Ex-Apple CFO settles with SEC, repays $3.5m...

Former Apple executive Fred Anderson has settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission on his alleged participation in the backdating of stock options at the computer maker and the agency is expected to pursue a civil lawsuit against the company's ex-general counsel Nancy Heinen on similar charges, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Heinen, who left Apple last May and plans to contest the SEC charges, will be accused -- as early as this week -- of helping to manipulate one of her own option awards as well as a never-exercised options grant to Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs based in part on testimony from other former Apple employees.

Freeverse debuts Periscope webcam software

Freeverse today announced Periscope 1.0, a new low-cost webcam application for Mac OS X. Designed for simplicity, the new software allows users to easily configure the Mac's built-in iSight to document a day, protect a home, or keep an eye on the kids. It brings together Apple's hardware, software and services such as .Mac, AppleScript, the iSight, Mail, iPhoto, and even the Apple Remote, to create a new tool for security or just for fun. Users can configure Periscope to monitor a room and email a picture when it detects motion or sound. Or they can configure Periscope to take a photo every half-hour and upload it to a .Mac webpage, Flickr account or FTP site -- easily allowing users to create a time-lapse movie. Periscope is a Universal application and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. It is priced at $30.

Griffin ships AirDock dock/remote for iPod...

Griffin today announced a charge/sync/play docking station for iPod. The new AirDock for iPod is designed "to position the iPod as the centerpiece of any home entertainment system," according to the company; it provides the output connectors for integrating an iPod with a television and home stereo as a well as a five-button remote. "Connect the included AV cable, and soon you are enjoying your music, audiobooks, TV shows, movies and music videos, and your own photo slideshows, direct from your iPod to your TV and sound system. Living up to its name, AirDock even includes a RF remote control, so you can control playback from your couch." The AirDock also lets users connect an iPod to a computer for data synchronization and charges its battery. The AirDock is available now for $70 and is compatible with fourth/fifth generation iPods as well as first/secnd generation iPod nanos and the iPod mini.

FileCatalyst 2.0 boasts faster transfers

Unlimi-Tech Software today released FileCatalyst 2.0, an update to the utility designed to offer maximum throughput for large point-to-point or multi-cast file transfer applications. The latest release includes patent-pending technology with less than 1 percent overhead, according to the company, as well as on-the-fly compression and byte-level incremental transfers. FileCatalyst 2.0 for the Mac uses software automation to overcome the file transfer inefficiencies associated with packet loss and latency, boasting effective throughput that is 2-3 times greater than line speed. The software utilizes SSL for its control channel as well as AES for data encryption, and automatically detects line speed with adaptive rate control. User-based authentication with permissions control helps administrators keep data secure, and the software is cross-platform compatible with Mac OS X as well as Linux and Microsoft Windows (pricing and system requirements were unavailable).

Hardcore gamer makes public plea to Apple...

In an open letter to Apple, lifelong gamer and Fileplanet.com blogger 'Fargo' has made a public plea for vastly improved game support under Mac OS X. "There is only one reason I still have a Windows PC: games," Fargo wrote. "It's not that the Mac gaming shelf is devoid of life -- any system that plays Civ IV gets a thumbs-up in my book -- but for a serious gamer the PC continues to be where it's at." The blogger goes on to detail gaming history on the Mac platform, and offers some suggestions for the Cupertino-based company to attract hardcore gamers "in droves." "I know it's humiliating, but for once you've got to look at what Microsoft is doing and copy it. Those guys are scared of you -- and they know that games are the one and only thing that has prevented you from hitting the Tipping Point years ago."

Coda, SubEthaEdit editors connect online

TheCodingMonkeys has announced that its Subetha Engine has been integrated into a newly-released third-party program, Panic's Coda. Coda is designed to simply the website development process, integrating functions like a text editor, Terminal and file transfer into the same application; the unique advantage to the Subetha Engine is compatibility with CodingMonkeys' SubEthaEdit, allowing users of both programs to collaborate on code in real-time. Coinciding with the launch of Coda is SubEthaEdit 2.6.3, which primarily fixes bugs in stability and collaboration, but also adds missing PHP 5 keywords and better comments coloring in CSS. Coda is $80 and requires Mac OS X 10.4; SubEthaEdit is $35 and requires Mac OS X 10.3.9.

Apple CEO, design chief up for TIME 100

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and senior vice president of industrial design Jonathan Ive are both candidates for the in the next TIME 100, a poll designed to root out the publics pick of the most influential people of the year. Jobs, at age 52, enters the running as the CEO of Apple and the largest shareholder of Disney. The executive has already appeared in the TIME 100 on four previous occasions, and was featured on a total of five TIME covers to date. Ive, meanwhile, is listed as the principal designer of Apple's primary products -- such as the iMac, iPod, and the forthcoming iPhone. The publication is encouraging the public to cast their vote on a scale of 1-100 for preferred candidates.

Wacom readies compact LCD tablet...

Wacom has just unveiled the PL-521, a smaller alternative to its artist-oriented Cintiq screens. The 15-inch LCD is large enough for adding writing and sketches to documents and is labeled as a great fit for businesses and schools; to help, the screen's stand can adjust to either 140 degrees horizontal or a more easel-like 130 degrees vertical. A VGA output relays the video signal to an exteral monitor or projector.

Coda offers one-window Web development

Panic Software has released Coda, a one-window Web development application that supports editing text, transmitting files to servers, editing CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), working in a terminal, and more. The software aims to streamline the Web development process, handling 'sites' as individual entities. Each site maintains its own specific settings, and Coda restores user sessions from its last state exactly as it was the last time that site was edited. Upon opening a site Coda connects to servers, and restores splits as well as tabs to their previous state. The software also automatically tracks local changes to sites, uploading those changes with a push of the 'Publish All' button. Coda is currently available for $80, and is normally priced at $100. The application requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Fission 1.5 adds full insertion support

Rogue Amoeba today released Fission 1.5, bringing full audio insertion support to the audio editor for Mac OS X. Fission enables lossless editing of MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, and AIFF audio files. The update enables users to merge files via drag-and-drop, and a new Gain Adjustment feature supports manually increasing or decreasing of the volume for any file. Fission 1.5 offers full support for cue sheet files, includes auto-complete functionality in inspector fields, and adds zoom to the selection command as well as the Album Artist tag to Inspector. Fission 1.5 is available for $32, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Apps: BBEdit; CSSEdit; iUnit; Sandvox

• BBEdit 8.6.2 ($125) is the latest version of Bare Bones' popular text editing program. The new version is entirely a maintenance release, addressing bugs such as Control-key combinations being inserted into text, and a regression of XML and HTML in which the language mappings were incomplete. Numerous crash, typo and syntax errors have been fixed as well. The update is free to owners of BBEdit 8.5 and 8.6. The program requires Mac OS X 10.4. [Download - 14.3MB]


• CSSEdit 2.5 ($30) -- unrelated to BBEdit -- is a style-sheet editor capable of designing everything from blogs to web applications, with features such as real-time preview, and falling back to Milestones if code proves unsuitable. Version 2.5 now offers context-sensitive code suggestions, and has an improved interface, with better tab control and the ability to describe a style in plain language. X-Ray Inspector is now used to integrate CSS with webpages. Mac OS X 10.4 or later is required. [Download - 2MB]


• iUnit 3.5 ($20) is a shareware measurement unit conversion program. The latest version adds units of measurement for computer storage units, mole flow rate, sound, molar concentration, and liquid concentration. iUnit converts between 1684 different units of measurements in 51 categories, including distance, mass, volume, velocity, density, currency, and other types of measurements. It is available for both Mac OS X as well as Mac OS 8/9. [Download - 1.3MB]


• Sandvox 1.2 ($50) updates the website-building application for Mac OS X, adding customizable banners in many designs, four new pagelets to add dynamic content from other websites as well as display IM and Skype status, display the number of page views, and alert readers to the availability of RSS feeds. The Pro version ($80) adds a "Code Injection" panel that can insert JavaScript, PHP, or HTML into strategic areas of all pages or individual pages as desired and a larger, a resizable window for editing raw HTML (with built-in search and replace) and integration with Google Webmaster tools. It is a Universal Binary and requires Mac OS X "Tiger" 10.4.4 and above. [Download - 24MB]


• Smart Scroll X 2.2 ($20) enhances scrolling in Mac OS X by making scrollwheel action smoother and faster, and adding the "Grab Scroll" tool, which allows users to quickly move through a window's contents. The v2.2 release supports several new applications, including Camino, NetNewsWire and Safari's RSS display. Also added is the long-requested option to scroll without moving the mouse cursor. The program requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher. [Download - 1.5MB]


• TimeFlyer 1.4 ($25) simplifies creating visual timelines, for purposes such as depicting historical events or projecting expected business outcomes. Users can use backwards-counting dates, pair different timelines together, and choose from a variety of text and graphical styles, including movies. The v1.4 update supports vertical orientation, and should be easier to use for first-time dabblers. The program is a Universal Binary for Mac OS X 10.4. [Download - 931KB]

FlightCheck 6 supports QuarkXPress, Indesign...

Markzware today released FlightCheck 6 for Mac with support for QuarkXPress 7 and Adobe InDesign CS3 support. FlightCheck is a quality control program for print and publishing that features a refined user interface for PDF preflighting, as well as support for third-party font applications. The software also offers a pre-configured collection of folders, and boasts enhanced font as well as image search capability. Both FlightCheck Designer 6 and FlightCheck Professional 6 are available as free upgrades for registered FlightCheck 5.8 users who purchased the product on February 1st, 2007 or later, with new licenses priced at $200 and $500, respectively. [upgrade pricing corrected]

Amazon readying DRM-free music?...

Amazon is preparing to open its own online music service without copy protection, according to the Times. The British paper claims that Amazon has been speaking to all four major labels about offering songs in the unguarded MP3 format for release in May, placing the online retailer in direct competition with EMI music that will be available through Apple's iTunes at the same time.

Picturesque adds special effects to images

Acqualia today released Picturesque, a new drag-and-drop enabled application designed to improve the look of images for the Web. The software offers special effects such as reflections, glows, shadows, curves, soft fades, and strokes. Picturesque works with images in batches, resizing and applying effects on entire folders of images. Users can save images with transparency for working with various background colors, and a set of Automator actions eases the workflow when applying special effects to images. The application is priced at $20, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Microsoft may face crippling EU fines...

Although already sanctioned with multi-million-dollar fines by the European Union, Microsoft could soon start bleeding that amount daily, warns EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Microsoft is accused of artificially inflating the price of its Workgroup Server Protocol Program; this, says the EU, is discouraging competitors from producing their own server software. Reuters reports that Microsoft has so far refused to lower prices, citing a need for "greater clarity" on what a reasonable price would be. If the two sides are unable to come to an agreement, Microsoft could fined as much as €3 million ($4 million) daily, laying waste to the company's profits.

Project to bring DirectX 10 to Mac, Win XP?...

Young developer Cody Brocious intends to bring DirectX 10 to "platforms other than Microsoft Vista," according to his company's latest update. Called the Alky Project, Falling Leaf Systems' programming effort transforms the unified shader code at the heart of DirectX 10 into raw machine language, allowing any system to run games written for the advanced graphics standard without requiring either Windows Vista or video cards such as the GeForce 8-series. The ultimate goal is to bring games made for DirectX 10 and earlier to Mac and Linux systems, the company says.

Analyst: expect slight upside to Mac, iPod...

Apple is due to report its March quarter results after the market closes on Wednesday, and research firm Piper Jaffray expects a slight upside to Wall Street's consensus revenue of $5.2 billion for the Cupertino-based company. The firm also believes favorable component pricing will provide upside to Street expectations of $0.63 earnings-per-share, and that Apple sold around 1 million iPods during the March quarter over Wall Street's predicted 10.7 million. Based on checks with Apple resellers, research analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray expects a slight quarter-over-quarter decline of between 5-10 percent vs. Wall Street's expectation that Mac units will fall 10 percent. Piper Jaffray maintains its 'Outperform' rating on Apple shares with a $123 price target.

Jobs likely to avoid criminal charges...

Apple boss Steve Jobs -- who is considered the company's backbone and driving force -- is likely to avoid criminal charges in the federal investigation of illegal stock options backdating, according to one report. A Mercury News examination of the backdated 2001 stock-options grant to Jobs, which was achieved via falsified documentation, is the focus of the federal investigation but reveals little evidence that points to criminal charges against the executive. The investigation has so far revealed no evidence that Jobs directed the illegal backdating of his own grant or worked to cover it up, according to lawyers familiar with the grant who asked to remain anonymous. As a result, federal prosecutors lack the type of egregious misconduct necessary to incriminate Jobs in the ongoing investigation, according to the report.

Jahshaka Project releases Jahplayer 3...

The Jahshaka Project today released Jahplayer 3 build 0.2.0, adding critical updates for improved stability while bringing the software closer to the final release stage. Jahplayer is designed as a professional media player with support for uncompressed video and image sequences at resolutions as high as 2KB and 4KB in real time. The software aims to provide a robust set of image analysis and asset management tools while allowing users to maintain or change the aspect ratio of source media on the fly. Jahplayer supports disk- or memory-based playback, and features variable frame rate control alongside RGBA color channel views. Jahplayer is available for download from the Jahshaka project website, and requires Mac OS X (specific system requirements were unavailable).

Smultron 3.0 updates appearance, speed

An open source developer has released Smultron 3.0, a free text editor for Mac OS X Tiger designed for simple usage with advanced functionality. The tabbed text editor features line numbers, support for syntax coloring for numerous languages, a functions list, and support for text encodings as well as snippets. The latest release improves the handling of projects as well as commands, offers an updated appearance, includes new icons, and reduces memory usage. The offers also includes faster syntax coloring, quicker printing speed, and includes a vertical split option as well as FreeFem++ syntax definition. Smultron 3.0 includes numerous bug fixes, and requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later.

HoudahGeo 1.0 "pins" photos to locations

Houdah Software has released HoudahGeo 1.0, bringing the geocoding application for Mac out of the beta stage. HoudahGeo enables users to link photos to the location where they were taken, and supports writing that information to EXIF tags or publishing it to Google Earth. Users simply "pin" photos to their respective locations, and doesn't require a digital camera with built-in GPS capability or even a GPS device. The software runs natively on Intel-based Macs as a Universal Binary, and requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later alongside a digital camera. Houdah Software is offering HoudahGeo 1.0 is available for $25 for a limited time, with the price rising to $35 when HoudahGeo 1.1 is released.

iStat pro 4 widget offers system monitoring

iSlayer has released iStat pro 4, a rebuilt version of the company's system monitoring widget for Mac OS X. The software offers nine sections -- which can be shown or hidden -- and features highly detailed information on CPUs (up to 8 cores), memory, hard drives, IP and external IP, bandwidth, battery, wireless keyboard and mouse battery, uptime, temperatures, and fans. Version 4 adds support for eight-core Mac Pros, live updates (network changes, disk mounts/unmounts, Bluetooth connections/disconnections, Intel module installer completion), better support for local iDisks, process sorting, improved Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 support, and more. The widget is "donationware". It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

New ExpressCard Modem for MacBook Pros

nova media today announced GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 Ready, an ExpressCard Modem for MacBook Pros to establish fast mobile Internet connections worldwide. GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 Ready features support for high speed HSDPA and 3GUMTS data connections with up to 7.2 Mbit/second in appropriate mobile networks as well as EDGE and GRPS connections in all other cases. "This nifty modem includes launch2net, a wizard to set up and establish mobile Internet connections." states jan Fuellemann, PR spokesperson at nova media. "launch2net already includes connection settings for most mobile network operators from Alaska to New Zealand and in between. In most cases it only takes seconds for the customer to be online." GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 Ready will be available beginning of May for €300 plus VAT and shipping costs and is now available for preorder.

Samsung develops 4GB stacked memory...

Samsung this morning revealed that it had established a new, breakthrough method of creating RAM that should revolutionize the amount of storage and performance of virtually all computer memory. A new technique, dubbed a wafer-level-processed stacked package (WSP), allows the company to place memory chips on top of each other with virtually no space in between: rather than use wires that add bulk, the chips themselves contain laser-cut holes that are filled by copper links, joining each memory chip simply by placing one on top of another.