Technology News & Innovation

‘Five Little Pumpkins’ Wins Home Publishing Innovation Award in eBook Children’s Category

Five Little Pumpkins as interactive eBook

Santa Barbara, CA and Offenbach (PRWEB) January 25, 2012

zuuka, via its publishing label iStoryTime, and HarperCollins Children’s Books are proud to announce that Five Little Pumpkins is the winner of the Publishing Innovation Award in the Children’s category.

“It is a real honor to have the industry acknowledge both the creative work and long hours that went into producing Five Little Pumpkins, the first-ever interactive children’s ebook on the iBookstore,” said Graham Farrar, Founder of zuuka. “We strive to provide parents and their children quality titles that immerse the reader into the story, leveraging the platforms we work on, and get them excited about reading.”

The Five Little Pumpkins storybook for the iPad, iPhone and iPod® touch was developed by zuuka’s in-house studio. The ebook features ghostly animations and spooky sounds for a hands-on reading experience and is available on the iBookstore.

Released in partnership with HarperCollins Children’s Books, Five Little Pumpkins brings Dan Yaccarino’s illustrations to life in this perennial rhyming favorite of parents, teachers and kids alike, a full soundtrack and animations that activate when touched are featured throughout the book for the ultimate storytime adventure.

Toddlers and young readers are sure to enjoy the rhythmic story and vibrant and bold illustrations from Dan Yaccarino as he brings these pumpkins to life with personality and style. The book features read-to-me audio, animations and sound effects throughout.

Pricing and Availability:

Five Little Pumpkins is $ 5.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide via iBooks in the Books category.

ABOUT ZUUKA

zuuka publishes iTalk and iStoryTime – an interactive storytelling experience delivered to the convenience of your mobile device – which features a series of illustrated and narrated books created by parents for kids. iStoryTime books have been highlighted in the New York Times, LA Times, CBS Early Show, theiPhoneMom.com, CNET and are decorated with Publisher’s Innovation Award, PTPA Media’s Parent Tested Parent Approved Seal of Approval, the Children’s Technology Review’s Editor’s Choice Award and Reader’s Choice for Best Apps for Kids. With over 100 titles to choose from including favorites such as Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, Peter Pan and Binky the Pink Elephant, iStoryTime books are an excellent tool for both educating and entertaining children ages two years and up. These storybooks can be enjoyed in several different modes ranging from automatic to manual, depending upon the development and preferences of the user. For additional information, visit http://www.iStoryTime.com.

ABOUT HARPERCOLLINS CHILDREN’S BOOKS

HarperCollins Children’s Books is one of the leading publishers of children’s books. Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality, award-winning books for young readers, HarperCollins is home to many timeless treasures – Charlotte’s Web, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goodnight Moon, Where the Sidewalk Ends, the Ramona series, Where the Wild Things Are; and popular new classics – The Graveyard Book, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Warriors, and Fancy Nancy. Consistently at the forefront of digital innovation, HarperCollins Children’s Books delights young readers through engaging storytelling in all formats, including ebooks and apps. HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, one of the leading English-language publishers in the world and a subsidiary of News Corporation. Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia/New Zealand, and India. You can visit HarperCollins Children’s Books at http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com and HarperCollins Publishers at http://www.harpercollins.com.

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, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

Global Internet Speedup Initiative Announced; Technology Companies Band Together on Innovation to Make the Internet Faster Around the World

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 30, 2011

OpenDNS, the world’s largest and fastest-growing provider of DNS and Internet security services that deliver a safer, faster and more intelligent Internet experience to everyone, Google and leading Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) today announced the Global Internet Speedup initiative, a worldwide effort to improve Internet speeds and enable faster access to information.

The Global Internet Speedup enhances the way communication within the Domain Name System (DNS) is handled. The Internet has evolved from simple text-based pages to bandwidth intensive services such as video streaming, real-time communications and rich social networking that have become indispensable parts of our everyday lives. The DNS plays a critical role in delivering content fast, acting as one of the first pieces of the routing infrastructure that helps users get to content quickly and is the cornerstone for every major CDN. CDNs and other large Internet services typically direct the user to the nearest content server based on the location of the user’s DNS server rather than the location of the user themselves. This routing may result in slower Web page load times and decreased Internet performance if a user is not located near their DNS server.

The joint initiative announced today solves the problem by enabling CDNs to make more intelligent routing decisions based on the approximate location of a user rather than just the location of the user’s OpenDNS or Google Public DNS server. Regardless of where Internet users are located around the world, or which OpenDNS or Google Public DNS datacenter DNS requests are being served from, users connecting to participating Internet sites and CDNs’ content through OpenDNS and Google Public DNS will automatically be connected to the nearest or most optimal CDN server. The cooperation using open Internet standards among OpenDNS, Google, and the world’s leading CDNs represents a significant milestone in the continued improvement of Internet connectivity through technical collaborations amongst leading Internet companies.

“We’re very excited to team with Google and the world’s leading CDNs on such a significant improvement to the speed of the Internet,” said OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch. “The initiative we’ve partnered on is based on open standards that any other network can adopt, making this technology available to anyone. We’re proud to be leading the charge together with the world’s leading Internet companies and CDNs and we’re stoked to be delivering speed improvements to our more than 30 million users and thousands of enterprise businesses.”

“Google is committed to making the Internet faster – not just for our users, but for everyone,” said Dave Presotto, Distinguished Engineer at Google. “We will do that any way we can, by improving protocols, browsers, client software, and networks.”

Commentary from participating CDNs and supporters of the Global Internet Speedup:

BitGravity: “The Global Speedup Initiative is a terrific initiative for the Internet, and we are excited to support its adoption along with other CDNs, OpenDNS, and some of the largest operators on the Internet,” said Perry Wu, CEO of BitGravity. “BitGravity is continually looking for ways to improve Internet speed for our customers around the world, and we’re enthusiastic that this effort will further improve the Internet and end-user experiences.”

CDNetworks: “We welcome the focus that the Global Internet Speedup initiative puts on performance and the end-user experience” said Jeff Kim, COO of US and EMEA for CDNetworks. “We’re squarely focused on optimizing Web content and application performance in the world’s most challenging markets on behalf of our more than 1,200 customers who rely on us each day to deliver quality end-user experiences.”

Cloudflare: “CloudFlare is proud to participate in the Global Internet Speedup,” said Matthew Prince, CEO and Co-Founder of CloudFlare. “DNS is at the heart of the Internet and the eDNS extensions allow us to better route visitors on our network to the data center where they will get the fastest possible experience.”

Comodo: “By participating in this unique effort to improve the Web surfing experience for consumers everywhere, Comodo hopes to pave the way for more providers to optimize their networks for the current generation of Internet applications and make intelligent routing decisions in adopting this initiative,” said Melih Abdulhayoglu, Comodo CEO and chief security architect.

EdgeCast: “Improving Internet performance is at the core of the EdgeCast mission,” said Alex Kazerani, Chairman and CEO of EdgeCast Networks. “Working with OpenDNS to incorporate enhanced DNS standards into our network is another step toward fulfilling our goal of making the web faster for everyone.”

About the Global Internet Speedup Initiative

The Global Internet Speedup Initiative aims to make the global Internet faster through cooperation between OpenDNS, the largest Domain Name System (DNS) service provider in the world; Google, provider of Google Public DNS; and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). Through more transparency and collaboration the companies are able to enhance the Internet experience for millions of their joint customers. For more information, please visit: http://www.afasterinternet.com

About OpenDNS

OpenDNS is the world’s leading provider of Internet navigation and security services that make networks safer, faster, smarter and more reliable. Through DNS resolution, cloud-based Web content filtering and security services, OpenDNS empowers millions of households, schools and businesses to control how users navigate the Internet on their network, while dramatically increasing the network’s overall performance and reliability. For more information about OpenDNS, please visit: http://www.opendns.com

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©Copyright 1997-

, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.