Digital Anarchy (http://www.digitalanarchy.com), a provider of software for photographers and digital artists, has announced a free update to their ToonIt! Photo plug-in for Aperture, Apple's software for pro and semi-pro photographers.

ToonIt! 2.5 is now fully compatible with the 64-bit mode introduced by Apple’s Aperture 3, while still supporting 32-bit architectures and Aperture 2. The plug-in automatically takes photos and gives them a variety of cartoon and illustrated looks.

A "toon" effect is created, and Aperture users have a control in customizing the cartoon with different paint styles, shading and outlines. The software uses algorithms from Toonamation to create its cartoon shading and lines. One of the key features of ToonIt! is the ability to turn people and faces into believable cartoons. It’s never been so easy to turn photographs into illustrated portraits or a graphic...

Xeric Design has released version 5.3 of EarthDesk (http://www.xericdesign.com/earthdesk.php), the real-time dynamic desktop map for Mac OS X. It provides a work-around for a long standing screen saver hang in Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard").

EarthDesk replaces your static desktop with a photo-realistic image of the Earth showing current sun, moon and city illumination as well as real-time global cloud coverage (hurricanes, storms, and worldwide weather systems) on your desktop. It operates silently in the background, keeping your desktop updated while you work. Unlike a screen saver, which only appears when your system is idle, EarthDesk's dynamic desktop is continuously displayed as your desktop background (and optionally as a screen saver).

EarthDesk requires Mac OS X 10.5 or newer. Single user copies may be purchased online for US$24.95. Upgrades are available...

Seznick Scientific Software has updated Password Wallet for Macintosh (http://www.selznick.com/products/passwordwallet/mac/index.htm) to version 4.5. The app now allows the user to automatically share all of their passwords between their Mac, iPhone and MobileMe accounts, as well as their Windows, Android, Windows Mobile and Palm Pre devices.

PasswordWallet is designed to offer a secure place to store all your usernames, passwords, PIN numbers, or combinations. For security, it uses the BlowFish encryption algorithm with 448-bit keys to protect your data. For safety, it lets you copy your password to the clipboard and clear it automatically after you paste. PasswordWallet can save URLs with your entries and launch your default browser for you. One "master" password unlocks all of your other passwords. It can automatically add your...

Noise Industries, developer of visual effects tools for the postproduction and broadcast markets, announced that one of their newest development partners, Phyx., has released Phyx Color for the FxFactory platform.

Phyx Color is a collection of professional color processors designed to work inside Adobe After Effects CS3/CS4, Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion and Apple Final Cut Express applications. Its range of color processing tools let users add diffusion, sample color, control saturation and process a color shift/tint.

Artists can also use Phyx Color to simulate the legendary Technicolor 2-strip process utilized in such films as "Gone with the Wind," and "The Wizard of Oz," and actualize dramatic imagery with its Bleach Bypass process as seen in a multitude of cult films, including "300" and "Fight Club."
       
Phyx Color is available for $99 USD via the Noise Industries web site (...

Monkeybread Software (http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/) has released version 2.0 of the MBS plug-in for FileMaker. It purportedly extends Filemaker with over 400 functions.

New in version 2.0 are URL Scheme, GraphicsMagick and RPC. The URL Scheme handling functions allow you to register a filemaker runtime solution as an URL handler on Mac OS X. MBS plug-in version 2.0 adds over 200 functions for GraphicsMagick. You can load picture files from a container field or a file, modify them and write them back.

In your FileMaker database you can crop, scale, flip, rotate and roll images. There are image effects like Colorize, Emboss, Enhance, OilPaint, Quantize, Solarize, Shear, Sharpen, Swirl, Unsharpen and more.

With version 2.0 of the MBS plug-in, a FileMaker database can send a request to, for example, a REALbasic application and receives a response. This communication...

Google's Nexus One phone is selling at a a slower pace than the first iPhone, reaching about 135,000 units in the time it took Apple to sell one million, according to Flurry Analytics (http://www.flurry.com/) -- a cross-platform mobile application analytics provider.

The original iPhone hit the one million mark after 74 days on sale in 2007. The Nexus One will have sold about one-eighth as many units on its 74th day on March 19, estimates Flurry.

Google introduced the Nexus One in January, selling it through its web site. U.S. consumers aren’t accustomed to buying phones that way, which may have hurt sales of the Nexus One, Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry told "Bloomberg" (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&...

Pre-order numbers for the iPad topped 150,000 pre-orders -- and that doesn't count people’s store reservations, according to a BGR report (http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/03/15/apple-ipad-pre-order-numbers-t...).

"We have also been told Apple’s flagship 5th Avenue store in New York now holds around 1600 reservations for iPads, with 800 in the first day, and about 400 a day since," the article adds. "Lastly, store reservations seem to be split around 50% for the 32GB unit, 30% for the 64GB unit and about 20% for the 16GB, which is what Apple was expecting.”

The iPads themselves are still expected to ship on time. However, if you've ordered iPad accessories, they're being delayed, according to dates at the Apple online store, though...

Nearly 40% of Blackberry users continue to prefer Apple's iPhone as their next smartphone purchase, but a third of them would also switch to the Android operating system, according to the second smartphone brand loyalty survey conducted semi-annually via Crowd Science's (http://www.crowdscience.com) research platform for online audience measurement.

The Crowd Scientists also found Android users rivaling iPhone users in loyalty, with about 90% of each user group planning to stick with their current brand when buying their next phone. Asked specifically if they'd swap their present phone for Google's new Android-based Nexus One, 32% of Blackberry users said "yes," compared with just 9% of iPhone users. This figure zoomed to 60% for users of smartphones not made by Blackberry or Apple.

"These results show that the restlessness of Blackberry users with their current brand hasn't just been...

Here are the latest iPhone/iPod touch/iPod/iPad apps announced. You can find 'em at the Apple App Store (http://www.itunes.com/appstore/).

Nicolas Seriot and Anton Anton have announced TweetyShow 1.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch. The US$0.99 app shows photos posted on Twitter in real time. iPhone users can scroll through an grid of photos coming live from the Twitter-sphere.

Tuparev Technologies of the Netherlands has introduced Plants 1.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch. The $2.99 consists of a photo reference guide to plants, and a plant maintainance scheduler.

Innerplays is offering Star Cargo 3000 1.0, a $1.99 space combat game for iPhone and iPod touch users. The player is captain of a giant cargo vessel parked in orbit above an unstable mining planet. The goal is to successfully transport 10 modular cargo containers up to the ship, before it is destroyed by debris...

MOG (http://www.mog.com), an on-demand music listening service and music blogging hub, hasy demonstrated its new MOG All Access mobile streaming music application for smartphones. The application will be available initially on iPhone and Android platforms.

The service, which will be available in early the second quarter of the year, will cost US$10 per month for unlimited listening and includes the desktop service as well. With MOG All Access Mobile, users will be able to access MOG’s full music catalog of seven million songs from a smartphone. According to David Hyman, founder and CEO of MOG, features include:

° On-demand listening: Users can listen to any artist, album, or song, on-demand, in unlimited amounts.

° MOG Radio: Users can hear an unending stream of music based on a track or artist, with full control over how many similar artists are mixed in.

° Music discovery technology: With a...

MaBaSoft has updated Application Wizard (http://www.mabasoft.net/products/applicationWizard/), a Mac OS X tool that provides access to your applications, document and pictures, to version 2.5. You can now choose what types of volumes appear in the Special menu and allows you to eject disks, partitions, and servers and mount ejected disks.

On Mac OS X 10.5 or later, the Recent Documents and Recent Servers items can now be added to the Special menu so that you can quickly open recently used files and connect to recently used servers. Also in Application Wizard 2.5:

° The Activity Monitor command has been added to the System Memory submenu so that you can quickly open Activity Monitor and learn more about the processes running on your computer and their memory usage.

° The Aperture Library submenu now fully supports Aperture 3.

° The...

AJA Video Systems (http://www.aja.com), a manufacturer of professional video interface and conversion solutions, is now offering its KONA line of capture cards with software for both Mac and Windows-based systems.

The company is folding its XENA line of capture cards, designed for the Windows platform, into the KONA product line. The KONA family is AJA's line of 10-bit uncompressed capture and playback cards for video and audio input and output. Initially designed solely for the Mac platform, KONA now supports SD, HD, Dual Link 4:4:4 HD and 2K formats, and all of the functionality of the former XENA products within the single, cross-platform KONA line.

Effective immediately, every new KONA package shipped will include both Mac and Windows software and documentation. Updated drivers for either Mac or PC platforms are always available online.