When Hollywood producer Neal Edelstein set out to make Haunting Melissa, a horror film iPad app about a teenage girl that goes missing, he didn’t want it to be just another film. The first directorial production from the producer of Mulholland Drive and The Ring, the film was created the specifically for the iPad.

“The story was designed with the technology in mind,” Edelstein told AppNewser last week over coffee in New York. ”It’s a ghost story that was designed to be watched in the dark with headphones on.” Read more

In this digital age, basic programming is one of the best gift you can give a kid.

The free Hopscotch HD app will help kids explore a simple programming language and create their own games. The brand new iOS app has already found a bustling community of users. Check it out:

So, we launched Hopscotch last week, and it’s been quite a ride since.  It’s been downloaded more than 20,000 times, we cracked the Top 10 iPad Education apps, and were featured in New and Noteworthy on the App Store.  After the initial press we got all sorts of other great coverage on various ed tech blogs. We’ve had folks volunteering to translate it into nine different languages. We’ve had some totally awesome projects sent to us by parents and kids. And perhaps most importantly, we’ve begun our process of refining our feature set based on real data and feedback.

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You Tube personality and real world iPad Magician is helping to announce the latest update for Rovio’s Angry Birds on Android and iOS called Abra-Ca-Bacon.

The new update to Angry Birds Seasons includes Magic Portals, so the video and talent fit was a perfect match. The portals help to transport birds – just shoot them at a portal and they magically appear out of the same looking portal elsewhere on-screen. The portals are not limited to just bird-transport, bits of explosions also can travel through the space-warps.Click here to see the video announcements: Read more

Do you like reading movie scripts? Check out Script Lit, a new series of unproduced screenplays that have been adapted as eBook novellas.

Here is more from the site: “There are many wonderful scripts written that are never produced and therefore aren’t shown to the world. This process of adapting those ‘lost gems’ into eBook novellas gives the writer a chance to be heard and loved by a wide audience. We are SL eBooks and are proud to present Script Lit, the new literary genre.”

The debut title from the collection is Mom of the Year by Denise Pischinger and is available through various eBook stores for $2.99. The second title from the collection, a horror/thriller title called Ambrose Fountain by Brian Sieve will publish next month.

As the shutdown of Google Reader nears, one reader has created a simple and free tool to replace Google’s soon-to-be discontinued tool.

You can explore the demo online or visit the simple sign-up page. CommaFeed inclues an easy organizational structure and simple settings. The interface will be easy for most Google Reader users to pick up quickly.  Here’s more about the free app:

When Google announced Reader shutdown, I started to work on a clone. It is now available. It’s simple, bloat-free, and it’s open-source. Say hello to CommaFeed … CommaFeed is a bloat-free feed reader. It aims to replace Google Reader while keeping things simple.

Pivot by L.C. Barlow is today’s Free eBook of the Day.

The horror novel is the first book in a trilogy. Check it out:

Video editing app Magisto, a tool that automatically edits video footage together into films and has been downloaded 8 million times across Android & iOS, announced two Google integrations this week. The app now has integration with Google+ and is now available as a native Chrome app.

As a Chrome app, the tool will work whether a user is online or offline, as it functions more like traditional desktop software. ”The value of the mobile ecosystem is growing, but not necessarily in the way people think,” stated Oren Boiman, CEO of Magisto. “People are looking for quality over quantity at this point.” The Chrome app will be  part of Google Chrome’s packaged app platform that launches later this year.

Google’s latest vision for Google Plus is focused on images – and the use of artificial intelligence. Imagine a team of Google robots meticulously fixing your wrinkles, making everyone smile in photos they didn’t actually smile in, and changing the sky to make it a tad more perfect. Am I the only one who thinks it’s borderline creepy?

Let’s take a closer look at the major changes coming to Google Plus Photos.

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Google is expanding its free data storage and that’s a great thing. Just like Gmail, the company is using its vast supply of servers to maintain your data for you, and if you are comfortable with that, you can get it 15GB for free (with free backup). Given the increase in resolution of new phone cameras and digital cameras, 15GB might not be a lot for serious photographers. Read more

Apple has recorded more than 50 billion app downloads from the App Store. The person that was lucky enough to download the 50 billionth app will get a $10,000 gift card to the App Store gift. The 50 people who downloaded apps after the big winner will each get  that each a $500 gift card.

Apple tweeted the news yesterday afternoon, after they hit their goal.

We just hit 50 billion app downloads. Thank you. It couldn’t have happened without you. #50BillionApps tw.appstore.com/hgE

— App Store(@AppStore) May 15, 2013

The company hit this benchmark the same day that Google announced that Google Play has just crossed 48 billion app installs.

Users on iOS devices can finally start using a Google app for Google Chats. Google’s new chat app, appropriately call Hangouts, allows you to do what you’ve always done with Gmail’s desktop experience: text friends, start videos, and share photos in seamless conversations across multiple devices.

Google took note of an important aspect about notifications when creating this app – you only get one alert per new item that’s synced across all of your devices. If your notifications get too noisy, you can turn them off and check back later. Perhaps the company has heard complaints about Google Plus notifications. Read more