News Archive for 04/07/16

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Briefly: iPhoto-knockoff, free music, AAPL "neutral"

07/16, 11:30pm

iPhoto-knockoff, ...

In Brief: The Malaysian government has a newly stated preference for open-source software under its new technology procurement program; Google has purchased the iPhoto-like, but Windows-only Picasa desktop software that allows users to transfer photos from your digital camera, organize photos, edit/print/share photos, create slideshows, and order prints. Analysts at Caris & Company have initiated coverage of Apple stock with an "average" rating and a target price of $33; George Washington University this fall will offer free music to incoming students part of an agreement with Napster, while Virginia Tech will offer iTunes software to its students to allow them to legally purchase music.

Macworld Boston 2004 Recap: A Different Kind of Expo

07/16, 11:00pm

MWB 04 Recap

There's no question that Macworld Conference & Expo's return to Boston was muted by Apple's absence, a smaller showfloor, and a sharp downturn in attendance. Predictions from pundits had spelled disaster for Expo before the virgin doors of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center even swung open Monday. Yet when the curtains came down Thursday and the carpets rolled up, the consensus among attendees and exhibitors was largely positive.

Feral takes preorders for Enemy Engaged

07/16, 2:45pm

Enemy Engaged preorders

UK gamemaker Feral today announced that Enemy Engaged is now available for preorder and said that the game would ship in 3-4 weeks. Enemy Engaged is the sequel to the 1998 Apache Havoc by Razorworks: "With Enemy Engaged you're in for the ultimate helicopter flight and combat experience. We're talking seriously realistic 3D simulation here, with animated pilots, state of the art cockpit and landscape design and truly dynamic campaigns." Gamers can choose either the US Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 "Comanche" or the twin-rotored Russian Kamov KA-52 Hokum B "Alligator" and either choose to be the pilot or co-pilot--with the computer or another player playing the second role. The $45 game, available for preorder now, runs on Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

Apple's market share at 3.7 percent

07/16, 1:45pm

Apple No. 5 PC vendor

Apple was the No. 5 PC vendor in the US market in the second quarter with a 3.7% market share behind Dell (32.9%), HP (19.3%), Gateway (5.6%), and IBM (5.6%). IDC research said that Apple sold 495,00 Macs, representing a growth of 9.3% from the same quarter in 2003. Shipments include those to distribution channels or end users. Gateway showed the strongest growth of nearly 60% in the US market, shipping more than 750,000 units. Overall, the US market grew 10.9%; however Apple was not among the 5 vendors in worldwide shipments. As noted earlier, that market grew by 15.5% with strong demand in Europe as well as better than expected results in Canada and Latin America.

Forums: ship dates; G4 battery; 15" vs. 17" ...

07/16, 1:30pm

Forums: ship dates ...

Topics of discussion on the MacNN forums today include: a poll on the reliability of Apple's product ship dates; improvements after replacing a PowerBook G4's battery; comparing the 15" PowerBook to the 17" model; a member's positive experience with Mac OS X 10.3.1; ongoing discussion of OmniWeb 5 for Mac OS X.

InterView 3.0 ships with QuickTime 6.5 support

07/16, 11:45am

InterView 3.0

Daystar Technology has released the XLR8 InterView 3.0 USB video capture device. Interview 3.0 supports 352x240/352x288 video capture at 29.97/25 fps from NTSC/PAL devices, features S-Video, RCA composite video, and stereo audio input, and now includes QuickTime 6.5 and MPEG-4 support, VideoImpression capture and editing software as well as Windows XP compatibility. Other new features include multiple device support on a single system, expanded third-party application support, fully Mac OS X native drivers, and improved video quality. InterView 3.0 sells for $90.

Max/MSP 4.5 graphical music, audio toolkit updated

07/16, 11:20am

Max/MSP 4.5

Cycling '74 has released Max/MSP 4.5, an upgrade to its $500 graphical environment for music, audio, and multimedia. Users can create their own software using a visual toolkit of objects, and connect them together with patch cords. The basic environment Max includes MIDI, control, user interface, and timing objects. Version 4.5 offers support for Javascript, Java, and Mach-O support for C developers as well as an all-in-one spectral display with spectroscope, the ability to edit multiple filters simultaneously using one filtergraph, imageburgers, high quality image interpolation, OpenGL-based 2D/3D rendering, antialiasing, alpha belnding, pre-built templates, and improved Patcher attributes. Upgrades are $150 or $100 (Max-only) through the end of September.

Tech: MS buys search, Dell earnings, spam loses,...

07/16, 11:05am

MS search, Dell earnings

Tech news: Microsoft has acquired new Lookout search technology that focuses on email and desktop search, possibly as a competitor to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's search technology; Dell raised its second-quarter financial guidance on Friday, saying it expects to post a profit of 31 cents per share on $11.7 billion in revenues; Microsoft has been awarded almost $4 million in damages from a California man for trademark infringement, false advertising and cybersquatting, after he initiated a spam e-mail campaign; The recording industry has "blacklisted" Internet file-sharing services and is preventing other companies from doing business with them.

Optimize shadows and highlights with Photomatix

07/16, 11:00am

Photomatix 2.0

Photomatix 2.0 is an application that extends the dynamic range of digital photographs or scanned films. It accomplishes this through the use of exposure blending -- combining overexposed and underexposed versions of the same image to blend them into one -- and tone mapping, which takes a High Dynamic Range image and processes it to compress its tonal range while preserving local contrast. Photomatix 2.0 is $100; a free trial is available.

Briefly: Geek My Ride, Apple retail store events,...

07/16, 10:15am

Geek My Ride, Apple events

In Brief: Tech Superpowers has posted the winners of its Macworld Edit on the Fly competition in which entrants had 90 minutes to edit their footage in the company's Lexus IS 300, which was custom-fitted with a plethora of HD editing gear. MacJams has published a report that encompasses everything GarageBand-related that took place and was demonstrated at Macworld. Upcoming events at Apple retail stores include The Polyphonic Spree performing on Monday, July 19th at the San Francisco store and Roger Ebert speaking this coming Wednesday about film making and the Mac at the Chicago store. [updated]

Kano ships X-Spand FireWire storage tower

07/16, 9:45am

Kano X-Spand storage tower

Kano has introduced the X-Spand desktop-storage tower system, available in two- or four-bay versions that can house up to 1TB of disk space. The X-Spand features FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 connectivity; the company says that it features FireWire 800 transfer rates up to 50% faster than first-generation FireWire 800 drives. It ships with Dantz Retrospect Express automatic backup software and is available in the following configurations: 2 bay, 160GB ($455), 240GB ($500), 500GB ($800); and 4 bay, 320GB ($835), 480GB ($950), 1TB ($1,545). PCI FireWire 800 host adapters start at $70.

Microsoft sees music subscriptions as the future

07/16, 9:25am

MS bets on music subs

Microsoft is betting that the subscription model for online music purchases, and new players it plans to roll out that support subscription downloads, will trump a la carte music stores. The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) notes that proponents of Microsoft's model point out that for just $10 or $20 a month, subscribers will be able to fill up their entire digital player with music, as opposed to the $10,000 or so it would take in iTunes Music Store purchases to fill the 40GB iPod. Microsoft's approach was reportedly a tough sell to record labels at first, but the company pointed out that the average music listener spend $4.66 on music each month, and that subscription services will accordingly generate more money with their monthly fees. When a subscriber stops paying for the service, they lose access to all the music they have downloaded.

Apps: You Synchronize, Beholder, QuickTunes

07/16, 9:00am

Apps: Beholder, QuickTunes

• You Synchronize 2.1 ($50) brings iDisk support to the backup and synchronization software. Enhanced support for synchronizing files to remote and removable volumes has also been added, as well as miscellaneous bug fixes.
  
  
• Beholder 1.5 (free) is an application for quickly searching images on the Web through services such as Google. The software can also be used to scan local images and iPhoto libraries and uses the company's PrismZoom technology to created zoomed previews.
  
  
• Capacity 0.2 (free) is a small utility that displays battery status information for PowerBooks and iBooks, including total actual capacity. The software was inspired by this forum thread.
  
  
• OnMyCommandCM 1.6 (free) is a contextual menu CLI and AppleScript executor. The command can take a clicked object as a parameter so you may perform an action on file, folder or text. Version 1.6 allows users to create CommandDroplets, small applications that execute OMC commands, as well as direct Applescript support and more.
  
  
• QuickTunes 1.0.0 is a small application that puts the name of the currently playing iTunes song in the menu bar and also allows users to rate the track and control basic iTunes functionality.

OD2 to add 1 million songs to pass iTunes, Napster

07/16, 7:10am

OD2 expands music catalog

The European online music service OD2 said it will add nearly one million new tracks to become the biggest internet music service in the world, noting that its sales increased by 28% week-on-week following the Euro iTunes launch and by 22% the week that Napster launched its European operations, according to a BBC report: "The service, which was bought by US service Loudeye earlier this year, will boost its catalogue from 350,000 tracks to more than 1.3 million. This would make it larger than Apple's iTunes or Napster, both of which have more than 700,000 songs. The OD2 catalogue increase is expected to take place later this year."

AAPL stock up 12 percent, target prices raised

07/16, 6:20am

AAPL stock up 12 percent

Apple's stock rose almost 12 percent--from $3.49 to $33.07--after it announced that its third-quarter profits tripled on surging demand for the iPod portable music player and higher sales of Macintosh computers, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, analyst Steven Fortuna of Prudential Financial reiterated his "neutral weight" rating on Apple, but raised his target price for Apple stock from $25 to $27. He said that Apple's stock is "fully valued at present," according NewRatings. Meanwhile, Needham & Co reiterate its "buy" rating on Apple, raising the target price from $33 to $36. Apple says it expects to post $0.16 or $0.17 EPS in the September quarter (including a $0.01 restructuring charge), which was slightly ahead of analyst expectations.

Tech: eBay digital music, IM collaboration, ATT "3G"

07/16, 3:50am

eBay music, IM services

Tech News: eBay will allow some customers to buy and sell digital music files as part of a pilot program that allows a number of "preapproved" music buyers to sell music in its new "Digital Downloads" category for the next 180 days; AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo are teaming up to link their separate instant messaging services for use in the workplace; Worldwide PC shipments showed a more than 13% growth in the second quarter--with Dell, HP, and IBM among the top 3 vendors, respectively-- although a slight decline in demand may occur in the second half of the year; AT&T Wireless will launch a high-speed "3G" Internet service for mobile phones this year with the roll-out in San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix and Detroit expected next week.

Briefly: USB Debug, G5 dev note, Windows migration

07/16, 3:40am

G5 dev note, Win migration

In Brief: The USB Software Debug Kit for Mac OS X 10.3.4 as well as a recent update to the G5 Power Mac Developer note (including a list of new features) are available from Apple's developer website; MacZealots has created a tutorial on how to set-up, configure, and use CVS with Xcode on Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther"; and dincTYPE continues to offer new free fonts, including Thirteen, Sugaree and ROOM 100 (with three fonts: Naked Lunch, Coral Sea, and Dee Dee--all of which were inspired by the Chelsea Hotel); Apple's music suite--including the iPod and iTunes Music Store--is "emerging as a Trojan horse that's beginning to fuel a migration of Windows users to the Mac platform," according to Needham analyst Charles Wolf.

KB: iTunes backups, Raster inkjet support, Keyframes

07/16, 3:15am

KB: iTunes backups

Apple KB roundup: Smart Playlists can be used to make regular backups of your music in iTunes (after making a complete backup); Apple notes that Raster (ink jet) printer drivers are included with Mac OS X 10.3, providing a list of included drivers (as well as a list of Postscript printer PPDs); Long Internet URLs in a message may not work in Mac OS X 10.3's Mail application; and Keyframes are not pasted when you choose 'Paste Attributes' in Final Cut Pro HD.

CSi releases Concepts 3D, Concepts 2D design packages

07/16, 3:00am

Concepts 2D/3D design apps

CSi today announced two new additions to its family of products, Concepts 3D and Concepts 2D. Similar to Concepts Unlimited, the new products target professional design communities who "need fast, flexible, and intuitive tools for turning ideas into precise CAD models. Concepts 3D provides affordable precision modeling while Concepts 2D uniquely provides a means to automatically create 2D drawings from 3D data such as native SAT, ProE, and CATIA files."

Waves in Motion offers Events 4.0 for FileMaker 7

07/16, 2:50am

Events 4.0 for FileMaker 7

Waves in Motion has released Events 4.0 for FileMaker Pro 7.0, an update to its application to easily automate routine database activities: "Rebuilt from the ground up for FileMaker 7.0, Events 4.0 is faster and incredibly easy to use. Events 4.0 allows you to build triggers to run from just about any FileMaker action. In addition, all actions can now result in email being sent directly without the need for an email client application or additional plug-in." Developers can also trigger scripts, send emails, or create reoccuring events when exiting a field, manipulating records, and/or entering a layout. A single-user version is $130.

AirPort Express: Europe delays, notes, "mini-review"

07/16, 2:35am

AirPort Express details

Apple has delayed shipments of AirPort Express to customers in the UK and other parts of Europe, according to a note sent to customers on Thursday. AirPort Express, which began shipping in the US earlier this week, was expected to ship "on or before July 15", according readers who placed early orders with the online Apple Store. Apple's email indicated a new ship date of "on or before July 30th," saying simply that it was unable to meet the previously estimated ship date. Apple also recently posted several articles on the device, including: flashing LED status light and problems joining a network, automatic password changes by the AirPort Express Assistant, and Windows XP requires WZC. One reader also offered a few "first impressions" of the device.

Empress deilvers embedded database for Mac OS X

07/16, 2:10am

Empress Embedded Database

Empress Software today announced Empress Embedded Database V8.62 for Mac OS X, a database solution that is available as in single-user, multi-user and server systems; it offers a full-featured, "zero-maintenance" database management system for personal, Web, enterprise and embedded application development. The small-footprint database engine has open API's for C, C++, SQL, ODBC, JDBC, Perl and Tcl/tk. "From scientists to engineers, web designers to system builders, development and deployment of applications is swift and simple, plus no system tuning or DBA is required." Empress pricing starts at $165.