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Major MacBook Air Redesign Coming This Summer?
Not Dead Yet: Apple Posts Another Snow Leopard Update
Apple Losing The War Of Words - Embarrassingly
Ohanaware Introduces Shine 1.0 for OS X - Photo Enhancing Software
FX Photo Studio For Mac Updated For iCloud
Lenovo's ThinkPad T431 Ultrabook PC Is Thinner, Lighter And Springs From Global Research
Major MacBook Air Redesign Coming This Summer?
T-GAAP's Karl Johnson notes that the =Macbook Air was last updated on June 11, 2012,mso with prior history being that Apple has updated the MacBook Air every 912 months, maintaining the cycle would point to a March-June 2013 update window. With the MacBook Air is still a major product for Apple, Johnson expects them to follow the current update cycle.
He thinks one of the major new features obviously coming to the MacBook Air will be a Retina Display, reasoning that it's unlikely Apple can just drop the high-resolution display into the current Air, which suggests a major redesign coming, with a Retina display is almost a given,
Your editor is not so sure. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro has evidently not been setting the world on fire sales-wise, with Apple dropping its price just three months after it's initial release. It's also hard to imagine how Apple can hold the Air's price points. My inclination is to suspect that the next MacBook Air refresh will be an upgrade to Intel's next-generation "Haswell" CPU family, with a Retina display and any major case redesign held off until fall 2013 or later.
Johnson notes that the mobile version of Haswell is likely to come out in June, anticipated to feature improved battery life and processor performance, and agreres that Apple is likely to wait for Haswell before launching an new MacBook Air, noting also that it will take time for Intel to test and Apple to build up these new machines making a June launch, with a July or early August release date is likely - a timeline that seems plausible.
For the full commentary, visit:
http://bit.ly/Wzcrlz
Not Dead Yet: Apple Posts Another Snow Leopard Update
Apple has posted Security Update 2013-001 for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, carrying on support for a two versions back edition of OS X much longer than usual.
Security Update 2013-001 patches 11 vulnerabilities in the client and server versions of OS X 10.6.
Computerworld's Gregg Keizer notes that reasons may include the accelerated release schedule Apple's adopted that resulted in back-to-back upgrades in the summer of 2011 (Lion) and 2012 (Mountain Lion), and that Snow Leopard users have hung onto the OS, at the end of February, nearly 28% of all Macs globally were running OS 10.6. He observes that Snow Leopard may be Apple's Windows XP, the Microsoft OS that even 12 years after its debut, just won't go away.
For the full report, visit here:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/?newsid=3435602&olo=rss
For more information, visit:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5672
Apple Losing The War Of Words - Embarrassingly
Former Apple exec. Jean-Louis Gasseé, writing in The Guardian, notes that Apple product advocacy gushiness is getting lamer and lamer to the point of embarassment, for example across the five Apple earnings statements, some form of the word "incredible" appears 7, 9, 9, 11 and 9 times.
"Tremendous", in its various forms, appears 12 times.
Amazing: 8
Strong: 58
Thrilled: 13
Maniacally focused: 2
All told, "great" appears 70 times. A bit more than half being pathetic superlatives ("great products", "great progress", "we feel great about "), some are innocuous ("greater visibility"), but six were part of the phrase "Greater China," with China mentioned 71 times, much more than any other country or region.
Mr. Gasseé calls this hyperbole and the abuse of language, noting that saying "incredible" too many times leads to incredulity. and saying "maniacally focused" at all is out of place and gauche in an earnings call.
"When words become empty, the listener loses faith in the speaker," Gasseé says. "Apple has lost control of the narrative; the company has let others define its story. This is a war of words and Apple is proving to be inept at verbal warfare."
For the full commentary, visit:
http://bit.ly/YLLnPT
Ohanaware Introduces Shine 1.0 for OS X - Photo Enhancing Software
Ohanaware Co., Ltd. has introduced Shine 1.0, their latest photo enhancing application developed specifically for Mac OS X. "Shine" for Mac OS X. Shine has been designed to enhance digital photos by using lighting effects such as Light Rays & Lens Flares, and enhancing the color of the photo by using gradient tints. It also features other enhancing effects such as "Sun", Dynamic Contrast, Highlight Glow & a brand new Light Fall Off (also known as vignette) effect.
Shine is a photo enhancing application that uses lighting effects such as Light Rays and Lens Flare, as well as color tinting and various other effects to alter a photo. With Shine, users can make photos look like they were taken in direct sunlight or without modern lenses.
Light Rays: Shine's light rays have various settings that control the strength, size, color and how the rays are generated.
Lens Flares: Shine features several types of lens flare, with options for adjusting the intensity, size and color.
Tinting: Shine's Tint engine allows the color to be altered by mixing the colors of the photo with user chosen colors. The Tint engine is a gradient tint, and the intensity, colors and direction can be changed by the user.
Addition light: Shine has a "Sun" function which allows for a light source to be position on the photo.
Straight-forward interface: Shine's interface has been designed so that all the controls are for editing the photo are clearly visible.
Retina Ready: Shine is fully Retina ready for Apple's MacBook Pro's and future Retina Macintoshes.
Dynamic Processing: Shine features the first generation of Ohanaware's "Dynamic Processing". Dynamic Processing is built into the core image processor and it adjusts the balance between quality of the preview and the computer it is run on. In most cases, editing the photo is stutter free, even on older hardware, while Shine is still able to display a high quality preview to the user. Dynamic Processing also takes advantage of the latest processors and graphics cards featured in modern Macintosh computers.
Full Screen Mode: On OS X 10.7 and 10.8, Shine can be put into Full Screen using the standard OS functions, while on Mac OS X 10.6, Ohanaware has provided a function for users to run the application Full Screen.
Comparison with the Original: Contained within Shine, is the functionality to compare the edited photo with the original photo.
Built-in Sharing: Sharing photos via Apple Mail, Facebook, Flickr & Twitter is possible within Shine as it features support for OS X 10.8 Sharing Services and provides a solution for customers not running 10.8.
Live Editing: Shine's document format allows for storage of the original image, and the changes made to it. Allowing the user to revert the document to various saved points and undo any changes even through application restarts.
System Requirements:
Shine requires a Intel based Macintosh computer, running Mac OS X 10.6 or later. It is recommended to have at least 2 gb of RAM.
Shine 1.0 is available today from Ohanaware's website, and currently sells for $9.99 USD per single user license, discounted for a limited time from $19.99. A free (watermarking) trial can be downloaded from the Ohanaware web site. Ohanaware are currently running a promotion, whereby a customer purchasing Shine can get 30% off selected Ohanaware apps.
Ohanaware:
http://www.ohanaware.com/
Shine 1.0:
http://www.ohanaware.com/shine/
Download Shine:
http://www.ohanaware.com/shine/Shine.zip
Purchase:
http://www.ohanaware.com/store/?product=shine
Facebook Profile:
http://www.facebook.com/ohanaware
Twitter Profile:
https://twitter.com/Sam_Ohanaware
Trackback URL:
http://bit.ly/ZPhdZG
FX Photo Studio For Mac Updated For iCloud
FX Photo Studio application that has been recently updated for iCloud support. FX Photo Studio for Mac is a collection of 170+ effects + frames and other editing tools.
This beautifully designed and easy to use photo app can make your everyday pictures more awesome. FX Photo Studio brings hundreds of photo effects, tools and tricks for powerful, artistic and hassle-free image editing!
Your Mac is perfect for messing with pictures. And FX Photo Studio is your app-companion to make any picture on your Mac shine.
• 173 eye-popping photo effects & filters
• 40 photo frames and borders (classic, grunge, lomo styles)
• Masking with effects and Color splash tool
• Integration with Aperture, Lightroom, iPhoto, PhotoShop
• Intuitive user interface
• Sharing via most popular social networks and more
Effects & Borders
Combine and layer any of the 173 effects and dozens of photo borders to create the perfect looking image. A completely customizable interface allows you to preview each effect, compare original and resulting images, label favorites and even save combinations of effects as presets.
The new masking and color splash tools allow you to apply effects and colors to a part of the image only, giving even more creative freedom to your photography. Effects include: Lo-Fi, Grunge, Art, Vintage, Vignettes, Sketches, Hollywood FX, Cross Process, Glow, Black & White and more.
Intuitive Navigation For Effortless Image Processing
Created by usability and photography professionals, FX Photo Studios user interface ensures that editing your photos cant get any easier. The elegantly simple design provides easy access to every tool youll need, without cluttering your screen and allowing you to focus on your image.
Conveniently Manage Your Photos
Import pictures from Aperture or iPhoto library
Load images from any folder on your Mac or digital camera
Export images in a variety of formats to iPhoto, Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop
FX Photo Studio for Mac also lets you print images instantly, e-mail or share via most popular social networks: Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, and Twitter.
FX Photo Studio PRO
If you are looking for more pro editing tools, support of RAW files and resolution up to 32 megapixels, check FX Photo Studio PRO. In addition to 172 photo effects and filters, FX Photo Studio PRO features over 20 editing tools to enhance your images even further. Those include: sharpen, noise reduction, color balance, light levels, exposure, brightness, saturation, shadows, highlights and more.
New in Version 2.7:
Version 2.7 brings you major performance updates and improvements.
- iCloud support
- Handling of higher image resolution (up to 40 MPx)
- Enhanced color processing for Tiff and RAW
- New algorithm for painting with effects in masking studio
- Enhanced handing of RAW formats
- Improved performance on latest versions of MacBooks (with Retina)
- Faster image saving without quality loss
- Fixed bug that caused app crash when launching corrupted image
- Other minor bug fixes and stability improvements
Preview demo video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3WneIrGFoU
System Requirements:
OS X 10.6 or later
FX Photo Studio is available for iOS, too (see today's Applelinks iOS News Reader )
$9.99
For more information, visit:
http://bit.ly/ZWDfLw
Lenovo's ThinkPad T431 Ultrabook PC Is Thinner, Lighter And Springs From Global Research
Lenovo has announced its new ThinkPad, with design enhancements inspired by the results of an extensive global research project. The ThinkPad T431s is the thinnest T series ever featuring a sleek, innovative trackpad, enhanced keyboard and refined aesthetics.
We obsess over the pursuit of perfection as evidenced by more than 20 years of Lenovo ThinkPad design and engineering accolades. However, perfection cannot be achieved without a key ingredient: customer insight, says Dilip Bhatia, vice president and general manager, ThinkPad Business Unit. The ThinkPad T431s is the first device featuring Lenovos new design, which represents a comprehensive examination of user experience and input.
From research to design
Extending beyond traditional customer interaction, Lenovo conducted extensive research with NetGen, non-ThinkPad users and ThinkPad loyalists around the world, to gather detailed feedback on ThinkPad design. Over nine months and in multiple countries, researchers spent thousands of hours shadowing users in their homes, workplaces and remote locations, observing user behavior and asking questions. The results of this extensive research have directly contributed to the new refined design, which include technological enhancements and innovative upgrades including a new trackpad with click functionality and an incredibly thin display bezel.
ThinkPad gets new look
The results of Lenovos research found that respondents prioritize simplicity and modern elements when it comes to their technology. Lenovo designed the new T431s with these priorities in mind to directly enrich the user experience:
• Streamlined Interior: Lenovo updated the award-winning ThinkPad precision keyboard by improving key placement while maintaining shortcuts for a sleeker-looking keyboard, designing the display with a super thin bezel, and debuting a new Graphite Black color.
• Enhanced trackpad experience: The new ThinkPad trackpad is an evolution of the TrackPoint and TouchPad featuring a new larger, smooth, responsive, multi-touch glass surface that optimizes Windows 8 gestures, click functionality, and integrates TrackPoint behavior to deliver a customized, improved experience for all users.
• Thinness, Durability, Reliability: The ThinkPad T431s, the thinnest and lightest T series ever made and the first device incorporating the new design elements, weighs just 3.6 pounds (1.63kg) and measures only 0.82 inches (20.6mm) thin. The carbon fiber top cover and magnesium exterior continue ThinkPads heritage of business-class rugged design and durability.
• The T431s is powered by Intel 3rd generation Core processors with Turbo Boost, features improved Intel HD Graphics, up to 12 GB of memory and additional HDD and SSD storage options. The T431s has a 14-inch HD+ (1600 x 900) anti-glare display, two USB 3.0 ports for fast data transfer. The T431s is also available with Intel vPro for easy device management, supports ThinkPad docking, and provides enhanced security that commercial customers require.
The ThinkPad T431s will be available in April starting at approximately $949.
For more information, visit:
http://www.lenovo.com
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