 plus animated pages -- all while sitting too close to the screen. If free is the key to your heart, go ahead and grab this now on the App Store -- it's the marker clone that'll set you back 30 bills. That said, it's a small price to pay for your child's happiness. Also, digital Burnt Sienna -- need we say any more? Update: Turns out our friends at TUAW have already had the chance to sample one of these in the wild. Check out their impressions.
Review: Crayola ColorStudio HD and Griffin iMarker pair up for coloring time
When Griffin and Crayola announced their collaboration back at CES in January, the idea of a combined stylus and drawing/painting iPad app for kids -- with the power to distinguish between finger touches and the tip of the stylus -- sounded fantastic. The flexibility of the iPad for keeping kids engaged and entertained, especially on long trips, is remarkable; something like the iMarker could supercharge it substantially. We were curious, though: how (and how well) would it actually work? Now shipping in both the App Store and at Best Buy, the iMarker and ColorStudio HD combine a well-designed, kid-friendly app with an innovative stylus technology, but is the bundle US$30 worth of fun? And does it meet the demands of both parents and kids? There are plenty of painting and coloring apps already out for iPad, so let's talk about what sets this package apart: the hardware. Griffin's iMarker stylus -- a black and silver unit labeled as "Assembled in China; Designed in Nashville" -- is different from other capacitive pen-like accessories, because it's powered (by a single AA battery) and because the free ColorStudio HD app can differentiate between finger-touches and the stylus tip. The trick, apparently, is all about speed. A small electric motor in the iMarker 'buzzes' the electrostatic tip, making and breaking contact extremely rapidly; you can hear this vibration in action if you hold the stylus close to your ear, although it's not particularly audible at arm's length. There's also a lighted oval on the side of the stylus to let you know it's on. Since the app is watching for a vibrating touch, it can tell when you're using your finger to operate in-app controls like crayon color selection or brush size and when you're using the pen to actually draw. It sounds technically complex, but like all good iPad-related products, in practice it "just works" -- even for small kids. I found initially that it took a somewhat firm press of the stylus to get it to register on the screen, but a check of the Griffin FAQ for the product suggested that I'd get better results by removing my iPad from its case. That worked well, and the pen became somewhat more responsive when I was holding the back of my iPad in my hand. (Back-case skins or front screen protectors will also decrease the pen sensitivity.) With the distinction between pentip and fingertip being handled in software, it feels very natural to switch back and forth from app controls (color/brush selection, undo, email/save, etc.) to drawing with the stylus. If you leave the stylus at home, however, the activated version of the app (you unlock the full feature set by drawing a pattern with the purchased stylus) lets you switch into fingers-only mode at will. Annoyingly, the iMarker comes with a protective cap that doesn't fit on the back end of the stylus, so you have to tuck it away somewhere else or risk losing it.
Crayola's ColorStudio HD now available, iMarker at Best Buy
Griffin announced via its Facebook page that its collaboration with Crayola, ColorStudio HD for iPad, is now available. We first heard of it just before CES, when news of the app along with the new iMarker stylus came out. The US$29.99 marker-styled accessory allows kids -- or any other coloring enthusiast -- to color more than 50 interactive coloring pages. A trial mode, available if you download the map but do not own the stylus, allows you to paint three pictures with your finger. iMarker is now available through Best Buy and Griffin's site, and we will be getting our hands on it to give is a good run-through.
Crayola and Griffin unite for ColorStudio HD on iPad, custom iMarker stylus
Guess what just popped up to the top of our "must-see at CES" list? Chances are, if you're an iPad owner with small kids, you too will be enthralled by the promise and the premise of Crayola's collaboration with peripheral maker Griffin Technologies: ColorStudio HD for iPad, including the Crayola iMarker stylus. Coming in "Spring 2011" for the iPad, the US$29.95 hardware and software combo will put the wax-based experience of crayon drawing into a new digital realm. Once the free-with-purchase app is downloaded to the iPad (and I'm curious how exactly that's going to work -- a gift code that you get once you register the product? Or a free app that simply doesn't work without the stylus?), the would-be artist can draw away on more than 50 interactive coloring pages, games, musical environments and the like. The app will be able to differentiate the iMarker's touch point from a fingertip swipe, so coloring and controlling the UI will be distinct operations. This capability would be fascinating if Crayola and Griffin chose to license it for grown-up painting apps like ArtRage, but I imagine that kids will simply grok the difference between a marker and their fingers the same way they understand that distinction in the real world. Good luck getting the iPad out of the back seat during car trips now. One drawback, as Kelly H pointed out today: this increases the chances of other, non-iPad-safe markers being used inappropriately on other flat glowing surfaces. Deep breath and count to 10, parents.
DS releases for the week of September 24th
Feel like learning? We sure hope so, since that seems to be the theme for this week's releases, at least in the U.S. Personally, we'd be most interested in learning how to win lots of money at poker, but we're not sure World Series of Poker falls in line with most of this week's titles ... if only it was a training game! Animal Genius Crayola Treasure Adventures Math Play Race Driver: Create & Race World Series of Poker 2008: Battle for the Bracelets To see what's up with the rest of the globe this week, jaunt on past the break.
Crayola debuts blindingly colored kid-tronics
Crayola has recently announced a cluster of new products that have little to do with the company's signature product, namely, crayons. The coloring-wax manufacturer is adding to its line of electronics aimed at the kiddies, with a new batch of intensely-colored gear produced by electronics maker Sakar. The new offerings start with the $49.99 Crayola EZ Grip digital camera, a VGA camera with a 1.3-inch screen; the Crayola Type n Learn, a $29.99 USB keyboard that's color coded to make letters more distinguishable to kids; the EZ Click mouse, a $14.99, two button mouse with scroll-wheel (plus a mini, plastic aquarium in the grip); and the $9.99 EZ Frame mouse pad, which -- as you may have already guessed -- is a mouse pad that doubles as a picture frame. The camera is available now, all the other fun-filled items will be ready "in time for the holidays."
Crave opening big box of virtual Crayolas
The washable-crayon-stylus hybrid thing seen here may still be a dream in our somewhat odd fanboy minds, but it is true that Crayola is bringing its unique brand of waxy, brittle pigment to the DS in electronic form. The company has made an agreement with publisher Crave to release a Crayola-themed DS game.Apparently, the game will be a minigame collection, with all of the minigames involving drawing and coloring with a wide selection of Crayola crayons. We're excited about this if only for the possibility that we may get to color a dinosaur. And because this way we won't lose 33 of our 64 colors within a week.
Crayola MP3 Player hits for $50, probably isn't edible
It's not everyday that we get to write about one of our favorite low-tech-but-still-awesome companies: Crayola. After all, it was pretty much impossible to be a 20th century kid without having drawn with (or tried to eat) a fistful of crayons. Well, Crayola's now trying to draw (har) in new generation of would-be artists by partnering with GPX on its new line of consumer electronics, ranging from a calculator to a clock radio to what all the kids are going crazy for these days -- a DAP called the Crayola MP3 Player (YCMW2816). There's nothing all that remarkable about the MP3 / WMA player from what we can tell: it's got a tiny screen, an SD card slot and is powered by a single AAA battery. Beyond that it comes with two audio out jacks so that you and a friend can rock out on the included headphones and earbuds. This one will set you back 50 greenbacks, although we're a little unclear if that's payable in Forest Green or Fern.