News for Friday, 15 December 2006

Why talking about TextParrot. TextParrot allows you to listen to your documents with naturally sounding voices in a language of choice, something different than OXS Voice. Voices are currently available for the following languages: US English, UK English, French, German, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Swedish.
TextParrot is also the first product from ConvenienceWare, a new product family from AssistiveWare, the world leader in accessibility solutions for impaired people on Mac OS X
To know more: http://www.convenienceware.com

Thanks to Seb for this report and comments

Hereafter are some photos of a MBP C2D 17" from an inside point of view. One can clearly see the 3 output antenna leaving the airport card, 2 of them going into the screen case, while the last one goes into the hinge. The RAM comes from Samsung.
To be noticed, the 4 speakers present providing a much better sound quality than in previous PowerBook 17" models (already present with MBP Core Duo).

So this computer is ready for WiFi MIMO, as soon as Apple released firmware updates...
It also shows how talented Apple engineers are to design such hardware, getting everything in, to be fully operational in such limited space.
One can see the space occupied by the optical drive and the battery, almost half of it.

Sorry, we could not resist...
Voluntary, or not, leak of confidential information is the main fear of most companies, Apple is well known for doing its best to fight against it (and even sometimes organize such a leak...).
But cbs5.com reports that last Wednesday, Cupertino had to face a major leak... of water inside Apple headquarter building. Not really dropping water, more like a river, as it was estimated to 350l/min.
For sure, Apple security officers prefer such leaks...

As we announced it already one week ago (here), Adobe has officially announced its beta version for CS3. It will be available either in demo version or in test version requiring you to enter a CS2 serial.
It is of course, an Universal Binary application and if it appears stable and reliable enough it might well boost sales of Mac Pro.
[Update by our Adobe specialist: Cri-cri]
From the Adobe download webpage you will find a link allowing you to generate a serial number for this beta version, all CS2 licenses seems to be eligible (e.g. Photoshop, Creative suite, Web bundle, Full, upgrade or Education).
The installer weights 685MB, so be patient... once launched it will ask you to close opened application, even those not directly linked to Adobe (such as Firefox). Once installed, this beta will take 1.6GB on your HD.
The first thing to notice is the new style chosen for the icons. Much more sober than the previous version, more like Windows-style, some users might find it easier to identify Adobe suite icons in the dock.
When launched for the first time, you will have to use this demo either in demo version, or registered version if you have generated the serial number. In demo version, CS3 will be usable for 30 days, while the registered version might be fully functional till the final version is released.
In both cases, you will have 2 days to activate your application in order to be able to use it, this is of course to prevent pirated copies.
If you use a MacIntel, an error message will indicate that some plug-ins have failed to be loaded (indeed some PPC plug-ins). To avoid it, do to Help/System Info to recover them (in particular Altivec Core and PPC Core and Watermark) then move them drag them out of the plug-ins folder.
The interface has been partially modified but remains similar to the previous one. As with InDesign, palettes can now be minimized on the side. In the Windows/Workspace menu, one can choose different working environment organization. One set being called "Legacy" is identical to the default one found in CS2.
Photoshop CS3 features the new version of Bridge, while coming along with the new software for generating contents dedicated to mobile phones. Both applications should already be localized (meaning not only in English)
One can not launch simultaneously Photoshop CS2 and CS3.
This is our first steps with Photoshop CS3, we will keep providing notes and information in the dedicated topic in our forum: here (in French).
First test looks promising:

Results for Retouch Artists Speedtest :
MBP 2.33 GHz, @GB RAM, HD 5400 rpm:
Photoshop CS 2 : 2'44"
Photoshop CS3 : 57"
(Thanks stephane36)