July 09 - 11:30pm EDT   Spiderweb Software has announced Avernum 6, the final game in its role-playing series. Set in the world of Avernum, the game takes players to an underground world where a nation of people live inside large tunnels and caverns far below the planets surface. The final chapter has the world of Avernum in chaos, where the mushrooms have withered and died and the people are suffering from hunger. In the midst of the problem the reptilian Slithzerikai have emerged from the low tunnels to battle the weakened people. [full story]

July 09 - 10:30pm EDT   Microsoft tonight launched the public version of Silverlight 3, its animation and video plugin for the web. The rival to Flash is the company's first to use hardware graphics acceleration both for 3D and for offloading the work of decoding video from the main processor. Regardless of graphics power, the update is also the first to promise a near-seamless HD video experience: a "smooth streaming" technique that automatically lowers the bitrate to start playback immediately and quickly brings it back up to provide the maximum quality the connection allows. [full story]

July 09 - 07:55pm EDT   GenArts has announced a monthly rental option for its flagship plugin effects, Sapphire. The plugins can be rented for $170 per month; far less than the $1699 purchase cost of the plug-in for After Effects or Final Cut Pro. This option is designed to allow artists who work on a project basis to avoid purchasing the costly full license of the Adobe After Effects plug-in or an Apple Final Cut Pro FxPlug. GenArts allows rental users to apply up to two months of rental fees as credit towards purchasing a permanent license of Sapphire. [full story]

July 09 - 07:25pm EDT   Newmium has announced yet another internet browser, the Newmium iXBrowser. The browser boasts compatibility with all versions of HTML 4 defined by the World Wide Web Consortium. Offering platform-independent compatibility with all versions of HTML 4 allows website developers to create more consistent cross-platform designs. The Newmium iXBrowser offers compatibility with various operating systems including Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, WinCE, and FreeBSD in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Newmium claims that the browser not only maintains the same interface throughout each system, but will also display sites the same regardless of operating system. [full story]

July 09 - 07:05pm EDT   Creaceed has released the CeedVocal SDK, which allows developers to build speech recognition into their iPhone applications. The CeedVocal SDK is based on acoustic models developed in English, French and German, providing voice activity detection for each of those languages. The software development kit includes a "phonetizer" that recognizes many common words and up to 5000 developer-defined words. [full story]

July 09 - 06:55pm EDT   Synium has released its newest version of MacFamilyTree. The application enables users to research their lineage and create family trees that can be displayed in a variety of styles. Version 5.6 improves performance by using multiple processors or cores to complete tasks faster. MacFamilyTree 5.6 also includes a new subtree viewing feature, which shows partial subtrees within a database. [full story]

July 09 - 06:55pm EDT   Over one-third of mobile phones are expected to integrate accelerometers by 2010, according to the research firm iSuppli. Widespread adoption of the Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors is being driven by popular devices such as Apple's iPhone and the recently-launched Palm Pre. Although the trend continues to develop in the smartphone segment, the technology is also being used in simpler devices. [full story]

July 09 - 05:50pm EDT   Zensify (free) collects information from all of a users social networks into a single feed. The application features options for posting and viewing information from popular social networking sites, including, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, Photobucket and 12seconds. Zensify also includes a built-in search function which allows users to keep track of conversations and topics across multiple networks. [full story]

July 09 - 05:25pm EDT   Corroborating earlier reports, an online retailer has already slipped pricing information for the Windows 7 Family Pack and Anytime Upgrade options, according to ZDNet. Although the existence of a Family Pack has been debated, Expercom listed the package with a product code, GFC-00236, and a price of $137. The pack includes three licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium. [full story]

July 09 - 04:55pm EDT   Amazon's price cut of its Kindle 2 e-book reader have prompted some in the publishing industry to worry that the online retailer, which is far and away the leading provider of e-books, may put pressure on them to drop the prices for electronic versions of their books for the device, according to a Bloomberg report. Amazon reportedly pays between $12 and $13 to publishers for Kindle editions of books that are on the New York Times bestseller list and sells them for about $10 to customers. Many publishing houses are concerned the giant online vendor will put price pressure on them in order to bump its own profit margins. [full story]