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Hey, fellow parents. Sick to death of the kids' "Wiggles" CDs? Exhausted the library's "Magic Tree House" collection? Do I have an app for you: Tales2Go provides on-demand access to nearly 900 children's stories. It's my single favorite app of 2010 (so far).

The Tales2Go collection includes works from a variety of audio publishers, including Audio Bookshelf and Recorded Books. A Tales2Go representative told me a couple "major" new publishers will collectively add about 80 more titles to the library in coming weeks.

The app provides countless ways to peruse the … Read more

While Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Readers, and the Barnes & Noble Nook remain the most popular e-readers in the U.S. market, literally dozens of companies are putting out new e-readers this year--and they're all on display at CES.

They range in price from less than $200 to more than $750 and one even includes dual screens. Which ones truly have a chance of breaking through with consumers is debatable, especially if Apple should go ahead and announce a slate device later this month. But here they all are.

As always, feel free to comment, and let us … Read more

Google has often been seen as a competitor to traditional newspapers, but the search giant is now teaming up with two major papers for a new experiment in presenting news online.

Google announced on Wednesday "Living Stories," an experimental new feature designed to deliver news stories, updates, editorials, and multimedia focusing on specific topics, all on one single Web page.

Each Living Story, whether it's on health care, global warming, or the war in Afghanistan, has a permanent URL that you can follow. That page displays everything from headlines to summaries to in-depth articles on that subject. … Read more

Great news for fans of short fiction: The Colossal Short Stories Collection just landed in the App Store packing a whopping 2,222 public-domain works.

There are, of course, other story collections available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but this is by far the largest one.

You'll find authors ranging from H.G. Wells and Mark Twain to Leo Tolstoy and Ring Lardner. All the greats are here, along with plenty of authors known mostly in scholarly circles.

The app lists them alphabetically by last name. Unfortunately, that's the only way to peruse the collection: you can'… Read more

BookCAT provides all the tools necessary to track books for a professional or a home library. Its interesting options give you full control of your catalog and lending.

Although it performed a complicated task, the program's interface is surprisingly accessible. It has plenty to offer seasoned and novice librarians as well as beginning to advanced book collectors. The layout is professional and intuitive with its bright, well-labeled commands. We were instantly pleased with this program, since we were able to quickly populate our entire library by entering only each book's ISBN number. BookCAT instantly downloaded each volume's … Read more

There are already several news apps available in the iTunes Store for iPhone and iPod Touch. Some bring you the headlines, while others bring you video, while still others get you the latest images in the news, but there aren't very many comprehensive news apps that bring you everything. Just today, CNN released its CNN App ($1.99) that not only brings you headlines, video, and images, but also adds other useful tools so you can remain in the know wherever you are.

The CNN App interface is immediately impressive upon launch, with sleek white text on a black … Read more

After a long hiatus, there are suddenly a handful of memorable, worthwhile titles for the Nintendo DS: Chinatown Wars, Rhythm Heaven, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, and most recently Scribblenauts. It took Nintendo, however, to save the best for last.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story might sound, at first read, like a kid's title. It's not; in fact, it's the third in a series of unique role-playing games featuring Mario, Luigi, and the rest of Nintendo's immortal cast of Mushroom Kingdom characters. The last in the series, Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, came out for the DS back in 2005. In case you've never played before, you have to understand that it's barely a role-playing game at all: yes, Mario and Luigi level up, collect items, and go on an adventure, but battles unfold as real-time quick-reflex minigames, and much of the story unfolds with a completely absurd sense of humor. This series of games might be Nintendo's best-kept secret in its first-party lineup. We played it, and yes, we loved it. Here's why.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The fall season has officially begun. Starting Monday morning, the annual TechCrunch50 conference took over the San Francisco Design Center for two days of start-up pitches and presentations; the conference's angle, as co-hosts Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis reiterated, is that all 50 companies on the roster are completely new and launching for the first time.

Start-ups presenting at the conference, which were chosen through a behind-the-scenes elimination process, were grouped into categories. The first of the day was "Youth & Games," with an array of kid-focused and entertainment start-ups.

The day had already begun with … Read more

After going off on a rant in the preshow, we settle down for a hilarious episode, inspired by the near-extinct Snow Leopard. Jeff opens it up with a complete horror story about his experience trying to buy the new Mac OS upgrade from a local big box retailer. We won't name names, but clearly this company is hiring all kind of unqualified employees, and Jeff's had about enough.

Everyone's favorite cell phone for the elderly, the Jitterbug, is now available on Verizon Wireless for senior citizens who want to switch over to nationwide coverage. Well, we certainly can't talk about such a story without busting out a few impressions, so this time around we try to combo them up...look out for Verbose Space Beer Old Vampire!

In other news, the God of War collection is coming to Blu-ray for PS3, but what seems like a great two-for-one deal is actually a slice of the larger PS3 ripoff: since the console doesn't support older games, owners of the new PS3 Slim are forced to pay for the new package if they want to play this series, instead of just popping in an old disc like you could with previous PlayStations. It's true that the HD upgrade adds a lot of value to this offering, but it still seems like a shady deal.

What do you think? Leave us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET and let us know your thoughts on the PS3 Slim or tell us about the worst job you've ever worked. We want to hear your horror stories!