Category: Software

Adobe updates Flash Player 9 "Moviestar" to include H.264 video support

flashlogo.gifAdobe has announced that its popular Flash Player 9, codenamed “Moviestar”, is being updated to include the H.264 / MPEG4 standard video format. This, together with technologies including High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support and hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback, could lead the way to Flash Player being used for high definition content.

It could also have implications for how popular video sharing services such as YouTube and MySpace operate, although YouTube is already moving to the H.264 format used by Quicktime so that videos can be played back on the iPhone, which currently doesn’t have Flash support.

Andy Merrett HDTV, Internet, Software

Apple launches iLife 08: updated digital lifestyle tools

apple_ilife_08.pngApple has updated its iLife software with what it claims is the most significant upgrade ever to their digital lifestyle applications.

New features include a revamped iPhoto which automatically groups photos in events, each containing a day’s worth of photos represented by a single picture, as well as offering new presentation and printing options.

iMovie has been completely ‘reinvented’ and now lets users import video from the latest AVCHD, HDV and DV cameras and digital cameras, as well as displaying a user’s entire movie collection, which can be viewed simply by skimming the mouse over the clip.

Andy Merrett Software

Apple launches iWork 08: updated productivity tools

apple_iwork_08.pngThey’ve been a long time coming, and talked/rumoured about, and at last Apple has updated its iWork and iLife applications, bringing up to ’08.

iWork 08 not only enhances the Pages and Keynote applications, but includes the new “Numbers” spreadsheet application that many believed Apple would, and needed to, introduce if they stood any chance of competing against Microsoft.

Interestingly, Apple has gone for a new approach to spreadsheets with the Numbers application. Instead of copying Excel, as so many others have, their approach allows people to organise and interlink information on different sheets on a flexible graphical canvas. This should make it easier to build relationships between the intelligent tables, each of which is a spreadsheet in its own right, as well as printing them.

Andy Merrett Software

Griffin announces "iKaraoke TunePrompter" free video creation tool

griffin_ikaraoke_tuneprompter_software.gifGriffin has announced its iKaraoke TunePrompter software, a free tool that lets you make karaoke videos from your existing music library. You do need to own the iKaraoke iPod gadget if you want to use the resulting video on your iPod, though the videos can also be used straight out of iTunes.

The software is easy to use: simply load up your favourite song, enter or find its lyrics, and then teach TunePrompter where those lyrics sit in the song by tapping the space bar along to the music.

Andy Merrett iPod, Software