September 3 - 6:50pm EDT   Visual effects plug-in maker GenArts has released an OpenFX version of its Sapphire Plug-ins, making them available to users of The Foundry's Nuke, Autodesk Toxik, Eyeon Fusion, FilmLight Baselight, Digital Vision FIlm Master and Assimilate Scratch. Sapphire Plug-ins are well-known in the post-production community, providing visual effects for Apple, Adobe and Avid creative software. The addition of OFX expands the market considerably. [full story]

August 14 - 5:15pm EDT   Mac users of Google SketchUp 5/6/Pro will now be able to use the SU Podium rendering plug-in, just released for Mac OS X. Podium for Mac will be identical to the Windows version except for the OS compatibility. Users of the Windows version are permitted to switch to the new Mac version for free using their original serial number. A full Light fixture library for Mac has also been released, including a total of 227 fixtures that can be added to any SketchUp scene. [full story]

August 14 - 11:10am EDT   Mister Retro has announced Permanent Press, a set of retro filters for Photoshop. The filters create a vintage look, providing offset-printing effects, letterpress effects, ink works and more. The filters process images, type and visual designs, the plug-in is customizable and settings can be saved to reproduce specific effects. Permanent Press requires Mac OS X 10.2.6 or higher, 256MB RAM (1GB RAM recommended) and works with Photoshop CS2 and CS 3, and Photoshop Elements 4.0 and higher. The plug-in is available now for $100. [full story]

August 13 - 12:45am EDT   Ubermind on Tuesday unveiled Maperture, a new geotagging plug-in for Apple's Aperture photo editing and organization application, allowing users to add GPS data to pictures for placement on a virtual map. Maperture offers connectivity with Google Maps, and can either be used to add information to one image at a time, or an entire photo library. Ubermind is offering Maperture for no charge, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, with Aperture 2.0. [full story]

August 7 - 1:20am EDT   Digital Fusion says its Reactor 2.0 "radical user interface plugin" brings a host of new tools to FileMaker Pro. The plug-in comes with ready-made "black-box" controls allowing users to quickly create calendars, Gantt charts or live-filtering. The company says Reactor allows developers to access FileMaker's advanced interface features without HTML or JavaScript expertise. [full story]

July 17 - 6:15pm EDT   RiftVault 1.0 ($40) 256-bit AES encryption keeps credit card numbers secure, documents safe, and secrets confidential. Designed exclusively for Mac OS X Leopard. The new release includes major improvements to the UI, has a full feature set and include ssignificant stability and security improvements [Download - form] VectorDesigner 1.4 ($70) application for vector drawings, diagrams and illustrations, raster image handling, filtering and color correction. This release introduces user definable templates: a template can contain all the elements that are available in a standard VectorDesigner document, such as paper size, units, rulers positions, layers etc. [Download - 4.9MB] ... [full story]

July 14 - 7:55pm EDT   Artlandia has released the third in a line of productivity plug-ins for Adobe creative software. The company says LivePresets works with two basic classes of static Adobe Illustrator objects -- symbols and swatches -- and makes them editable dynamically. The plug-in allows users to interactively edit multiple art objects from a single source. [full story]

July 14 - 5:15pm EDT  Servoy Inc. has introduced Servoy 4.0 -- one code base for desktop AND Web applications. Servoy 4.0 -- now an Eclipse plug-in -- is a major upgrade from all previous versions of Servoy, enabling Servoy developers to produce enterprise-level applications using a standards-based IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Servoy consists of a GUI designer, is fully event-driven and scriptable through JavaScript. As a plug-in for Eclipse -- an open source, free, extensible development framework -- Servoy 4.0 can inherit a form from another parent form within a solution -- eliminating the need to duplicate forms with similar functionality. [full story]

July 11 - 12:50pm EDT   Nik Software on Thursday unveiled a new version to its Color Efex Pro 3.0 for Capture NX 2, while also introducing Silver Efex Pro, a new plug-in for doing black-and-white images in Photoshop and Aperture. The new Capture NX filters offer DSLR users nine new filters: Bleach Bypass, Cross Balance, Film Effects, Film Grain, Glamour Glow, High Key, Low Key, Polaroid Transfer, and Tonal Enhancer. Color Efex Pro 3 is available in Select and Complete editions for $100 and $180, respectively. [full story]

July 7 - 6:20pm EDT   Troi File Plug-in 4.5.1 for FileMaker 9 ($80) tool for getting access to information outside the FileMaker Prdatabase. Any files or folders stored on the computer can be accessed through the functions of the plug-in. Troi File Plug-in recently added support for drag and drop, GPS and XMP metadata. Troi File Plug-in 4.5.1 is a maintenance release that fixes some reported issues. [Download - 3.1MB] World Clock Deluxe 4.5.4 ($20) display multiple clocks in a horizontal or vertical palette, in the menu bar and in the Dock, show Coordinated Universal Time and Internet Time, assign labels and colors to clocks, calculate date and time conversions across different time zones and show ... [full story]

July 2 - 12:20pm EDT   Red Giant Software has launched Instant HD Advanced, its new plug-in for Adobe's After Effects. It offers higher quality than the scaler in After Effects or Red Giant's own Instant HD plug-in, which HD Advanced replaces, thanks to the super-resolution feature in the new plug-in. It also offers built-in deinterlacing and denoising controls that improve the quality of any interlaced material. It is available now for $400 and works with Mac OS X 10.4.11 and 10.5.2 and later. It requires Adobe After Effects CS3 on an Intel Mac with 1GB RAM. [full story]

July 2 - 5:50am EDT   IK Multimedia has launched the Total Guitar & Bass Gear Bundle, featuring a collection of 5 analog-modeled Amp and FX plug-ins. Aimed at both studio and live use, the package includes Amplitube 2, Ampeg SVX, Amplitube Jimi Hendrix, Amplitube Metal and Amplitube X-GEAR. All plug-ins conform to AU, VST and RTAS standards. The complete bundle translates to over 150 'ultra realistic' gear models, 51 stomp boxes, 26 Preamp models, 11 Power amps, 11 mics, 33 cabinets and 23 rack effects. [full story]

June 23 - 5:40pm EDT   TransMedia on Friday unveiled a new version of its integrated contact and email management interface, Glide, adding support for Ymail, Rocketmail, and Yahoo Mail, integrating with them the service's advanced security and file sharing features. Glide allows users on Mac, PC, Linux, the iPhone, and other mobile devices to have one-login access to multiple email accounts, as well as word processor-like file handling, and support for images and large attachments. BravoBug Software released MiLife 1.1 ($15), an update to its journaling and note-taking software, adding over a dozen improvements to the application. MiLife now supports rich-text, with simplified photo importing, ... [full story]

June 23 - 3:50pm EDT   A updated rendering application and a new 3D plug-in for Google Sketchup have been announced, according to Architosh, a site for Mac-based architects and CAD/3D professionals. IMSI/Design has unveiled IDX Renditioner, a plug-in for photo-realistic rendering in SketchUp. Architosh is also reporting the release of Maxwell Render 1.7, bringing new features and improved realism to that company’s rendering software. [full story]

June 19 - 5:45am EDT   Troi Automatisering has unveiled its Troi File Plug-In 4.5 for Filemaker Pro 9, adding 'drag and drop' functionality to file and media manipulations, as well as numerous bug fixes and 'under the hood' improvements. Adding to over 60 previously available functions, Troi 4.5 introduces support for GPS, XMP and timecode metadata, as well as a 'reveal' feature, allowing users to see the exact location of files and folders on a system hard disk. It requires a copy of Filemaker Pro 7, 8 or 9, and Mac OS X 10.4.5 or higher and costs $90 per user (available immediately). [full story]