Software posts

Zinio, a company focused in digital publishing tech, has just released Zinio Reader 4, an Adobe AIR application that enables access to thousands of magazines — interactive magazines too, and National Geographic celebrates with a freebie. Zinio Reader 4 allows users to instantly access over 2,000 magazines by utilizing Adobe’s AIR framework. It is essentially a cloud-based digital library that will be synced to your devices. Users who install this application can pay once for a digital copy of a magazine, and it will instantly be available to the user for reading in its entirety on any platform…

As a photographer, I understand how difficult it is sometimes to make people not only smile, but have a naturally looking smile. Stefan Stubble and Adnreas Schmelas of the University of the Arts in Berlin, have came up with a camera that no matter what, will take your photo with an artificial smile. The camera uses an array of smiling photos that were taken before to basically replace photoshop and instantly give you that artificial but award winning smile. Not sure if I would actually pick up this product because as a photographer sometimes you want to convey emotion in your photo with somebody…

For all the talk of a reading revolution and Amazon, Sony and now Apple are creating, all of this new technology doesn’t actually change reading very much. There’s some text on a blank background and – well, that’s about it. But a new concept developed by Swedish firm Tobii Technology promises to change all that by turning the tables on the reader – in this case, the book reads you. By using a combination of web programming languages and a tracking camera, what Tobii Technology call Text 2.0 actually tracks your eye movements to see what you are reading. Focus on a word for a while with a screwed-up face…

I’m an avid gamer. When I say ‘avid’, I mean it in all possible terms. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve held records, I’ve humped a television set in celebration. The list of things I’ve never done in gaming is very short; one of the things on that list is ‘enjoy a virtual world’. Start-up Micazook (which boasts the silliest goddam most whimsical name I’ve ever heard) wants to change my mind. Let’s face it – virtual worlds are boring, and anyone who’s ever played Second Life (still the …’leader’) can agree. Even investors these days are wary to drop money on ideas for…

When Bing first launched, we all treated it a little like the little engine that couldn’t; why, we all asked, would anyone switch from Google to Bing? As time has gone on, however, Bing has become more compelling, particularly with its map features. Now, there’s one more reason to use Bing, as they’ve integrated information from quickly-growing location app Foursquare. Let’s say you arrive in Brooklyn or San Francisco with no idea what to do. With the data now integrated into Bing Maps, head to the search site and you’ll be able to see all the tips Foursquare users have left mapped out for you to peruse,…

Looking for a neat way to take notes and read bits and pieces on that brand new iPad you’ve already busted your credit limit to buy? Seeking out an efficient and easy-to-use partner to guard all your favourite data as you prep for the next assignment, report or special mission? We’d like to introduce you to Instapaper, which we promise will emerge as the ultimate App for just that. …

You know you’ve made it when the US Army knocks at your door to ask for help. And that’s exactly what happened this month when Major General Nick Justice and several members of his staff traveled to Cupertino to discuss using Apple’s solutions in the field. Major General Justice leads the US Army’s Research, Development, and Engineering Command. He’s considering dumping some of the Army’s proprietary systems in favour of consumer products, including Apple’s army of mobile solutions. Apple gave its Army visitors a much-coveted tour of its labs and talked about how the military is…

Doing its best to keep it real as Facebook and Twitter grab the Zeitgeist, Digg today introduces its all-new iPhone App. Digg founder and CEO, Kevin Rose, hinted at the new software last year, now we learn it offers a deep user experience including support for browsing popular, upcoming, and recent stories across topics. You also get to Digg and bury stories using the app on your iPhone….

Offering the promise of a promise, Adobe next month will formally introduce its next-generation of creative software products, Adobe Creative Suite 5. The routinely expensive software suite will get its first public demo on Monday, April 12, 2010. What do we know about CS5? …

There’s an iPhone browser break out beginning, with Opera Software submitting its Opera Mini 5 browser/app for the iPhone to the App Store. All that’s left is to wait and see if Apple will approve the Safari-competing browser….