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Week
of Mar 22
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Fri
26
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Digidesign is shipping the Windows
NT version of SampleCell II Plus, a
PCI sampling card that provides the
features of Digidesign's SampleCell II
card that was previously only available
for Mac OS systems. In addition to
cross-platform compatibility, SampleCell
II Plus includes 32 MB RAM as a standard
feature. The Windows NT version supports
Macintosh CD-ROMs, providing users with
access to a variety of sounds from
existing sample libraries.
SampleCell
II Plus comes with four CD-ROM discs (two
for Mac OS and two for Windows NT) that
each include ready-to-load sounds. Users
can also transfer sounds directly from
audio CDs played in the computer's CD-ROM
drive. The suggested retail price of
SampleCell II Plus is $1,295. The optional
TDM Module is $395.
<www.digidesign.com>
GAME
Simon & Schuster has won the 1998
Codie Award from the Software &
Information Industry Association for
"Douglas Adams Starship Titanic''
in the "Best New Adventure / Role Playing
Software Game'' category. They have
simultaneously announced the shipment of
the Macintosh version of Starship Titanic
to retailers (estimated street $39.95,
bundled with freestrategy guide).
<www.starshiptitanic.com>
GRAPHIC
Webreview has published a review of
RAYflect PhotoTracer, a 3D plugin
for Photoshop. The generally positive
review concludes "although PhotoTracer may
not be as exciting as the likes of Alien
Skin Xenofex and KPT 5, I found myself
going to PhotoTracer more often than both
of those filters combined. Otherwise,
PhotoTracer is easily the best 3D plug-in
for Photoshop currently available."
<www.webreview.com
review "Plugging
into Photoshop with RAYflect
PhotoTracer">
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Thu
25
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PuppetTime, Inc. has announced a
preview release of its 3D
storytelling application,
PuppetTime Director. PuppetTime
Director allows users to manipulate 3D
puppets using PuppetTime's 3D digital
actor plug-in architecture, which is built
on top of Apple's QuickTime. Downloading
the free preview will allow Mac users with
QuickTime to create and view 3D movies.
Playback for Windows users is also
available.
The
PuppetTime technology is a framework for
scriptable 3D digital actors, called
puppets. Each puppet is a self-contained
plug-in, with interactive controls, that
knows how to render and animate itself in
3D. A user can create a 3D movie by
entering dialog, selecting predefined
actions, and moving puppets around a
stage. Additional plug-ins for new
characters, stages, costumes, and props
will be available on the company's
web-site.
<www.puppettime.com>
DirectXtras has a new cross
platform version of DirectConnection
Xtra and an update to DirectEmail
Xtra.
The
new version of DirectConnection has been
optimized, improved, and is now available
for both Windows (9X/NT) and MacOS (PPC).
The new MacOS version includes support for
OT/PPP and FreePPP. DirectConnection is a
Scripting Xtra for Macromedia Director and
Authorware that lets you control the
process of establishing a dial-up
connection with another
computer.
DirectEmail
is a cross platform, Scripting Xtra for
Macromedia Director and Authorware that
lets you compose and send e-mails, with
attachments support, from within Director,
Authorware and Shockwave
applications.
The
Xtra is marked as safe, so it can also be
used with Shockwave 7 or later and when
safety features in Director are turned on.
When the Xtra is in safe mode it does not
send attachments or locate the user's
e-mail preferences. Also, the
GetUserEmailPref() function is now
available on the Windows version of the
Xtra.
Fully
functional evaluation versions of
DirectConnection and DirectEmail Xtras,
on-line documentations, sample Director
movies and further information are
available at their Web site.
<www.directxtras.com>
DMTools has announced DM Xtreme
Transitions, an Xtra for
Director that adds transitions to
movies. A fully functional trial version
of DM Xtreme Transitions can be downloaded
from their Web site. They have also
released DM Fade v.1.3.5, DM
Transitions Pack 1 & 2 vers.
1.3.5.
<www.dmtools.com>
ELECTRONIC
PUBLISHING
SoftBook Press has announced the
instant electronic publication of
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill
Gates' new book, Business @ the
Speed of Thought, on the SoftBook
Reader.
The
SoftBook version of Business @ the Speed
of Thought includes an annotation or
highlight feature. Users can search for
particular words and look up technical
terms in the bookís glossary.
<www.softbook.com>
Interactive Pictures Corporation,
developers of the IPIX immersive
technology, has announced that it has
received $28 million in growth capital.
The combined $28 million was provided
through GE Equity , Liberty Digital, a
division of Liberty Media Group, American
Express Company- Travel Related Services
Company, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary
of the American Express Company, Motorola,
Inc., Cendant Corporation and J.P.
Morgan.
<www.ipix.com>
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Wed
24
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MetaCreations has released a free
MetaStream exporter for Discreet's 3D
Studio MAX. The MetaCreations MAX 250
MetaStream Exporter enables 3D Studio MAX
users to export 3D Studio MAX-produced
artwork into the MetaStream 3D file format
for scaling and streaming 3D content on
the Web. MetaCreations MAX 250 MetaStream
Exporter is offered at no cost.
MetaStream
utomatically adjusts performance and
resolution according to available
processing power and bandwidth. In
addition to scaling for the performance of
the user's particular system, MetaStream
also provides progressive streaming of
files. Web designers have the ability to
set the detail (frame rate) of 3D objects
relative to the speed of the viewer's
computer.
Currently,
minimum system requirements for the MAX
250 MetaStream Exporter are 3D Studio
MAX® R2, R2.5, Pentium processor-based
system (150 MHz or higher), Windows 95,
98, NT 4.0 or higher and 64 MB RAM.
<www.metacreations.com
web page "MAX
250">
CDR
In addition to the much anticipated USB
CDR that Sony is going to be
selling soon
[and
which got me prematurely excited last week
when I thought it was for
sale-Ed]
Sony has also announced a Firewire
(i.Link) version. The Spressa
(CRX100E/X) USB drive supports quad
speed (4X) recording of CD-R media, double
speed (2X) of CD-RW media, and CD-ROM
maximum reading performance of 6X. The
Spressa (CRX120E/X) i.LINK drive
supports quad speed (4X) recording of CD-R
and CD-RW discs, and CD-ROM maximum
reading performance of 24X. The Spressa
i.LINK drive for Mac systems will be
Sony's first offering, with Windows
compatibility available in the fall.
The
Spressa USB drive comes with CD Creation
software that includes: Sony Discribe for
the Macintosh that creates CD-ROM and CD
audio discs, and performs CD to CD copies.
The Spressa i.LINK drive comes bundled
with Discribe as well as Retrospect
Express backup software.
The
Sony Spressa USB drive has a suggested
list price of US $399 and will be
available this month. The Spressa i.LINK
drive will be offered in June at a
suggested list price of US$499. There is
currently no more information available at
their website.
<www.sony.com/storagebysony>
FIREWIRE/USB
2.0
An article in EE Times by David
L. Fair, a 'visual computing
initiative manager for Intel Corp'
discusses Intels movement away from
1394 (Firewire) to promote USB
2.0.
The
article begins by explaining that Intel
was once strongly behind 1394, but that
their position has now changed. Fair goes
on to say "Intel once believed that 1394
technology could [serve] as a
serial interconnect for high-speed
computer peripherals... with the
announcement of USB 2.0... we have
modified our position and now recommend
USB 2.0 as the preferred solution for
high-speed computer
peripherals."
The
justification given is that "1394
deployment into the PC platform has
proceeded more slowly than expected"
primarily because of the cost of the
peripherals, and the cost to OEMs to
include the components. It also suggests
that concerns about patents and licensing
hampered adoption.
It
concludes by recommending USB for
peripherals, and 1394 for connecting PCs
to A/V equipment.
<www.eet.com
article "From
Intel, take 2 on 1394
interface">
Spritz 1.0 has been released.
Spritz is a freeware tool that allows you
to create QuickTime Movies with
Interactive content. It is a Mac 8.5
app that is optimized to take advantage of
8.5 features including Nav Services,
Contextual Menus, Drag and Drop, Window
Proxies, Floating Windows, Theme controls,
and other new OS features. Future versions
may be compatible with 8.1 but 1.0
requires 8.5.
Spritz
can be used for button bars, slide shows,
simple animations and presentations. It
allows the author to make sprites that
hide/show, rotate/scale, move, send the
user to URL's, and many more actions.
<home.earthlink.net/~dmcgavran/spritz>
At next month's National Association of
Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas,
Medéa Corporation will
unveil a new 100 GB capacity VideoRaid
scsi disk array. This four-drive,
high-speed RAID solution for Macintosh,
SGI and Windows-based non-linear editing
systems delivers a sustained data transfer
rate of 36 MB/second. Called VideoRaid
4/100 scsi, the system utilizes IBM
Corporation's new DeskStar 25GP disk
drives and can store over 4 hours of
broadcast quality video
footage.
VideoRaid
4/100 scsi will be available from
authorized distributors in May 1999. The
company expects the street price of the
VideoRaid 4/100 scsi to be approximately
$4,500. VideoRaid scsi storage subsystems
have been available in 13 GB, 26 GB, 34
GB, 51 GB and 67 GB since January
1999.
<http://www.medeacorp.comwww.medeacorp.com>
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Tue
23
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PC
MARKET
According to the latest Homefront study
from Odyssey, 50 percent of U.S.
households currently own a PC and
33 percent have online services.
Odyssey also reports that PC households
increased the number of hours they spent
using PCs for entertainment by 23 percent
to 4.9 hours per week in the most recent
study, up from 4.0 hours per week six
months ago.
Odyssey's
research indicates that the installed base
of home PCs has become substantially more
powerful in the past year: 46 percent of
PC households have a Pentium-class
processor and 31 percent of household
modems run at 56 kilobits per second.
Overall, total usage of home PCs for
personal purposes has also increased
dramatically - up 27 percent in the last
six months from 734 million to 934 million
hours per week.
Odyssey
is an independent market research firm.
Research is based on interviews with 2,500
consumers. The random-digit-dial,
computer-generated sample is
representative of all U.S.
households.
Companies
interested in purchasing Odyssey's
research can reach the company at
800-742-1792 or via email at
info@odysseylp.com.
IPIX is an immersive imaging
technology that let's you capture and
playback a complete sphere. Evidently the
IPIX license prevents you from
producing IPIX bubbles for any competitor
of Discovery Communications, and you can't
produce images of apartment units until
the year 2001.
<www.ipix.com>
 
A reader brought to my attention to
Mainstay JustEdit Plus, a Java
applet which offers manual and automatic
editing of web pages from a web
browser. Manual editing of any target
web page is done in the applet's HTML
editing window. Automatic editing lets the
user simply fill in fields in the applet's
editing window to update selections in a
target web page. the tool seems to be
oriented toward simply updates and
corrections of typos and broken
links.
For
manual editing, the user simply specifies
a path to a target web page and then
directly modifies the HTML of a page. For
automatic editing, a set of editable
fields or a paragraph is set up in the
applet to automatically modify selected
text marked by intelligent tags on a
target web page. JustEdit Plus tags are
embedded as HTML comments. After making
changes, the user closes the editor and
the page is automatically saved. JustEdit
Plus requires no server-side applications,
scripts, CGIs, or plug-ins.
According
to the company, JustEdit Plus can be
thought of as a structured, transparent
FTP client embedded in a web page. Like
all FTP clients, both a name and a
password are necessary for read/write
access to web pages.
A
fully functional, free promotional version
is available for download.The introductory
price is $99.95, single user. Multi-user
and ISP pricing are also available.
JustEdit Plus is compatible with Windows
95/98/NT, Macintosh and Unix and version 4
or later of Netscape and Internet Explorer
browsers.
<www.mstay.com>
GRAPHICS
Corel Corporation will license
Cumulus Desktop LE 4.0 from
Canto Software in the upcoming
release of CorelDRAW 9 Graphics
Suite and Corel PHOTO-PAINT 9 for the
PC. Already integrated in CorelDRAW 8 for
Mac, Cumulus Desktop LE 4.0 is a cross
platform media cataloging tool. Cumulus
Desktop LE 4.0 has a limited catalog size
of 2,000 items.
<www.corel.com>
GRAPHICS
Caffeine Software has announced the
first official release of the TIFFany3
image processing system. This release
is available through Caffeine Software's
web site for all supported platforms;
OpenStep 4.2, MacOS-X-Server, Apple
Rhapsody DR2, and Windows NT (requires
either OpenStep Enterprise 4.2 or Apple
WebObjects 3.5/4.0).
TIFFany3
will be released in three versions -
Basic, Professional, and Server. The
Professional version is available
immediately, at a price of $595 for a
single, floating - network license which
is valid on all platforms. The release of
the Basic version is scheduled for the end
of March, 1999, and the release of the
Server version for late April,
1999.
Some
of TIFFany3's Features:
- Input
of any standard bitmap format as well
as EPS, Output in most bitmap
standards, as well as EPS
- Arbitrary
number of layers in arbitrary size,
resolution and color space.
- Realtime
rotation and resizing of
layers.
- Unlimited
undo levels.
- "MagicAction"
tool mechanism: all filter settings can
be saved in the "Action Catalogue" as
actions, allowing immediate access to
often used Actions.
- Extensive
color correction,
brightness/contrast/saturation
adjustment and tone balancing
facilities.
- Over
70 different Filters for color
balancing, sharpening, noise reduction,
wide variety of special effects, etc.
- Open
API with sample sources for 3rd party
developers
<http://www.caffeineSoft.comwww.caffeineSoft.com>
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Mon
22
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Kodak has updated the
Windows host software for the
DC260. Release v1.2 is available
now:
<http://www.kodak.com
download page dc260hostupdate>
And
for Macintosh users of the
DC260, the DIGITA Desktop
Acquire Module for MACINTOSH and iMac
computers is available.
<http://www.kodak.com
download page dc260mac>
SuperCard 3.6, an update to the
multimedia authoring tool, is due in the
first week of April. It will be available
free to all v3.5 users and will include
the initial implementation of the
Worldscript Aware Styled Text Engine in
the SuperCard RunTime which permits users
to choose between WASTE and TextEdit on an
object-by-object basis.
Version
3.6 also includes improved extensibility,
with internal support added for over 100
new callbacks related to SuperCard's
internal data structures. 68k and PPC
native libraries to access this
functionality will follow shortly as
IncWell rolls out its new SCPro family of
developer tools.
<www.incwell.com>
GRAPHICS
The new version of Snapz Pro 2.0,
the Macintosh screen capture
software, is being previewed. It has the
ability to record QuickTime movies, as
well as capture still screen pictures.
Snapz 2.0 also includes a new selection
feature that lets you use a handle on the
corner to resize and drag it around. Snapz
Pro can scale images anywhere from 10% to
400%, as well as dither them to a wide
range of color palettes. It saves in PICT
format, GIF and JPEG formats.
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com>
NetStudio Corp announced the
semifinalists for its second annual Mud
Brick Awards last week. The Muddies
are the Webby Awards' beer-drinking,
trailer park counterpart for the world's
ugliest Web sites, with a special focus on
big businesses that should know better.
For
more information and a complete list of
dirty comments from the Mud Brick panel of
judges, visit www.muddies.com. Mud Brick
nominations are still being accepted.
"Winners" will be dishonored in
April.
[I
liked the semifinalists so much, here's
just a few of
them-Ed]
- Quaker
Oats <www.quakeroats.com>
"Looks like it was done by someone's
kid for a grammar school project, with
apologies to some 5th grader's who I
know do much better work..." - Rob
Enderle, vice president, Giga
Information Group
- Southwest
Airlines <www.southwest.com>
"As Velveeta is to fine cheese...as
Ripple is to fine wine...as Taco Time
is to fine dining...so is Southwest
Airlines to fine design." - Jesse
Berst, editorial director, ZDNET
AnchorDesk
- Scope
Systems <www.scopesys.com>
"Oh the pain of watching someone
embarrass themselves. The talent show
singer who performs off key. The
keynote speaker who forgets his
lines...The Webmaster who builds
scopesys.com..." - Jesse
Berst
- Tradeshop
Incorporated <www.tradeshop.com>
"...one of the worst sites I have ever
seen...It looks like it should be for a
pawn shop in a bad neighborhood..." -
Rob Enderle
- The
Companion Group
(www.thecompaniongroup.com)
"I got seasick viewing this site." -
Tim Bajarin, president, Creative
Strategies
<www.netstudio.com>
Mattel plans to buy Purple
Moon, a failed company that pioneered
CD-ROM games for preteen girls stressing
themes of friendship and gentle adventure.
Mountain View-based Purple Moon was
started in 1996. The company, which had
about 40 employees, focused on games, a
Web site and related merchandise for girls
ages eight to 12. In February, the company
shut down and laid off all of its
employees. Mattel will consider hiring
some of Purple Moon workers.
Totally Hip Software is mounting a
LiveStage Seminar tour sponsored by
Apple Computer Inc. Attendees will learn
how to use LiveStage to create Interactive
QuickTime for the Internet.
The
seminars kick-off tomorrow in Atlanta, and
run through June 2. For more information
and to register go to Apple's Web site
at:
<www.apple.com
seminar registartion totallyhip>
<http://www.totallyhip.com>
Cameraworld.com is now offering
Lexar Media digital film products.
Under the terms of the agreement, both
companies will join forces to execute
marketing promotions for Lexar Media's
digital film in the three
industry-standard formats: CompactFlash,
SmartMedia and PC Cards, as well as the
company's Digital Film Card
Readers.
Also,
Lexar is offering some special promotions
at their website, and purchasers of
CompactFlash cards (through Cameraworld or
anywhere else) will receive a free PC Card
adapter when they register.
<www.cameraworld.com>
<www.digitalfilm.com>
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