Digital Tutors (Digital-Tutors.com), a Pluralsight company and provider of an e-learning resource, has released an "Introduction to Unity" tutorial. The new Unity training includes over four hours and 30 minutes of training content that teaches the viewer how to create a game that they can share with others. Aspects of using Unity 5 are covered including interface comprehension, project creation, character set-up and the development of materials, terrains, and characters. For 30 days, Digital-Tutors will release this exclusive tutorial for free (until May 7). Viewers will be able to access every video in the course, as well as all the assets needed for their guided training, taught by an experienced industry professional. The full "Introduction to Unity 5" is available to all Digital-Tutors and Pluralsight members through their subscription, or free to anyone for the next 30 days when they use the course’s promotional page. Additional game development training is also available for...

LaCie (www.lacie.com) has announced that its Rugged Thunderbolt storage solution will be available in a 1TB SSD capacity. With double the storage, the new LaCie Rugged is just as portable with no size or weight increase compared to the 500GB offering. Plus, it still features the lightning–fast transfer rates of Thunderbolt and is tough in the field with shock, dust and water resistance, according to Erwan Girard, Business Unit manager for LaCie. The LaCie Rugged delivers speeds of up to 387 MB/second — three times faster than a standard mobile hard drive. It's MIL–compliant, which means that data is protected even during accidental drops of up to 2 meters (6.6 feet). With its cap in place, the LaCie Rugged is also IP 54–rated for superior protection against dust and water splashing — even during operation. Plus, it's resistant to vibration and shock and is tough enough to be shipped for reliable delivery to clients or partners, according to Girard. With both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0...

SoftRAID (www.softraid.com) has updated its self-title software to version 5.0.7, which is reportedly up to 86% faster. With SoftRAID, you can create volumes with several different RAID levels. Any SoftRAID volume can use up to 16 disks. In version 5.0.7, reads from SoftRAID mirror volumes (RAID 1) are now up to 86% faster than AppleRAID. SoftRAID is now uses all of the disks in a mirror volume for reading data. By spreading the reads over multiple disks, reads from mirror volumes now approach the speed of stripe volumes. SoftRAID mirror volumes with two disks can now read at speeds of up to 270 MB/sec using HDDs (disks with rotating media) and 710 MB/sec using SSDs (disks with solid state media). SoftRAID has also improved the performance for RAID 1+0 volumes. Reads from RAID 1+0 volumes are now up to 67% faster than AppleRAID. SoftRAID is now uses both disks in each mirror pair of a RAID 1+0 volume. This produces reads speeds which approach that off a RAID 5 volume with the same...

iOS Guides has released Apple Watch Introduction, an US$1.99 eBook available in the iBookstore that reveals "everything you need to know" about the Apple Watch, from its hardware specifications to the in-built apps that you'll be using. The 84-page eBook is available on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac. It runs on an iOS device with iBooks 1.5 or later and iOS 4.3.3 or later, and a Mac with iBooks 1.0 or later and OS X 10.9 or later. The Apple Watch will be released April 24. There’s quite a large price gap between the lowest-end model, which will cost around US$350, and the highest, which will be nearly $17,000 and encased in gold. Pre-orders will start on April 10.

Drylab R&D (http://drylab.no/products/) has announced Dailies Creator 2.3 for Mac OS X. Creator is part of an integrated system for distributing digital dailies and is used by film and TV drama productions. Now, the DIT can provide the DP, producer, director, script supervisor, and others with Retina display ready dailies viewable on their own specially configured iPads. Creator ingests QuickTime-compatible files, transcodes to H.264, organizes them into shots, scenes, takes, and adds metadata. Clips and metadata are distributed to authorized iPads on-set or off (via the cloud). Dailies Creator and Viewer are free downloads but require a paid subscription. Set Report is a paid Apple App Store download. Subscriptions are sold on per-device, per-month basis. The Drylab Dailies system is also available for resellers wishing to provide the service to their customers, with optional white labelling.

Arturia has released V Collection Classics, which rounds up five of its Analog Classics soft synth emulations of five analogue synthesizers from five bands. Think ARP 2600 (1970-81), MinimoogTM (1970-81), Synthesizer Expander Module (1974-79), Jupiter-8 (1981-84), and Prophet-5 (1978-82). V Collection Classics is available to purchase as a boxed version for US$229 from any authorized Arturia dealer or online as a boxed version or download directly from Arturia at http://tinyurl.com/mlycubl .

Sonnet ( www.sonnettech.com) has announced the Mobile Rack Device Mounting Kit – Thunderbolt 2-to-PCIe Card Expansion Edition, the latest addition to their line of Thunderbolt 2-to-PCIe card expansion systems. The new chassis is an accessory for Sonnet's xMac Pro Server and Echo Express III-R rackmount expansion systems, and is itself a self-contained three-slot PCI Express (PCIe) expansion system that mounts inside the xMac Pro's or III-R's enclosure and can connect to a second 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 bus on a Mac Pro computer. The PCIe Card Expansion Edition enables the use of a variety of high-performance PCIe cards with the latest Mac Pro computer or any other computer with Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt 2 ports. The new model supposedly supports every low-profile, Thunderbolt-compatible PCIe card on the market.  The Thunderbolt 2-to-PCIe Card Expansion Edition will be demonstrated at the 2015 NAB Show in booth SL10824. It's due to be available this summer at a manufacturer's suggested...

AKVIS (www.akvis.com) has announced a new frame pack for AKVIS ArtSuite, which lets you decorate their photos with frames and effects. Extra frame packs can be installed to the program to increase its functionality. The new Easter Pack includes 50 designs. They include eggs, chicks and bunnies, and blooming flowers. You can use these frames to decorate your photos, prepare postcards, and more. Note that the frame packs can only be used in the AKVIS ArtSuite Standalone program. To add a frame pack to ArtSuite, copy it into a folder selected in the program's preferences. AKVIS ArtSuite, with all its frame packs, runs on Mac OS X 10.6 and higher. A demo is available for download. The ArtSuite standalone application sells for US$69; the price of the new frame pack is $15.

Yummy Software has released Yummy FTP 1.10.2, an update to their FTP + SFTP + FTPS file transfer client for Mac OS X. Yummy FTP focuses on speed, reliability and productivity. Its highly tuned multi-connection file transfer engine is coupled with an intelligent recovery system to automatically handle most all file transfer issues and more. Among other improvements, version 1.10.2 reduces transfer times in tests against popular rivals. Yummy FTP requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later and costs US$24.99. It's available directly from Yummy Software (http://www.yummysoftware.com/) or from the Mac App Store in the Productivity category.

Econ Technologies (www.econtechnologies.com) has released ChronoSync 4.6, an update of the Mac backup, bootable backup, and folder synchronizing app, on World Backup Day. It works with any device you can connect to a Mac such as external drives, thumb drives, network volumes, remote Macs, or even a PC. A demo is available for download. Registration is US$49.99. Existing users update for free. ChronoSync 4.6 adds SmartScan, an advanced algorithm for analyzing a volume for changes. File system analysis can often be the most time consuming part of a synchronization or backup. While SmartScan won’t copy your files any faster, detecting which ones need to be copied can see speed improvements. Version 4.6

MacDaddy has announced Mac Backup Guru 4.0 for OS X, an update to its utility and which has three main features. It provides a contextual menu to copy and paste a bootable volume in the Finder It provides incremental Snapshots in OS X. And it provides straightforward clone/sync functionality. Incremental Snapshots use only a small fraction of the disk space to store daily versioned backups which can be accessed via the Finder and appear to be standard copies. This is done by employing hardlinks to the original files for unaltered files. Mac Backup Guru  also offers the more traditional clone and sync functionality, with built in Contextual Menu Items in the Finder to make it easier access its capabilities and streamline the user interface. Mac Backup Guru requires Mac OS X 10.7 or later. It costs US$39 and is available here (http://macdaddy.io/mac-backup-software).

Quark Software says QuarkXPress 2015, the next major version of Quark’s design and layout tool for print and digital publishing, will be available on April 28. The company says QuarkXPress 2015 will deliver increased performance with a new 64-bit architecture, efficient print and digital production and many of the most user-requested features. The new version of QuarkXPress will continue to be sold as a perpetual license. Features include: 64-bit performance; verified PDF/X-4 output; larger page sizes, a dedicated orthogonal line tool;l fixed layout interactive ebooks; custom paper sizes; the ability to relink any picture in the usage dialog; the ability to collect for output for a complete project; user-definable shortcut keys on the Mac; tablet styles; a format painter; automatic footnotes and end notes; a faster table tool for Excel integration with table styles; text variables for automatically populating reoccurring fields – such as running headers; and more. In anticipation of...

Seventy-two of Fuddruckers (http://www.fuddruckers.com) company-owned fast casual restaurants throughout the country are now accepting Apple Pay, a new category of service that transforms mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay. According to Peter Tropoli, Chief Operating Officer of Luby's, Inc., "We're excited to provide Apple Pay, a convenience-oriented technology that pairs perfectly with our award-winning, fast casual fare," says Peter Tropoli, chief operating officer of Luby's Inc. Luby's operates restaurants under the brands Luby's Cafeteria, Fuddruckers and Cheeseburger in Paradise and provides food service management through its Luby's Culinary Services division. Apple announced Apple Pay in September 2014, describing it as “a new category of service designed to transform mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay.” It works with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus through a NFC antenna design, a dedicated chip called the Secure Element, and...

Micron Technology (www.micron.com) and Intel (www.intel.com) have announced the availability of their 3D NAND technology, the world's highest-density flash memory.   This new 3D NAND technology, which was jointly developed by the two companies, stacks layers of data storage cells vertically with "extraordinary precision" to create storage devices with three times higher capacity than competing NAND technologies. This enables more storage in a smaller space, bringing significant cost savings, low power usage and high performance to a range of mobile consumer devices as well as the most demanding enterprise deployments, says Brian Shirley, vice president of Memory Technology and Solutions at Micron Technology.   Planar NAND flash memory is nearing its practical scaling limits, posing significant challenges for the memory industry. 3D NAND technology is poised to make a dramatic impact by keeping flash storage solutions aligned with Moore's Law, the trajectory for continued performance...

Paragon Software Group has announced Paragon Boot Camp Backup, a free Mac OS X based backup solution for Windows partitions on Mac computers. It includes incremental imaging, file-level recovery, a scheduler, the ability to restore to a smaller target disk, automatic check of file system for errors, and more. For a 100GB volume and 22 GB of occupied space, it takes only 12 minutes to back up and 15 minutes to restore the entire system, according to the folks at Paragon. The backup tools delivered with Mac OS X don't support the Windows native file system NTFS and work on the file level only which has a negative effect on computer performance. Paragon Boot Camp Backup backs up NTFS Boot Camp partitions at the sector level. It creates incremental chains, where each new increment describes the changes between the current state of the backup object and the previous state. Paragon says this saves disk space, speeds backups, and allows recovery to a particular point in time. Paragon Boot...

IK Multimedia has revved SampleTank (www.sampletank.com), its sample workstation, to version 3.5 has just received a major update in the form of version 3.5. The update consists of 11 brand new sound collections, which are now also available in IK's new SampleTank Custom Shop. Also introduced are new features that make browsing SampleTank 3's thousands of sounds and patterns faster. SampleTank 3 sports a 33GB library of "bread-and-butter" sounds (with over 4,000 instruments from every category), 55 effects, MIDI patterns, groove tools and an enhanced sample engine. The latest update is complimentary for current users of all existing SampleTank 3 versions. SampleTank 3 and SampleTank 3 SE users can purchase the new Beats Series and Elektronika Series sound libraries from the IK online store for $39.99 each or 50 Gear Credits in the IK Custom Shop. The full version of SampleTank 3 is available now via the IK online store and select music instrument retailers with upgrades starting at...

Investigators now have a unique tool that leverages Passware's research in live-memory analysis for over-the-air acquisition of Apple Photo Stream contents without an Apple ID or password. Passware — a provider of password recovery, decryption, and electronic evidence discovery software for computer forensics, law enforcement organizations, government agencies, and private investigators — has announced version 2 of its flagship encrypted electronic evidence discovery product, Passware Kit Forensic 2015. This new release now acquires suspects' iPhone and iPad photos without Apple ID or password, provided the physical access to the computer with iCloud application installed. According to Apple, "Your new photos appear automatically on the iOS devices, computers, and Apple TV you set up with My Photo Stream, no matter which iOS device or computer you use to take or import new photos." This also concerns shared photo stream where photos and videos of trusted contacts are automatically...

Einstein's legacy (http://www.einsteinslegacy.com) has released Splice 2.3.1, an update to their movie management utility for Mac OS X. Splice is designed for professional and amateur video content creators who need a simple tool for organizing and joining a collection of video clips together into a single movie. Version 2.3.1 introduces enhanced full screen support, tighter integration with the User Notification Center, improved progress reporting and better error handling. Splice 2.3.1 is available for US$9.99 from the Mac App Store (in the Video category). It requires Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite or higher.

Bayhoff Software (http://www.bayhoff.com) has introduced CircleIcons 1.0 for OS X, a new app designed to make it easy for developers to create "circle icons" for their iPhone, iPad, Mac, and WatchKit apps without the need to hire a graphic designer. Developers can choose between three icon types, including App, Document and Folder, as well as numerous color collections or even resize pre-existing icons. They can export an icon as a Xcode asset catalog, favicon, App Store icon and more. CircleIcons 1.0 requires OS X 10.10 Yosemite or later. It costs US$9.99 and is available exclusively through the Mac App Store in the Developer Tools category.

4DX Games has unleashed Weasel Woodpecker, their newest game title on Mac OS X, iOS, Android, PC, and Facebook platforms. You can play the game for free on each platform. You've seen the already iconic photo of a weasel riding on a woodpeckers back. Now you can re-enact the photo by becoming a weasel, trying to hitch a ride from the unsuspecting woodpecker. You soar through the skies, dodging trees and collecting acorns. Weasel Woodpecker consists of randomly generated levels. The gameplay follows the "simple to control, hard to master" ideology. You start by controlling the weasel. By timing your jump correctly, the weasel lands on the woodpecker's back. Once you've managed to hitch a ride, you control the woodpecker, avoiding obstacles and collecting acorns along the way. When you see a ledge at the end of the level, you will need to jump off. Be careful not to miss the platform. Weasel Woodpecker is available at the Mac App Store and the Apple App Store.

AKVIS has released AKVIS Points 1.0 for Mac OS X and Windows. It turns images into pointillism paintings. This painting technique is characterized by applying of separate brush strokes in the form of dots or spots. A complex hue is decomposed into individual colors, which are displayed on the canvas as dotted strokes, small dabs of paint of pure color. The optical mixing of these dots provides a visual perception of an entire painting. The software runs on Mac OS X 10.6 and higher Windows XP/Vista/Win7/Win 8 and on Mac OS X 10.6-10.10. It is available as a standalone program and as a plugin filter for Adobe Photoshop, Corel PaintShop Pro, and other image editors. AKVIS Points, Home license, sells for US$49. The functionality of the program depends on the license type. Consult the official website (http://akvis.com/en/points/index.php) for more details about license types and versions of the software.

Peter Lacalamita has launched Sky Battles (http://store.steampowered.com/app/346670), his new indie air combat game on Steam, the online store for Mac and PC games. Sky Battles features bi-planes and giant titan bosses like krakens, sea monsters and fire breathing dragons to name a few. It also includes a multiplayer mode allowing players to engage in online dogfights. Sky Battles includes a multiplayer mode allowing players to engage in online dogfights. Steam achievements and leader boards have been implemented to complement the gaming experience.

Zevrix Solutions (www.zevrix.com) has announced PDF Checkpoint 1.7.7, a maintenance update to their PDF preflight and conversion solution. The app automatically preflights, exports as images, splits and optimizes Adobe PDF files. The software can also convert the color of PDF colors, downsample resolution and compress images. The new version lets users preflight PDF documents created with LibreOffice as well as files that underwent GhostScript conversion. PDF Checkpoint 1.7.7 can be purchased on the Mac App Store and Zevrix website for US$39.95, as well as from authorized resellers. The update is free to licensed users. A demo is available for download. PDF Checkpoint requires Mac OS X 10.7 or higher.

FirstBank Holding Company, says it will begin offering Apple Pay mobile payment services for customers. Apple Pay is currently accepted at more than 700,000 businesses and retailers nationwide. Customers can add their FirstBank debit or credit card by going to settings on their Apple device, opening "Passbook & Apple Pay”" and then selecting "Add Credit or Debit Card." After their debit or credit card information is added, customers can hold their finger on the phone’s Touch ID scan—near the vendor’s contactless reader—to make a purchase. FirstBank (www.efirstbank.com) serves more than 650,000 customers and operates more than 115 locations in Colorado, Arizona, and California. A majority of its stock is owned by management and employees.