KeynoteThemesPlus (http://www.keynotethemesplus.com/), a developer of add-ons for Apple's Keynote application, has launched 10 new Keynote themes: Chart, In Red, Money, Night, Old Gear, People, Planet, Secret Eye, Tunnel and US Dollars. In addition, a free World Theme was released for all Keynote users.

All Keynote Themes in Action are high def. There are five sizes available for each theme: 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x720, 1680x1050 and 1920x1080. What's more, every visitor of a free themes page at the KeynoteThemesPlus web site can download a Keynote Theme in Action sample for free.

The package of 10 Keynote Themes in Action is priced at US$30.99. They work with iWork '08 (Keynote 4.0) or later.

The PandaWare Company has updated Simple Help Editor, its cross-platform help authoring application, to version 4.1.1. Mac and Windows users can use Simple Help Editor to create software help systems that display in Apple Help Viewer, Windows' HTML Help viewer, a Web browser, or in a proprietary help window (for applications created with Real Software's REALbasic).

The new version is a maintenance release with some bug fixes. Simple Help Editor allows creating platform-specific Help systems for display in Apple Help Viewer, Microsoft Windows' HTML Help viewer, and Web browsers. It is available as a Mac OS X Universal Binary application (for Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher) and a Windows 2000 or higher application. Both can be downloaded from the PandaWare Company's web site (http://www.pandaware.com/download.html#simplehelp).

Unregistered copies work in...

Comm-Unity Networking Systems has released an update to CNS Menu, making the plug-in fully compatible with the recently announced FileMaker Pro 11 and fixing a few other bugs along the way. CNS Menu is available immediately at http://cnsmenu.cnsplug-ins.com/ for both Mac OS X and Windows systems.

CNS Menu allows you to place hierarchical menus anywhere on a FileMaker Pro layout. When a menu item is chosen, the script of your choice is performed. Menus can have any number of sub-menus and can be displayed with a variety of styles and bullet marks. Creating menus with CNS Menu can be as easy as handing the plug-in a return-delimited list of menu items to display. Your menu items can display one value and have a separate value that can be used in your scripts, so the end user can see useful information while the value can be an ID number.

This version is a free upgrade for anyone with a...

Macintosh software developer, freshcode, has debuted the Bodega Channel Program (http://www.appbodega.com), a new initiative for Mac developers that allows them to sell and market their wares directly to customers through the Bodega 1.0 desktop application.

The Bodega Channel Program provides a direct purchase path between Mac developers and customers within the Bodega application interface. It lets developers reach customers directly on their desktops via the Bodega application, offers the ability to sell directly to customers through the Bodega interface using the developer’s own webstore, and sports the ability to maintain complete ownership of customer relationships.

Member developers also enjoy sales reporting tools, promotional opportunities, the ability to provide marketing materials and videos to customers within the Bodega interface, and no upfront or ongoing costs. Rather, when a...

Playrix Entertainment (http://www.playrix.com), a casual games developer and publisher, has released Gardenscapes, its hidden-object title, for the Mac. This Universal Binary game runs on Mac OS X 10.4 and late.
 
Here's how the game is described: "A smooth blend of hidden object, time management and sim, Gardenscapes™ gives Players a chance to restore a once stunning garden to its former glory while combing rooms for hidden objects and earning money to purchase various outdoor decor items. One of the game’s key features is its lively and fully interactive environment. A Player can click on virtually everything both in the garden and on the hidden object levels, and it will immediately come to life.
 
"Gardenscapes is a mix of three different game genres: hidden object, time management and sim. Players earn cash as they progress through hidden object levels and spend it to buy garden...

According to an analysis of 35 million Flickr images undertaken by Cornell students on a university supercomputer, the Fifth Avenue Apple Store is the fifth most photographed landmark in New York City -- and the 28th most photographed landmark in the world, reports "Fortune" (http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/23/nycs-new-landmark-the-apple-store/?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29").

The downside? Were the cube to be granted official New York City landmark status, he'd never be able to tear it down, the article notes.

The store sports a 32-foot glass cube and is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Located at 767 Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets, it offers more than 100 Macs and nearly 200 iPods. It has the largest staff of any Apple Store -- nearly 300 highly trained Mac Specialists, Mac Geniuses and Creatives who offer free tips and...

AdMob (http://www.admob.com) -- which stores and analyzes handset and operator data from every ad request in its network of more than 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications to optimize ad serving -- recently ran a survey of publishers to gauge their development activity on multiple platforms.  The survey received 108 responses and included some interesting findings:

° 31% of developers are currently developing for more than one mobile platform and almost half (47%) said they plan on developing on more than one platform in the next six months.

° More than 70% of iPhone developers plan to develop for Android over the next six months and close to half of Android developers (48%) plan to develop for iPhone.

° Many developers are new to mobile with 49% saying they have been developing for mobile less than a year.

° 58% of respondents develop for the mobile web.

AdMob asked which...

Adobe has released an update to its Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta software, available immediately through Adobe Labs (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/). It incorporates feedback from the first iteration of the beta while offering users several new features and improved performance throughout the application.

New features in this release include tethered shooting support for select Nikon and Canon cameras, the ability to import and manage video files from DSLR cameras for a streamlined workflow and additional behind-the-scenes architecture enhancements for faster importing and loading of images. The addition of luminance noise reduction to the color noise reduction options already available in the beta helps photographers achieve overall exceptional image quality from high ISO images, according to the folks at Adobe.

The import experience and...

Active Media (http://www.activemp.com), a manufacturer of SSDs and USB drives, has launched eSATA (external SATA) Flash drives that boast sequential read and write speeds up to 100 and 55 MB/second, respectively, about three times faster than the fastest USB 2.0 flash drives.

The company builds these drives with either 16GB or 32GB of MLC NAND flash. With no moving parts, "they offer the same outstanding reliability as SSDs," says Jerry Thomas, vice president of sales at Active Media.

The drives come in a gloss black polymer case that measures only 3.1 x 1.1 x 0.4 inches. They are available now worldwide through Amazon for US$69.95 for the 16GB version and $109.95 for the 32GB model.

"The New York Times" says (http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/perseus-signs-an-ebooks...) that Apple has struck a deal with Perseus Books Group, an independent publisher, to bring its content to the iBookstore on the iPad.

Perseus Books Group, which also distributes works from 330 other smaller presses including Grove Atlantic, Harvard Business School Press, Zagat and City Lights Books, signed a deal last week with Apple, following five of the six biggest publishers that have already signed agreements with Apple, says the "Times."

The iPad will come with an iBookstore app. will feature books from major and independent publishers. The free iBooks app lets you buy books from the iBookstore. Once you’ve bought a book, it’s displayed on your Bookshelf....

While analysts are keeping their fingers crossed for about six million iPad sales throughout 2010, Apple is shopping for more than twice that many screens for the upcoming device, according to a report by the "Korean Times."

The report -- as noted by "Geek.com" (http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/apple-thinks-big-orders-13-million-i...), says Samsung has landed a big order from Apple that will see the Korean consumer electronics conglomerate supply the company with three million IPS displays for the iPad. Industry sources estimated the deal at around US$240 million, putting the cost of the iPad’s 9.7-inch IPS display at around $80 per unit, five times more than a 3.5-inch display on the iPhone 3GS.

The iPad -- now available for pre-order -- is due to hit the...

Buffalo Technologies (http:///www.buffalotech.com) has announced the MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0 portable hard drive, the latest generation of SuperSpeed external storage solutions that deliver interface speeds up to 5 Gigabits per second.

Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology, says that Cobalt USB 3.0 is backward-compatible with USB 2.0 and it works with Macs and PCs. Apple hasn't added USB 3.0 support on any Macs, so the drive will run at USB 2.0 speeds.

The MiniStation Cobalt HD-PEU3 will be available in a variety of capacities up to 640GB and will begin shipping in April. It's backed by a limited one-year warranty.