Software & Apps News - Page 151

The latest and most important Software & Apps news - Page 151.

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Adobe launch Flash 11.2 as well as AIR 3.2, won't charge for premium features until you hit $50k in revenue

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 29, 2012 2:31 AM CDT

Adobe are wanting to hit the gaming scene with some punches, where they've announced Flash Player 11.2 as well as AIR 3.2. Adobe's goal: to enable "console quality" games like Shadowgun to run within your browser.

Flash Player 11.2 sports the ability to support mouse-lock, relative mouse coordinates, right/middle click events, multi-threaded video decoding, and the capability for hardware accelerated 2D and 3D graphics for gameplay at up to 60 frames per second. Not bad for your browser, isn't it.

AIR 3.2 (which is Adobe's platform for building cross-platform web apps) now comes with Stage3D for mobile, which is a technology Adobe released back in October for desktops, that is now used in graphically intensive titles such as Spaced Away and ApexVJ. Adobe also used the announcement to let us all know that they are collaborating with Unity to allow Unity customers to publish 3D games to Flash Player.

Continue reading: Adobe launch Flash 11.2 as well as AIR 3.2, won't charge for premium features until you hit $50k in revenue (full post)

AMD Catalyst 12.3 drivers are now available

Trace Hagan | Mar 28, 2012 1:10 PM CDT

AMD has released the new AMD Catalyst 12.3 driver today for download. It's mainly a support upgrade where is features full support for Windows 7 64-bit/32-bit and Windows Vista 64-bit/32-bit for the 7000 series. Windows XP support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series will be made available in AMD Catalyst 12.4

Additionally, the drivers have fixed the following issues:

• AMD Catalyst Control Center startup issues/delays have been resolved

Continue reading: AMD Catalyst 12.3 drivers are now available (full post)

Photoshop CS6 won't support 32-bit Macs

Trace Hagan | Mar 27, 2012 2:33 PM CDT

Now, it's none of my business how many bits you process at a time. That's between you and your software vendor. But, if you want to continue using Adobe Photoshop on your Mac, you better jump on the upgrade train and grab a new multi-core Mac that has a 64-bit os, Snow Leopard or later. Windows retains 32-bit support, but only for Windows XP.

Part of this change in support structure is Adobe dropping support for Windows Vista. The logic behind retaining support for Windows XP is simple: many Photoshop users are still on Windows XP based system. With this update, any existing 32-bit Photoshop plugins will need to be updated for 64-bit. The requirements for the current beta are:

Mac OS

Continue reading: Photoshop CS6 won't support 32-bit Macs (full post)

Black SMS, lets you send undercover SMS message with your iPhone

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 27, 2012 12:47 AM CDT

The latest iPhone app to hit is 'Black SMS'. What does it do? Well, it can keep your text messages covered in a black shroud, until you're ready to read them. Everyone has secrets. Think of it, I know you do. I do. I'm secretly a lady. What? You can't see what I typed there, it has a black shroud over it.

Black SMS is not expensive, either, at just $0.99. The app sends blacked-out messages through Apple's iMessage service, so when you receive a black SMS, you then copy the message from your Messages folder, and paste it into the Black SMS app to reveal what it says. Kind of like a next-gen scratchy.

Even if your iPhone is stolen, Black SMS requires a password to decode the black shroud-laden message. HAHA, pranksters. The app makes a person questionable, though, as if the situation arose that you had secret SMS messages, one would ask what is so secret? But, what if you just didn't want people knowing what you're talking about?

Continue reading: Black SMS, lets you send undercover SMS message with your iPhone (full post)

XBMC 11.0 'Eden' is here

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 25, 2012 10:29 PM CDT

Popular HTPC software suite, XMBC, has hit version 11.0 and is now available for download. The new version sports, according to XMBC's website:

Addon Rollbacks, vast improvements in Confluence (the default skin), massive speed increases via features like Dirty-region rendering and the new JPEG decoder, a simpler, better library, movie set scraping, additional protocol handling, better networking support, better handling of unencrypted BluRay content and structures, adjustable display refresh rate in OSX (to match the already available feature in Windows and Linux), AirPlay support, an upgraded weather service with geoip lookup, and much, much more.

Just a little bit of an upgrade, wouldn't you say? On top of that, the team have also increased the hardware support of XBMC, too. Eden now marks the first in-sync stable release for the Apple TV2, iPad, and other iOS-based devices. The team have also said to have improved the method they use for input, including "heavily upgrading JSON-RPC support" which makes remote control support much simpler in Windows, reportedly.

Continue reading: XBMC 11.0 'Eden' is here (full post)

Instagram accepting Android registrations, hipsters, prepare those cameras

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 25, 2012 7:27 PM CDT

Over the weekend, Instagram opened up a sign-up page for the much-anticipated Android app. At the moment, it's not known what the sign-up page actually does, whether it gives you an early entry into the app, as users are encouraged to supply an e-mail address to be the "first in line".

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom has hinted previously that the Android-based version of the popular camera app would be just weeks away, and has also teased that it might be more feature-rich than its iOS competition.

Instagram saw a surge in users when the iPhone 4S was released, and now sits at a very respectable 27 million users. As soon as Instagram for Android drops, you can be sure that we'll let you know.

Continue reading: Instagram accepting Android registrations, hipsters, prepare those cameras (full post)

DriverTT: NVIDIA release new GeForce 301.10 WHQL driver, designed for the GTX 680 and includes some truly kick-arse features

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 23, 2012 5:09 AM CDT

NVIDIA released their latest Kepler-based GEFORCE GTX 680 only hours ago now, with TweakTown super star and VGA Editor, Shane Baxtor being the first in the world to release a review on the new card. I heard NVIDIA weren't really mad and started making blue-colored cocktails to match the TweakTown colors, in celebration that they knew it really amplified the buzz for the card (kidding).

Anyway, NVIDIA have released the new GeForce 301.10 WHQL-certified drivers designed for use with the newly-released GEFORCE GTX 680 GPU. The new driver throws in some new features, and enhancements, but are are GTX 680-exclusive.

I'll skim over some of the new features, and let you read the rest at the source. First up we have NVIDIA Control Panel FXAA, which is a high-speed, shader-based anti-aliasing technique that can be enabled directly through the NVIDIA control panel. Called FXAA, this new technique is up to 60-percent faster than 4xMSAA, and can produce results equal to MSAA at minimum, and in some cases, provide better-than MSAA quality.

Continue reading: DriverTT: NVIDIA release new GeForce 301.10 WHQL driver, designed for the GTX 680 and includes some truly kick-arse features (full post)

Adobe unveils Photoshop CS6 beta, sports redesigned UI, 65 new features, and you can download it for free, today!

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 23, 2012 12:09 AM CDT

Adobe haven't released a new version of Photoshop for nearly two years now, which means Adobe's engineers have been knuckling down for a very long time, without anyone seeing the goodies they're working on, until now. Adobe are now ready to show off their latest beta version of Photoshop CS6.

Adobe have added no less than 65 new features, which are said to be from a tonne of user feedback ideas, including a new crop tool, expanded video editing options, auto recovery and the ability to search for specific layers. Fans of the dotted lines in Illustrator will be in love with Photoshop, which now receives the same vector tools.

Every slider for the Camera Raw 7.0 plug-in, including exposure, contrast and more, now has a tweaked algorithm. One of the stand-out features is the ability for Photoshop to save projects in the background, whilst you work on other things. In the words of Borat, "very nice!"

Continue reading: Adobe unveils Photoshop CS6 beta, sports redesigned UI, 65 new features, and you can download it for free, today! (full post)

Microsoft's Windows 8 should arrive in October, just in time for the holiday season

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 21, 2012 3:26 AM CDT

We should be expecting Microsoft to release their next-generation Windows 8 OS in October, where we could see both the x86 and ARM-based versions dropping simultaneously. This would give Microsoft a head start for the holiday season, letting tablet, notebook and other device makers ample time to get products ready for holiday consumption.

Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft want to claw back some of the lost sales they've experienced because of the iPad, and reinvigorate the sluggish PC market. Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Garter Inc. has said:

If they miss the September-October time frame, they're going to be stuck without being able to ship anything in 2012. The last thing Microsoft wants to have is a situation where there are no compelling Windows tablets at a time when the new iPad looks like it's going to be a good seller for the holidays.

Continue reading: Microsoft's Windows 8 should arrive in October, just in time for the holiday season (full post)

Firefox heads into 2012, where version numbers will play a smaller role, and more

Anthony Garreffa | Mar 15, 2012 5:21 AM CDT

Mozilla used to be the browser, until Chrome came and pushed them to the side and stole their lunch money. Mozilla had a plan for version 11 of Firefox, which they wanted it to be "lighter and faster", where this theme will continue through 2012 with something the team calls "Project Snappy".

Other than sounding like a lobster thats still alive trying to snap at your fingers, Mozilla has discussed its success throughout 2011, and what 2012 will hold for the company. Mozilla have been fighting for the #2 browser spot over Chrome for the past six months, where Chrome pushed past Firefox for the first time in December last year. Mozilla thinks that branding could have a big deal of how they'll keep strong this year, where version numbers might take a back seat for once:

Version numbers will play a lesser and lesser role for users, but they will still matter to web developers, IT administrators and similar. The reason for having major version number bumps (e.g. version 6 to 7, 7 to 8, etc) is that new versions have had cases of non-backward compatible APIs, and the version number have been there to signal that it is not a minor release or maintenance update.

Continue reading: Firefox heads into 2012, where version numbers will play a smaller role, and more (full post)