Reviews+

Our teen reviewers are still catching up from the holiday break. Bruno Mars first came to fame after his vocals were featured on the song "Billionaire," which he worked on with Travie McCoy in 2010. Now he has released his second studio album, Unorthodox Jukebox, building on his musical creativity—he cowrote all the songs—while still perfecting the art of chart-topping singles. And how did I not hear about an auto-racing game set in Colorado? (My family might tell you that every time I drive, it's like an auto race… ) I may have to give Forza Horizon a try myself.

Popcorn Maker, a tool for enhancing and remixing Web video from Mozilla, gets the screencast treatment by Linda W. Braun, who says the free, browser-based application would help librarians, both school and public, curate the Web.

The wonderful teacher librarians of the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) recently released the five-minute video, Teacher Librarians at the Heart of Student Learning. The video, partially funded by Mackin, is designed to present school libraries and teacher librarians as a vital resource for student learning and to highlight the essential role teacher librarians play [...]

So, imagine if every video we that watched on the Web worked like the Web–completely remixable, linked to its source content, interactive for everyone who used it. I think Popcorn could change the way we tell stories on the Web and the way we understand the world we live in.                      Ryan Merkley, Mozilla’s Chief [...]

A program that's basic in a lot of ways, but also very, very solid...

Selecting our 10 top apps of the year is always an impossible task. Read our expanded list of favorites from 2011 and 2012.