Paradigma Software (http://www.valentina-db.com) has released Valentina DB 4.5, an update of the columnar database for business and developers, and and Valentina Reports 4.5, the cross-platform database reporting solution for Windows and Mac OS X. The upgrade sports over 100 improvements, including 64-bit versions on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Valentina Reports is a visual report creation and generation engine that drops right into the Valentina DB kernel and generates charts, graphs, complex layouts of data with groups and sub-reports, PDFs and more. It's available on Mac OS X and Windows and for every major development environment -- from .net to Cocoa applications on Mac OS X. Unlimited Report deployment is available starting at US$200. Valentina DB based products include Valentina ADK and Valentina Developer Network for developers desiring to incorporate the incredibly fast Valentina DB into their applications. VDN also allows royalty free deployment of Valentina Embedded Server...

HP (http://www.hp.com) has introduced five point-and-shoot digital cameras and three camcorders with features such as LCD displays, up to 5X optical zoom and fashionable colors. The cameras and camcorders -- due this spring -- come in slim, lightweight designs at prices ranging from US$99 to $199. Adding to its portfolio of touch-enabled notebooks and desktops, HP now features LCD touchscreen displays on select cameras and camcorders. In addition, select models feature a new user interface that include a high color contrast to help ensure better visibility of menus and a choice of more than 25 scene modes. When choosing a scene mode, the display shows two images -- how the photo will look in auto mode and how it will look in the selected scene mode. The premium HP CW450t and HP PW460t point-and-shoot digital cameras feature 2.7-inch and 3-inch LCD touchscreen displays, respectively, and a newly designed touch interface for viewing photos with the swipe of a finger. Both have 4X...

Kingston Digital (http://www.kingston.com), the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, has released the DataTraveler 310, which it says is the first 256GB USB Flash drive in the United States. The company has also released a SDHC Class 10 card in 16GB and 32GB capacities. The DataTraveler 310 replaces the 256GB DataTraveler 300, released in July 2009 to the Asia/Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. It features Password Traveler software, which allows the user to create and access a password-protected privacy zone. The secure area of the drive can account for up to 90% of the drive's capacity and does not require administrator rights. The DataTraveler 310 has a protective cap that snaps onto the back for the drive for convenient storage when not in use. This drive is available only in 256GB and costs US$1,008 (nope, that's not a typo). Meanwhile, Kingston's SDHC Class 10 cards meet the Class 10 data transfer rate specification but has an enhanced...

Apple has released a new support document for its Aperture photo editing and management software for photographers. Version 3 was introduced earlier this month. After you upgrade Aperture from an earlier version to Aperture 3, Aperture may quit unexpectedly when opening or when you enter the Aperture 3 upgrade serial number, Apple says. The support document (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3231) offers advice on resolving the issue.

Monster (http://www.monstercable.com) has introduced its new Butterfly in-ear headphones ($199.95), created in conjunction with fashion designer Vivienne Tam. The new patent-pending Butterfly headphones echo the Butterfly Lovers theme of Tam’s spring 2010 fashion collection, featuring a curved design, light gold-brushed finish and butterfly images on the earpieces. Monster’s Butterfly in-ear headphones come with a carry case that reflects the Butterfly theme. Monster’s cable management system features an on-cable slider and clip that keeps weight off the headphones so they stay snug in the user’s ears. The Butterfly comes in multiple shapes and sizes.

The event will feature Adobe's senior vice president of Creative Solutions, John Loiacono, as well as vice president of Photoshop Product Management, Kevin Connor, Photoshop co-creator Thomas Knoll and famed Adobe creative director and Photoshop evangelist, Russell Brown. To be a part of this celebration and view the live webcast, visit http://www.photoshopuser.com/photoshop20th. The festivities continue overseas in Japan, Southeast Asia and throughout Europe. In honor of the 20th anniversary, Adobe Germany will host a special 20-hour online marathon, featuring over 15 local Photoshop "gurus" demonstrating their favorite tips and tricks live for Photoshop fans. In India and France, digital imaging contests will be held to showcase the work of Photoshop users. A special Adobe TV broadcast will also air on the anniversary date at http://tv.adobe.com/go/photoshop-20th-anniversary, reuniting the original "Photoshop team" for the first time in 18 years, to discuss their early work on the...

Wolfram Research (http://www.wolfram.com) has released Wolfram Workbench 2, an update of its solution for enterprise-class software development and deployment. New in Version 2 is the ability to create and integrate documentation for your Mathematica applications, as well as improvements to code editing, navigation, and more. Workbench is used throughout Wolfram Research; it's a key tool for the development of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and other Wolfram technologies. Built on the Eclipse software platform, Workbench 2 combines Mathematica's programming language and computation, visualization, and modeling features with one of an integrated development environments (IDEs). It gives developers the luxury of working with any Eclipse-supported language, making Workbench one of the market's most efficient organizational tools, according to Adam Berry, senior developer of Workbench. Workbench lets developers code as they think, using Mathematica's multi-paradigm expression language....

Ken Winograd and Space-Time Associates (http://www.winograd.com) have released the first completely rewritten version of the Mac accounting and bookkeeping program called TinyBooks Pro. The new version is version 7.0. TinyBooks Pro is a single-entry bookkeeping and accounting system designed for sole proprietors, home and other small businesses, and family finances. To use you enter your expenses and income, and TinyBooks Pro does the rest. Current and year-to-date on-the-fly totals are continually displayed. Fully automatic bar-charting of all expense and income accounts make the determination of monthly trends intuitively obvious, according to the folks at Space-Time Associates. A fully non-modal Reports and Transaction Search Window offers standard and custom reporting and searching. All lists and reports are exportable to other programs as standard tab-delimited text files. Expense, income and special mileage entry forms can be printed for off-line entry of data as desired....

Kin Winograd and Space-Time Associates (http://www.winograd.com) has released version 6.0.3 of TinyBooks, its US$49 (per individual) accounting and bookkeeping software for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. The new version adds the ability to create a "TinyBooks-Pro-Conversion" file. With this file, existing TinyBooks users can upgrade to TinyBooks Pro 7 without having to re-enter even a single transaction. The app is designed for sole proprietors, home and other small businesses, and family finances. A fully non-modal Reports and Transaction Search Window offers standard and custom reporting and searching. All transactions are exportable to other programs as standard tab-delimited text files. Expense, income and special mileage entry forms can be printed for "off line" entry of data as desired. Non-fiscal years are supported, as is the concept of recurring expenses. TinyBooks includes a Professional Invoice Printer for printing invoices, estimates, proposals, statements (and more) on plain...

Future Media Concepts (FMC), an authorized digital media training organization for postproduction, broadcast, and content creators, has announced their 6th annual Post|Production World Conference at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention, held in Las Vegas April 10-14. With over 250 session offerings delivered by industry professionals, the Post|Production World Conference has developed into the largest, most comprehensive training event in the world, according to says John Marino, vice president, Science and Technology, NAB. Produced in partnership with NAB, its successful training methodology provides a learning experience for TV, video, film, and new media professionals. Post|Production World Conference encompasses five days of in-depth training in 11 concurrent breakout rooms, featuring the very latest technology applications and workflow techniques from Apple, Adobe and avid., The 2010 agenda offers several exclusive session topics, including tracks specific...

Absolute Software (http://www.absolute.com) has joined the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (http://www.enterprisedesktopalliance.com), an organization to help IT departments integrate Macs into the corporate environment. On Dec. 3, 2009 Absolute purchased LANrev, which was a founding member of the EDA. By joining the EDA, Absolute has broadened the categories of cross-platform integration that the EDA represents to include cloud-based data security, theft recovery and computer tracking. Absolute's security and computer lifecycle management solutions support both Mac computers and PC, says T. Reid Lewis, president of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, and CEO of Group Logic. Absolute has participated in all the activities sponsored by the EDA in 2010 including the webcast "Snow Leopard Integration in the Enterprise" which is available on-demand on the EDA web site. Absolute was also represented at Macworld in the Enterprise Desktop Alliance booth.

MetaCommunications (http://www.meta-comm.com) has announced the immediate release and availability of the Workgroups 2010 Package 162.4 upgrade. Workgroups 2010 is a collaborative workflow and project management suite that now features built-in support for third party document scanning and OCR solution. The latest version includes usability enhancements to the Spark! browser-based document reviewer plus bug fixes and performance improvements for the Workgroups 2010 project management suite. The software includes support for most scanning and OCR solutions, including Nuance Paperport & OmniPage, SimpleSoftware's Simple OCR, Epson Scan, eCopy PaperWorks, and Microsoft Office Document Imaging. Once a document has been scanned, it can be picked up by Workgroups 2010, automatically indexed, and moved to the correct location on the file server. This makes all scanned documents immediately available to all Workgroups 2010 users. If scanned documents include OCR information, the text is...

Zerion Software, developer of the exZact data collection platform (http://www.iformbuilder.com), is developing a native iPad data collection solution. Customers will now have an additional platform option for their data collection needs, while at the same time allowing them to take advantage of the iPad's new look, screen size, and enhanced feature-set, says Zerion President Sze Wong. The new release of exZact is aimed at data collection, work order management and task management for the iPad. Features include: a side-by-side reference view (the ability to reference a document, map or video side-by-side with a form); the ability to view full page attachments; and enhanced drawing and HTML widgets Development for the iPad native version of exZact has already begun, with a target date for the first release scheduled for the second quarter of 2010, coinciding with the launch of the iPad. Zerion has been offering the exZact Mobile platform since June 2009.

ExactCode has updated its ExactScan Pro scanning software (http://www.exactcode.de/site/products/exactscan/) for Mac OS X (10.4 and higher) to version 2.9. The upgrade gets a speed boost and adds: support for various new scanners from Visioneer, Xerox, Avision, and other vendors; document splitting on blank, placeholder pages; and online help. ExactScan includes built-in drivers for over 180 document scanners, including devices from Avision, Kodak, Oki, Visioneer and Xerox. Together with the Spotlight indexing services built into Mac OS X since 10.5 ("Leopard") this features form a document management solution suitable for small-office and home-office (SOHO) environments. What's more it has image enhancement algorithms that can recognize automatically how the images and documents have to be cropped and de-skewed. ExactScan comes with support for many languages (English, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Simplified-Chinese, Traditional-Chinese) and works with Mac...

Mirye Software (http://mirye.net/) has released Shade 10, an update to their professional 3D modeling, animation and rendering suite. The new version emphasizes greater integration with other applications and export options, as well as overall improvements to workflow. Shade is an all-in-one 3D solution that includes both curved surface modeling and traditional polygon based modeling tools. New features in version 10 include: ° Multipass rendering, which lets you render images into layered TIFF files that allow post processing of each discreet effect; ° New, interactive 3D manipulator, custom work planes, fully customizable viewports and more workflow enhancements; ° New support for adding 3D fur, hair masks, additional hair styling tools, hair collision detection and gravity; ° An interactive joint object allows models to switch between alternative geometry; ° External surface and geometry; ° Toon rendering features; ° Support for Smith Micro Poser 8 for incorporating or hosting...

Apple has launched a MacBook repair extension program for hard drives issues (http://www.apple.com/support/macbook/hd/repairextension/). The company says it's determined that "a very small percentage" of hard drives that were used in MacBook systems, sold between approximately May 2006 and December 2007, may fail under certain conditions. If your MacBook was purchased in the date range listed above and shows a flashing question mark on the screen, take it to Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider and they'll examine the hard drive to confirm if it's eligible for a replacement, free of charge, under this program. If Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider confirms that your hard drive is affected, Apple will replace it with a new hard drive. You'll need to have the original OS installation discs that were shipped with your product in order to re-install your operating system, other applications, and any backed up data.

FluxDVD, a platform-independent video solution, now supports secure video downloads and playback on iPhone and iPod touch devices. The optionally DRM-protected files can be downloaded directly on the iPhone or may be transferred from a computer without requiring iTunes. Once the content and license is stored on the iPhone, the content can be used as defined in the DRM and does not require any Internet connection. Support for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has been added through the custom "My Movies" app, which is available free of charge in the Apple App Store. FluxDVD supports Windows, regular DVD players, portable media players, navigation systems, Windows Mobile phones, Blackberry, Android, feature phones, PlayStation and iPhone/iPod touch. Solutions for Mac OS X and Android are planned to be released in the near future. Encoding and distribution tools are available at no cost at http://www.fluxdvd.com .

Useful Fruit Software has released Pear Note 1.4 (http://www.usefulfruit.com/pearnote/), an update of the note-taking utility for Mac OS X. The upgrade adds support for including images within notes, providing a way for users to add figures, charts, photographs, or anything else that can be represented in an image to their notes. Version 1.4 also includes many other improvements such as the ability to search in slides, export to RTFD files, and several interface and reliability enhancements. At its core, Pear Note integrates audio, video, and slides with traditional text notes. By recording all activity, the software keeps track of what's going on while taking notes as well as what the user has to say about it. Pear Note records audio, video, and what the user does, including typing notes and changing slides, on a timeline. Since keystrokes and slide changes are kept on this timeline, users can find what was being said during typing or a particular slide. They can play back an entire...

Exacq Technologies (http://www.exacq.com) has released version 4 of its exacqVision video management system software and version 2.0 of the exacqVision Webserver video management(VSM). ExacqVision 4.0 adds a new mapping feature and an Enterprise Server Option. Mapping is now available on all exacqVision systems. Users can add maps of geographic locations, entire facilities, rooms and more by uploading an image (e.g. JPEG, bitmap, gif) and then associating cameras with it by utilizing the icons. With the release of version 4.0 Exacq Technologies introduces the new Enterprise Server Option. In addition to having all of the features of the Standard version, the new Enterprise Server Option adds three new features to exacqVision: Multi-level Mapping, Enterprise User Setup and integration with Active Directory and LDAP. The Enterprise Server Option can be added to any new or existing exacqVision server running version 4.0 or later. The multi-level mapping feature allows users to create...

Adobe Systems is readying a mobile version of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), its runtime for running Flash and Web applications outside of a browser, reports "InfoWorld" (http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/adobe-air-20-full-featured-fl...). The company plans to demonstrate AIR 2.0 running on a Google Android-based smartphone today at the Mobile Word Congress in Barcelona. Adobe expects to make mobile AIR available for Android and RIM BlackBerry devices, and perhaps for other platforms as well, said Adrian Ludwig, Adobe's marketing director for the Flash platform. However, he didn't mention the iPhone specifically so who knows? AIR 2.0 is currently in a beta release for Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops. Adobe expects AIR 2.0 will be generally available on desktops by July, and later on mobile devices. There will be no beta version of the mobile release. AIR is a cross-operating system application runtime that allows developers to use HTML/CSS, Ajax, Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex...

Kingston Digital (http://www.kingston.com), the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology, has released a 16GB microSDHC Class 10 card. It complies with the SD™ Association Specification 3.00 to meet Class 10 requirements. The 16GB microSDHC card has a minimum data transfer rate of 10MB/second and ships either as a stand-alone microSDHC card or with adapters. It costs US$138. "Now that the Class 10 card specification is five times faster than a Class 2 card, users will see swifter copying and transferring of photos, music, videos and e-books when using a multi-format card reader such as the Kingston Media Reader or MobileLiteG2 with a personal computer," says Wendy Lecot, flash card business manager, Kingston.

"Wired Magazine" Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson announced at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference on Friday that the publication would be releasing its content for the iPad by summer. "I’m from the media world, and as you may have heard, we have lots of questions about our future," Anderson told the audience. "The good news is I think we found part of the answer…. We think this is a game changer." He said the iPad allows periodicals for the first time to do digital content with all of the same values and artistic range that are the hallmark of print magazines. "Wired" Creative Director Scott Dadich worked with Jeremy Clark from Adobe over the last six months to design the "Wired iPad Magazine." You can read more at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/ted-2010-wired-for-the-ipad-to-la....

Intelligent Assistance has introduced a new software tool that takes Transcription XML from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 or Soundbooth CS4 and converts it text, Excel Spreadsheet or Final Cut Pro clip markers. According to Intelligent Assistance’ CEO Philip Hodgetts, the software imports the transcription XML from the Adobe Production Bundle and allows editors and producers to name the speakers -- something not possible in the Production Bundle. From there users have the option to: ° Export a plain text file, suitable for the needs of a producer or to import into Media Composer’s Script Sync engine; ° Export an Excel spreadsheet with a variable number of words per row; ° Open the XML from a Final Cut Pro clip and add the transcription to Markers. There are a variable number of words per Marker (including one Marker per speaker).                        The speaker name is placed in the Marker name. Transcription appears in the clip Marker comment. Marker colors are used to identify each...

Flurry (http://www.flurry.com), a cross-platform mobile application analytics provider, says that developers integrating Flurry analytics into iPhone OS applications in January increased by nearly three times over December thanks to the iPad announcement. This represents the single largest spike in Flurry history, with over 1,600 new iPhone OS application starts for January. Historically, Flurry has measured surges in new application starts within its system in anticipation of new the company hypothesizes that excitement generated by Apple's iPad event in January is driving this growth. For developers who get a jump on customizing their applications for the iPad, there may be an opportunity to stand out early on, and earn more downloads. The iPad is due to ship in late March and late April for the WiFi and 3G versions, respectively.