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Hulu Plus adds new and classic CBS shows, boosts Kids offering with Fraggle Rock spinoff
More than a year after CBS struck a deal with Hulu to stream its shows on the latter's subscription service, and the Tiffany Network has finally agreed to add even more programming to the mix. About 2,600 episodes, to be exact. The addition includes full-length videos from classics such as The Brady Bunch, Cheers and Happy Days, along with titles like United States of Tara and Everybody Loves Raymond. This arrives on the heels of last week's announcement that CBS agreed to an exclusive partnership with Hulu to stream complete past seasons of Sherlock-inspired Elementary along with police drama Blue Bloods. If you prefer something a little more kid-friendly, Hulu has plans to expand its kids programming as well. It just signed a deal to be the exclusive US distributor for The Doozers, a spinoff of the popular '80s children's show Fraggle Rock. It's marked as a "Hulu Original" even though it's already aired elsewhere in Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and will be available on Hulu starting April 25th. Hulu also recently announced a deal for the Pokemon franchise and plans to bring classics like Charlie Brown and Strawberry Shortcake on board as well. The year's barely started and it looks like the streaming service is already making good on its promise to add even more content to its library.
iTrace offers kid-friendly stroke-ordered handwriting tutorial
Last week, the TUAW back room got into an incredibly extended debate regarding the merits of iTrace (US$3.99), a kid-centric app that teaches kids basic letter-writing skills. In the end, I pinged the developer and requested a promo code to give the app a try. I'm glad I did, because even though the app centers around finger-drawing, it offers a good learning tool for new writers. Dotted animations guide the student through each stroke, enabling them to learn to shape each letter. The app is brightly illustrated and well designed, certain to appeal to young students. Meant for the core 3-7 age group, kids can learn to trace uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers. A series of adult-targeted settings are hidden behind a math-based CAPTCHA system (although I suppose in this case, CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) should really be CAPTKAA (distinguishing Kids and Adults). There, you can choose between left-handed and right-handed drawing, optional letter customization (although not the two-strokes-down "v" that I grew up using -- iTrace only does down then up), control background music and sound effects, and reach an adults-only tutorial that explains the app in more detail. The app was built for educational environments. It automatically tracks each user, so parents and teachers can view milestones; see daily, weekly, and monthly usage; and see how much effort each child is investing. The interface is easy to understand, use and fun to play with. Although the $4 price tag may strike some as premium, I found the app well worth the cost. If you're an early education teacher or a parent to young children, I think you'll find this a good tutorial. I do, however, suggest that children try using a stylus while playing with the app instead of using it exclusively with fingers. A developer-supplied promo video follows below:
Khan Academy releases iPad app
MIT alum Salman Khan has an ambitious plan. He wants to provide anyone, anywhere with a quality education. To that end, he's created a website with over 2,700 K-12 lectures spanning math, history, science and more. Now he's bringing all this online learning to the iPad with his new Khan academy app. In keeping with Khan's philosophy of learning, the Khan Academy app and all its resources are available for free. The app lets you login to your Khan Academy account and track your progress as you work through the courses. You can also download videos and playlists for learning on the go and follow along with subtitles that'll help you navigate through each lecture. You can grab the Khan Academy app for free from the iOS App Store.
