This week we have a well-made high-contrast shape puzzler Onni & Ilona: Happy Shapes, plus a really interesting app that can turn your photos into paint-by-number images. Plus, Blox 3D Junior gets an update and a sale, and you can learn more about jellyfish sprite lightning.
Garry Froehlich
Onni & Ilona: Happy Shapes
by Pintxo Creative
Happy Shapes is a simple shape-based puzzle app for very young children. Toddlers can construct 12 different animals and objects. The puzzles are all simple, attractive, and use high contrast colors, and come with a fun animation when completed. Puzzles can be set to either tapping pieces to automatically place them in the puzzle, or the more traditional dragging pieces, depending on the ability of the child. Graphics, sound and animation are all well done. Three puzzles are included for free, with the others being unlocked with an in-app purchase.
Color Tree Coloring Book
by Little Beep
Color Tree is not a typical coloring book app. First, instead of coloring pre-made pictures, you create coloring book pages from your own pictures in your photo library. Second, it is a paint-by-number style with no actual brushes or pencils. You select a color from the palette and tap on a area to color it. The app can be a bit confusing at first, but it offers some interesting possibilities. Generating a coloring book image from a photo is impressive, and since you can save any picture or image to your photo library from a web page you can make a coloring page out of any image you find. You can also export uncoloured pages to your library and then print them if you’d like more traditional crayon and paper coloring. All in all, it’s an intriguing app, although it could be more kid friendly. You can try it for free with an in-app purchase to unlock advanced features.
Blox 3D Junior has been updated with step by step tutorials for creating 3D models and is currently on sale.
Jellyfish Sprite Lightning
Some amazing lightning.
#WeatherWednesday An immense Jellyfish Sprite briefly appeared above a distant thunderstorm on July 2nd, 2020. Sprites are large electrical discharges associated with lightning strikes, and occur high above storms in the mesophere and lower ionosphere. Image credit: S Hummel. pic.twitter.com/RXkgVs1Gbu
— McDonald Observatory (@mcdonaldobs) August 12, 2020
Here’s some background on the sprites, plus a video showing the capture of the image. You don’t actually see the sprite until the footage is slowed down.
