Parents looking to entertain their children on a long car ride or while waiting in line at the grocery store might take interest in this new app developed by local software company Axeva, located in Clifton Park.

The 99-cent app, called Colortoons, allows children to color pictures of cartoon animals, like dinosaurs, cows and monkeys, on the iPhone or iPod Touch. According to a release sent by the company, the app features "22 professional quality animal cartoons and 32 vibrant paint colors. Children can fill in large portions of the cartoons with the paint bucket tool or color on top of them with the paintbrush tool. There is also a blank canvas option that allows for limitless creativity."

Parents can save their children’s creations on the devices or disable the save function. (But who wouldn't want to digitally preserve their children's genius artistic creations forever? Time for a GB upgrade.)

For more info, go to http://www.axeva.com/colortoons or search for Colortoons in the iTunes store.

Pictured above is a screen shot of a sample Colortoons creation, from the Axeva website.

On a related note, this insightful NY times piece on our increasing tendency to tether ourselves to technological gadgets sources a family with a second-grade girl who has her own iPod Touch, laptop computer and portable DVD player. I bet she would like this app.