25/09/2007 by john.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 24, 2007 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Premiere® Elements 4, a major upgrade to the best-selling consumer video-editing software. Available for Windows®, Adobe Premiere Elements software offers easy and flexible ways to create home movies with amazing video and audio effects in just minutes, and then share them on DVDs, via mobile devices or upload them directly to YouTube and other social networking sites. Adobe Premiere Elements includes a wealth of new functionality, including an Organiser to help find and sort video clips, one-click movie themes and an improved easy-to-use interface.
In addition, Adobe today announced Adobe Photoshop® Elements 6 software, a complete photo-editing solution (see separate press release). Available separately or together in a single retail package, Photoshop Elements & Adobe Premiere Elements give photo and video enthusiasts more creative ways to organise, edit, create and share digital photos and home movies.

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25/09/2007 by john.

You may think that there can’t possibly be another range of mobile storage disks entering the market with so many ranges already available. Well… the new B1 series from TwinMOS is one of a kind, subverting the style and size limitations associated with traditional USB disks. Although there are similar products available on the market that feature mini form factors, none can boast a whopping 4GB storage as well.

Reflecting the slim and lightweight trends set by today’s mobile consumers, the B1 series is ideal for extreme mobility. It features a 2.8mm thickness which makes it easy to slip into your wallet or your pocket and weighs a mere 1.5 grammes, almost undetectable on the scales. It also features a carrying ring and silver coated chain which allows you to conveniently carry the B1 on a key ring, a mobile phone, a handbag…pretty much anything! The B1 series also feature a no-cap design, eliminating the possibility of it being lost on your travels.

The B1 series combines functionality and style! Design and fashion conscious users will be pleased that the new TwinMOS B1 series is available in a variety of colours including; Black, White, Pastel Yellow, Pink, Pastel Blue and Pastel Green, making it easy to choose a colour that suits your personality and style or simply to match your favourite compatible gadget! The B1 series can also be personalized with your own designs for true individuality or to turn them into the ideal corporate gifts.

The new TwinMOS super mini USB2.0 B1 series has been designed to support the latest operating system, Windows Vista, but is also backward compatible with all Windows operating systems as well as MAC10.1+ and Linux 2.4+.

A minimalist design contrasted with an enormous capacity, the new TwinMOS B1 series makes it easy to take with you and share a huge amount of data, whether that be files from the office or your favourite music and home movies. You can buy the B1 series now from www.urboom.com

Also look out for the 8GB B1 series, coming later this year!

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12/09/2007 by john.

International award winning Brighton sculptor, Jamie McCartney, has done it again with his green machine, Car-bon Miles, a road car converted to pedal-power. He has now won the Kyoto Prize for the cleanest, greenest vehicle in the first ever UK Art Car Parade. Jamie made a triumphant return to his seafront studio on Sunday, where the car is now on show. See: (www.jamiemccartney.com/latest.html)

A new phenomenon has swept the streets of the UK as acclaimed specialists in outdoor performance Walk the Plank, created the UK’s very first Art Car Parade in Manchester on Saturday 8th September. See: (http://www.artcarparade.co.uk/)

Michael Trainor, Curator of Art Cars 2007 explains… “An Art Car is a drivable installation - any vehicle which has been re-imagined, re-styled, re-modelled, or completely metamorphosed by an artist. Vehicles can be decorated, sculpted, adorned, illuminated or bejewelled to create “transports of delight” in the shape of cars, trucks, bikes, mobility scooters or even pedal or solar-powered contraptions!”

As one of 14 commissioned artists, Brighton based sculptor Jamie McCartney, joined around 25 other vehicles as they took the streets of Manchester by storm. An accomplished artist, Jamie completed a degree in Experimental Art at the renowned Hartford Art School, the oldest art college in America. His degree and years working on feature films has made Jamie something of a maverick and ideally qualified to create a car which most people could only imagine. Never shy of controversy, he explores the boundaries of what is possible and acceptable. His last award was the Erotic Signature international sculpture prize for his piece ‘The Spice of Life’, now on permanent display in London.

Jamie is one of the talented artists from all over the country who was specially commissioned to transform vehicles into weird and wonderful mobile artworks to take part in the event: the first ever Art Car Parade in the UK. Art Car Parades are a huge phenomenon in the USA, with the first, and by far the largest, in Houston with 250 Art Cars on show, attracting over 200,000 spectators annually.

To realise his ambitious Art Car, Jamie enlisted the help of local engineer James Fleming. Their blend of art and engineering has produced a transport phenomenon. From his studio on Madeira Drive Jamie has earned himself and a place in the history books as a winner in what was a spectacularly successful inaugural Parade.

Over the coming weeks Jamie and James will add solar power to the vehicle to light it up in time for the UK’s first Illuminated Art Car Parade in Blackpool on October 21st. See: (http://www.festivaloflight.co.uk)

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12/09/2007 by john.

How to Make Music in Your Bedroom
By Nicola Slade
Virgin Books, 23rd October 2007, Paperback, £6.99

The definitive guide to becoming a DIY Music Artist

With the multitude of technological advances of modern day such as the internet and a wide range of adaptable software available to anyone with a PC, it’s about time we made them work for us. This book explains how to do exactly that with regards to recording, mixing and editing your very own music from your very own bedroom.

The concept behind, ‘How to Make Music in Your Bedroom’ is automatically supported by the recent success of artists such as Lilly Allen and Seth Lakeman, who used the types of techniques which can be found in this book to catapult themselves onto the music scene. The Artic Monkeys are another new band who also made use of the vast range of file sharing networks found on the web to promote their self made album.

Nicola Slade shows how anyone can record and mix killer music from the comfort of their bedroom. The author explains what hardware, software and mixing equipment is required, and includes a history of the digitisation of music, advice on marketing and promoting your music and contributions from DIY music artists who have made it big.

Key facts about the ever expanding and changing world that is the music industry:

• Seth Lakeman spent just £300 pounds on his album which he made in his kitchen. He has now been nominated for the Mercury Prize.
• MySpace claims to have 35 million unique users.
• Napster was one of the first file sharing programmes to appear on the web in 1999, with this came the birth of illegally downloaded music.
• The number of legally downloaded music is rapidly rising whilst the number of physical purchases of music is slowing declining. This has therefore changed the way in which music is marketed and produced.

The Author, Nicola Slade, is a well respected music journalist who started out at the respected The Fly magazine. She then moved on to edit music websites such as the Mean Fiddler; currently she is writing for Music Week and is the co-author of Download: The Lowdown.

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07/09/2007 by john.

Maidenhead, UK – 5 September 2007 – Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL; TSX:CRE), a leading developer of graphics, productivity and digital media software, today announced the launch of Corel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo X2, a major new product release from its award-winning digital media portfolio. Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is the ideal digital photography software for aspiring photographers and business communicators who want to transform their digital pictures into professional-looking photos fast. Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 provides users with the widest selection of photo editing features ranging from automatic tools for quick fixes to precision controls for fine-tuning. Unlike lite, essentials or elements version photo editors, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 provides continued depth of functionality that enables users to grow as their skills and knowledge progress.

With Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, viewing, sorting and processing downloaded photos is faster than ever thanks to the all new Express Lab. Beginners benefit from a wide range of automatic, one-click adjustments while advanced users can take full advantage of the program’s manual adjustments providing more direct control over each photo. With speed improvements and the built-in Learning Center, new users can produce results quickly, learning as they go.

“Our focus for this release of Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo was to make it even easier and faster for both new and experienced users to create stunning digital photos,” said Petter Nordwall, director, Corel international product management. “We worked closely with users to understand how they interact with our software in order to deliver an end product that truly reflects and enriches the way they use Paint Shop Pro Photo at home and at work.”

Powerful Photo Editing Made Easy
Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 offers a number of new features and significant enhancements to bring the power and creative possibilities of digital photography to more users. New features in Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 include:

Express Lab - The all-new Express Lab mode enables users to view and edit dozens of photos in the time it used to take to edit just a few. When using Express Lab, users can rapidly crop, rotate, apply color adjustments and perform other common tasks on large numbers of images without having to open each image individually. Now even new users can edit photos with the speed and efficiency of a professional photographer. Express Lab includes full support for all file formats including camera raw.

Graphite Look and Feel - Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 features a new graphite workspace that puts the focus on the photo. The new interface also provides a neutral background for unbiased color adjustments.

HDR Photo Merge - With the NEW HDR Photo Merge, users can easily create photos that capture the full details found in the shadows and the highlights of a high-contrast scene. Users can combine two or more photos taken at different exposures and use the Clarify feature to automatically “dodge and burn” bringing out the contrast.

Makeover Tools - With the NEW Thinify™ tool, users can make anyone look thinner with just one click. The NEWEye Drop tool takes the red out of bloodshot eyes. The popular Suntan brush and Blemish Fixer have also been enhanced so users of any skill level can quickly and easily touch up images like the pros.

Layer Styles - With the NEW Layer Styles, photographers and business users can add drop shadows, embossing, outer and inner glows, bevels and reflections to text, photos and creative projects.

Visible Watermarks - Users can easily create and add a personal watermark to their photos, whether they are a professional photographer sharing proofs with a client or an individual user who wants to share images online.

Auto-Preserve Originals - The NEW Auto-Preserve Originals option enables users to freely experiment with changes to their photos, confident that their original image is preserved.

Save for Office - With the NEW Save for Office option, photos are automatically resized and saved in the appropriate format for a given project. File sizes are also automatically compressed to make it easier for the business user to share images via email. Users who prefer to Copy and Paste can use the NEW Copy Special options for the same benefits.

Dynamic Language Switching - With Dynamic Language Switching, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 makes it easy for users to work in their preferred language, a feature especially useful to Corel’s growing number of multinational corporate site license customers.

Crop as New Image - For people who scan multiple images at once, the Crop as New Image option automatically opens scanned photos into separate documents, dramatically increasing the speed and efficiency with which users can crop and save their photos.

For a complete list of new and enhanced features in Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, please visit www.paintshopprophoto.com.

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07/09/2007 by john.

New Software Brings Creative Power to Audio Creation and Production
IBC 2007, AMSTERDAM - Sept. 6, 2007 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Audition® 3 software, a major new release of the all-in-one solution for professional audio production. Adobe Audition 3 is designed to give audio professionals - sound designers, recording and mastering engineers, and musicians - a flexible production toolkit for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering audio. With comprehensive audio mastering and restoration capabilities, Adobe Audition 3 helps professionals create music and radio spots, as well as restore imperfect recordings with sophisticated editing tools. New features include VSTi virtual instrument support with MIDI piano roll, enhanced spectral editing options, fast fade and crossfade controls, and advanced multi-core support.
“Adobe Audition 3 is packed with new features for all types of users,” said Hart Shafer, senior product manager at Adobe. “In addition to concentrating on delivering new creative capabilities and unmatched editing tools, we’ve turbo-charged performance and ensured time-saving features are integrated into the product. That means our customers can spend less time working in the software and more time creating the perfect sound.”
Explore New Creative Options
Adobe Audition 3 allows audio professionals to easily create and arrange music, record and mix a project, produce a radio spot, clean up production audio for a movie, or edit a soundtrack for a business presentation. With new support for VSTi virtual instruments and MIDI piano roll style editing, combined with sophisticated audio and mixing tools, Adobe Audition 3 provides more creative power for audio production. New effects like the Analog Delay, Convolution Reverb, and Tube-modeled Compressor provide new sonic options, while the Guitar Suite adds analog-modeled effects to dry guitar tracks. Radius time stretching, from industry-leader iZotope, allows users to accurately change tempo and pitch independently.
“We have always found Adobe Audition to be the best audio editor for our work and the changes in version 3 will cement that position,” said Jerry Ibbotson, owner and sound designer for Media Mill, producer of sound effects for video games, including the PS3 launch title Motostorm and the PSP hit Pursuit Force 2. “Having the ability to grab any part of a wave and drag it up or down in volume is brilliant. And the Spot Healing Brush is pure genius because I will be able to get rid of errant noises from the background of a recording at a stroke, saving so much time and effort.”
Work More Efficiently
With new multi-core processor support and an optimised mixing engine, Adobe Audition 3 helps users save time by allowing them to work with more tracks and effects on the same machine. In addition, on-clip fade handles, a dedicated Top/Tail mode in Edit View, automatic cross fades, and the ability to edit grouped clips together make mixing and editing easier than ever. With fast, accurate tools built into an intuitive workflow, Adobe Audition 3 allows users to spend more time on the creative aspects of their projects.
Edit with Flexibility and Control
Adobe Audition 3 includes new features that expand its capabilities for visual editing and restoration. New Adaptive Noise Reduction and multiple phase correction tools help rescue recordings. Editing in the Spectral Frequency display is enhanced with the Effects Paintbrush and Spot Healing Brush similar to the ground-breaking tools found in Adobe Photoshop® CS3 software. Also, the addition of the Marquee Tool to the Spectral Pan and Spectral Phase displays means that users can now visually isolate and edit any sound based on time, frequency, phase, or pan location, further pushing the envelope in editing power and control.
Availability
Adobe Audition 3 for Microsoft® Windows® XP or Windows Vista® is expected to ship in the last quarter of 2007 and will be available through Adobe Authorised Resellers and the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com/store. For more detailed information about features, upgrade policies and pricing, please visit: www.adobe.com/products/audition.

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07/09/2007 by john.

Yippee-ki-yay Mother******!!! The world’s toughest, old-school New York cop, John McClane, explodes back onto screen with the release of DIE HARD 4.0 on DVD and Blu-ray on October 29th 2007 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Packed with more attitude and more heart-racing action than ever before, DIE HARD 4.0 will blow you away!

Directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld), DIE HARD 4.0 is THE definitive action film of the year. Bruce Willis is back as the legendary John McClane battling through a series of fist-bitingly exciting action sequences, successfully bringing the genre back to its roots – real action, for real action movie fans.

Set in today’s digital world, the nation’s computer infrastructure that controls all communications, transportation and power is brought to a devastating halt. McClane finds himself at the centre of this cyber terrorism plot after being ordered to pick up and bring in a computer hacker, Matthew Farrell (Justin Long; Dodgeball) who’s being hunted by mastermind Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant; Hitman) and his lover Mai Linh (Maggie Q, Mission Impossible: III).

Bursting with classic Die Hard one-liners and breathtaking action stunts, DIE HARD 4.0 is available as a 1 disc DVD with extended and deleted scenes plus two featurettes and gag reel. The 2 disc ‘Ultimate Action Edition’ contains a new cut of the film not seen in cinemas with more attitude and more action plus even more thrilling special features including a colossal ten part 2 hour making-of and five further featurettes.

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04/09/2007 by john.

There might be more silver surfers out there than ever before but, according to a survey from Pipex Internet, the majority of over 60s only use it for checking emails. It’s the younger generation which leads the way when it comes to social networking with over three quarters (76 per cent) of people under the age of 30 using their home broadband connection to regularly visit sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

The survey of broadband users found real differences in what different age groups do online. Older web users are more likely to spend time checking emails and using search engines – with only seven per cent of the over 60s downloading music compared with 84 per cent of 16-20 year olds.

When asked what they would like to be able to do online that they could not do already, nearly 60 per cent of 16-20 year olds wanted the ability to order a takeaway online. By contrast, over 70 per cent of over 60s wanted to be able to make appointments with their doctor, hospital or dentist online.

The uptake of IPTV remains relatively slow across the board, with just 13 per cent of respondents currently using their broadband connection to watch TV.

“The survey highlighted how broadband has become an integral part of everyday life – be it keeping in touch with family and friends via the more traditional forms of online communication or through social networking sites. We are committed to giving our customers the necessary tools and capabilities to experiment with new developments on the web, staying at the forefront of technology,” said Dominic Crolla, managing director at Pipex Internet.

The survey of over 500 broadband users was carried out by independent market research company, Pure Profile, and included customers of AOL, BT, Orange, Pipex, Sky, TalkTalk, Tiscali and Virgin.

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04/09/2007 by john.

Free LaCie 320GB hard drive designed by F.A. Porsche worth £69 for every customer who purchase award winning graphics design software

Maidenhead, UK – 3 September 2007. Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL; TSX:CRE) today announced the latest bundle offer for its flagship product CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X3 that will provide graphic designers with extra storage space for large image and multimedia files. Between 1st September and 31st December 2007, customers across Europe* are eligible for a free external memory hard drive from LaCie in stylish F.A. Porsche design worth £69 when they buy a full version of Corel’s Vista compatible design software CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3**.

Customers buying from resellers are asked to download an application form from www.corel.co.uk/lacieand send it to the address specified with proof of purchase. The hard drive is then shipped within 30 days. When purchased through Corel’s Store, the bundle is shipped within 5 days. Application forms will be accepted until 15th January 2008.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3 is a full-featured graphics product that includes CorelDRAW X3 for vector illustration and page layout, Corel PHOTO-PAINT® X3 for professional image editing, and the power of the new Corel PowerTRACE™ that enables the easy conversion of low-quality bitmap images into highly usable vector graphics. The suite simplifies the design process for projects of any scale, including logo creation, professional marketing brochures and eye-catching signs.

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03/09/2007 by john.

Green advice website www.agreenerfestival.com is launching a new competition for festival fans to suggest new ideas to promote environmental friendliness at festivals and get events greener. The new competition, Great Green Ideas, will be formally launched at the Bestival Festival on the Isle of Wight on the 7th September. The Glastonbury Festival in the UK as well as the Bonnaroo Festival in the USA and Peats Ridge Festival in Australia will all be asking their fans for their best ideas. Agreenerfestivals co-founder Ben Challis explained that “some of the very best ideas that improve festivals come from fans and its time we ask people who go to events how they want to get greener. This year we have seen a huge increase in the number of tents abandoned at festivals and this, along with personal carbon footprints, are just two of the things we want fans to think about. Sometimes really simple ideas are the best so any ideas on reducing waste, recycling and preventing pollution would be really welcome as well.”

Great Green Ideas should be emailed to agreenerfestival@aol.com and need to be in English or with an English translation. Translations should not more than 100 words long. The best entries will be published on www.agreenerfestival.com and winning enteries will be put in a prize draw.

The AGreenerfestival.com team are committed to helping music and arts festivals around the world adopt environmentally friendly practices through providing information, education and the simple exchange of ideas. www.agreenerfestival.com is a not for profit company. Recent initiatives launched by the site include a message board for swapping ideas, a new cartoon character, EcoGirl, who can be used to promote recycling and car-sharing and a new award for Green Festivals called the Greener Festival Award. The first winners of the new awards will be announced at the UK Festival Awards on November 6th 2007. AGreenerfestival is a not for profit organisation.

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