The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones & Company have released WSJ Live, an iPad app to watch live news and on-demand video from reporters worldwide.

Introducing WSJ Live: Original Programming, On Demand. WSJ Live brings you live news and on-demand video directly from 2,000 reporters across the globe. With WSJ Live you can:

• Tune into LIVE news programming for the latest from Markets, Tech, Opinion and more
• Access the entire video archive of The Wall Street Journal
• Discover the full suite of original programs from The Wall Street Journal in our Guide

WSJ Live is available on the iPad for free.

[App Store link]

Have an app you'd love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we'll take a look.

News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly said he sees a bright future for iPad and iPad-like devices when it comes to media consumption, and now there's a rumor he might launch a unit specifically to target the new, digital, mobile age. Could existing News Corp properties like Wall Street Journal and New York Times soon be joined by a new generation of publications?

Sources close to the company tell me that the company is considering creating a new purely digital news play that would be designed for the app world and would be available through subscription on devices like the iPad.

This new digital news venture would incorporate text, photo and video, tailored for the iTunes app format .... neither a newspaper nor a news website -- it would not be based on any of News Corp's existing papers.

Of course, publishers and Apple are reportedly still at odds over how to handle subscription pricing, and there's still a huge disconnect between publishers and consumers when it comes to packaging and pricing (iPad versions shouldn't cost more than print versions, right?), so the future it does come slowly...

[CNBC via MacRumors]

Rupert Murdoch, head of the massive News corp. whose holding include the Wall Street Journal and FOX, told the National Press Club in Washington that the iPad may just rescue old print-and-delivery-bound media:

"It may well be the saving of the newspaper industry", by making it cheaper to distribute content to a broader audience, Mr Murdoch said. He expected the iPad to have eight or nine competitors within 12 months.

"There's going to be tens of millions of these things sold all over the world" He said it would also help bring down the costs of newspaper publishing because "you don't have the costs of paper, ink, printing, trucks".

Unfortunately, neither the iPad nor any piece of technology can rescue old media from the old world thinking of its out-of-touch leadership -- the people who want to charge as much or more for iPad versions of their newspapers and magazines despite the lack of physical media costs, and who want to merely transplant text from static paper to dynamic displays with no creative thought or understanding of the new medium.

Who and what's going to save newspapers from that?

[Australian via Gizmodo]

Rupert Murdoch is bringing a Wall Street Journal app to the iPad the media mogul confirmed in his own paper:

"In fact, we've been allowed to work on one, and it's under padlock and key. The key is turned by Apple every night. But we will be on that with The Wall Street Journal."

Condé Nast is also getting in on the action according to the New York Times:

GQ will have a tablet version of its April issue ready. Vanity Fair and Wired will follow with their June issues, and The New Yorker and Glamour will have issues in the summer (the company has not yet determined the exact timing for those).

They say GQ for iPhone has already sold 150,000 copies, and they'll experiment with various advertising and pricing models. All the magazine apps will be developed internally with the exception of Wired, which was/is developed with Adobe.

Publisher Penguin wants to go so far as to abandon the limitations of the ePub format and make their books into apps, says Paid Content:

“We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about.

Check out their video, after the break...

[via MacRumors x2, Gizmodo, 9to5Mac]

YouTube link

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they're iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they're fair game.

So who's on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chris' Pick: Direct TV

DirecTV initially enabled web access for programming your DVR, but now they have an app to do it on your iPhone. The interface is nice and simple, and it allows you to search for shows, browse for shows, and then select specific shows. The show has a synopsis, and you can choose to record the episode or record the series. If you have multiple DVR's, you can select which one you want to record to. It's a nice way to manage your DirecTV recordings while not at home - if only you could watch them as well! [FREE - iTunes link]

James' Pick: Wall Street Journal

WSJ has upped the ante by releasing an app that accesses their paid online content for free. Articles and videos can be stored for off-line access. Take that New York Times! [Free - iTunes link]

Jeremy's Pick: Skyfart

Skyfart is a... [never mind, we get the idea!]. It's actually not that bad! I'm number 1, baby! Frigging sweet. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Leanna's Pick: Sudoku Grab

I have always wanted the ability to play ANY sudoku puzzle on my iPhone. My dream came true with Sudoku Grab. All I have to do is take a photo of a puzzle in a book, magazine, or newspaper and Sudoku Grab converts it for me to play and even knows the solution! [ $0.99 - iTunes link]

Matt's Pick: Ouch

Ouch is the best game to release some stress When you have had a really bad day and want to beat the crap out of someone, Ouch will come to your rescue. The whole object of the game is to create as much pain to the avatar as possible. The app allows you to not only play the levels, but also allows you to customize them as well. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Rene's Pick: Birdhouse

No, Birdhouse hasn't become my go-to Twitter reader or @reply client (it doesn't -- and isn't mean to -- do that), but to my surprise and increasing delight, it HAS become my stand-alone tweet crafter. And it's unpublish feature has let me mitigate all manner of embarrassing errors, more than justifying not only it's niche import, but it's price. [$3.99 - iTunes link]

Special Guest Pick from PreCentral.net Jennifer: Whiteboard Collaborative Drawing

It's fun being able to draw on your iPhone and use the different colors. And what's especially cool about Whiteboard is that you can connect with another person's iPhone or an iPod touch near you. The two of you can draw a pic together or even chat by writing notes using the smallest sized pen. My niece showed me the app and we had fun drawing together and playing a game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Check out the attached pic that my niece Jordan drew on her iPod touch using Whiteboard. It looks like a swatch of fabric! She drew on it and then magnified it and then drew some more. LOL, she said that she and her best friend sneak and write notes back and forth in chorus. Naughty, naughty! [FREE - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

Yeah, you're part of team TiPb too, so what's your pick of the week? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us -- and everyone -- know in the comments!