Sample Logic has released Acoustix (http://www.samplelogic.com/acoustix.html), an US$99 toolkit of morphed acoustic instruments, percussives, atmospheric soundscapes, pads, and tempo-synced audio loops for cinematic music production. Mac and Windows compatible, it's designed for musicians, performers, and producers of all types.

The instruments (presets) and clips (loops) are integrated into Ableton Live. Each instrument uses Live's Rack format, with the 8 Macro Controls mapped to provide top-level control for immediate "tweakability." This also means that all of the instruments and loops are ready to be mapped to a hardware controller or automated directly in Live.

Effects and parameters include: Attack & Release, Reverb, Filter Delay, Arpegiator, Filter Cuttoff & Resonance, and much more. Also, all clips and presets are production ready, custom tailored...

Dare to be Creative has released Parachute 1.1 (http://parachut.in/), an update of the backup application for Mac OS X. The upgrade offers secure backups over encrypted FTP, features full 64-bit support and ships with a faster backup engine.

Parachute allows users to run automated, scheduled backups to a wide range of destinations, including FTP/SFTP servers, external disks, and iDisk. Users can setup multiple backup tasks, consisting of a list of files they would like to backup, and either a local or server destination to make the backups to. Possible local destinations include the hard disk, externals disks, and USB flash drives, while server destinations include FTP, SFTP and WebDAV servers, as well as iDisk. Each backup tasks can be scheduled to run automatically in hourly, daily, weekly or monthly intervals.

Philipp Mayerhofer, chief operational officer at Dare to be Creative sees Parachute more as a...

Basil Salad Software has released News Anchor 1.0 for Mac OS X (http://news-anchor-mac.com/wp/). It's a text-to-speech news reader that offers hands-free, one-click access for information enthusiasts to catch up with their reading lists while simultaneously doing other tasks.

News Anchor is an alternative RSS/ATOM feed reader targeted for the auditory group of Mac OS X users. Instead of treating feeds like e-mail and display them visually, News Anchor utilizes text-to-speech technology to present a television-like news broadcast. Unlike television, users may customize the broadcast by selecting which feeds that they subscribe to.

News Anchor is compatible for Mac OS X 10.5 and up for both Intel and PowerPC based Macs. A demo version is fully functional for 14 days Registration is US$38 for a single user license and $97 for a five-user license.

Carnation Software has released MacWise 12 (http://www.MacWise.com) for Mac OS X 10.2 and higher. The new version supports HostAccess and Accuterm screen saves and restores.

Many host computers are programmed to instruct the client app to save and restore screens. MacWise 12.0 or later supports three sets of escape sequences commonly used by PC clients (HostAccess, Accuterm and System Builder).

The software emulates ADDS Viewpoint, Wyse 50, Wyse 60, Wyse 370, Televideo TV 925, DEC VT100, VT220 and Prism terminals. MacWise also supports ANSI and SCO ANSI color. Esprit III color is also supported in Wyse 370 mode, and AppleScript. It works with Intel or PowerPC Macs, MacBooks, Powerbooks and desktops and allows users to connect to the host via serial, modem, telnet, ssh, via the internet or local connection.

MacWise 12 costs US$95 for a single users license.

Blue Crab (http://www.limit-point.com/BlueCrab/BlueCrab.html) has been updated to version 4.9.27. It's a maintenance update.

Blue Crab is an US$25 Mac OS X program for copying the contents of a web site to your computer, in whole or in part, conducting offline browsing and searching without an Internet connection, creating a snapshot of a web site for historical archiving, collecting specific types of resources such as images or email addresses, searching current content on your own computer and checking a site for broken links, or generate an HTML site map.

Blue Crab is Universal Binary so runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. It works with Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.

Federal regulators plan to impose some additional rules on broadband providers to ensure the government "has authority to move ahead with a sweeping plan to bring high-speed connections to all Americans," reports "USA Today" (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2010-05-05-fcc-broad...).

Regulators also want to ensure they have jurisdiction to impose so-called "network neutrality" rules requiring phone and cable companies to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their broadband networks, the article adds.

"USA Today" says that on Thursday Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will unveil a roadmap for regulating broadband. Currently, the FCC regulates broadband as a...

OCZ Technology (http://www.ocztechnology.com/aboutocz/press/2010/376) has announced the Enyo Portable SSD, utilizing the next generation USB 3.0 interface. The Enyo features all the performance and durability advantages of an internal Solid State Drive but delivers portability with an external storage solution for on-the-go users who need to share files between various computer systems, according to OCZ CEO Ryan Petersen,.

The Enyo is an external SSD with up to 260MB/second read and 200MB/second. The drive features a sleek, anodized aluminum housing and will be available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities. Enyo USB 3.0 Portable SSDs will begin shipping soon; pricing hasn't been announced.

Who could have known (insert symbol for sarcasm here)? A new survey shows that dropped problems are a call for AT&T!

Wireless telecom provider Verizon has been trouncing AT&T for months in surveys of customer satisfaction and loyalty. But a recent survey by ChangeWave Research shows dropped calls are a growing problem for AT&T stock, reports InvestorPlace (http://www.investorplace.com/experts/jeff_reeves/att-dropped-calls-t-sto...). Even Sprint Nextel (S) and T-Mobile -- a subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom -- could see gains as customers think of leaving AT&T over the network troubles, the article adds.

Specifically, a March survey of 4,040 smartphone customers was...

Apple seems to have tweaked its iPhone to support a Chinese security protocol for wireless networks, as companies increasingly adopt Chinese government-backed technologies to break into the country's market, reports "PC World" (http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/195524/apple_tweaks_wifi_i...). The move suggests Apple may soon launch a new version of the iPhone in China with Wi-Fi, a feature that regulations previously barred, the article adds.

Chinese regulators last month approved the frequency ranges used by a new Apple mobile phone with 3G and wireless LAN support, the web site of China's State Radio Monitoring Center shows. The device appears to be an iPhone and uses GSM and the 3G standard WCDMA, just like iPhones currently...

NRG Software has released NRGship Mac 1.1 (http://www.nrgsoft.com/products/mac/ups/mac/index.php), the latest version of the software that allows UPS shippers to switch to their Mac and manage all of the their shipping information in one place. The new version offers enhanced Mac Address Book importing, batch shipping and updated printer and USB scale options.

Mac users can streamline their shipping workflow without the use of My UPS (UPS.com). As of version 1.1, NRG has added default importers to allow UPS shippers to move their address books from UPS and Worldship in just a few minutes. In addition to the new address book imports, shippers can now batch ship to multiple recipients out of the Mac address book.

Additionally, NRGship 1.1 adds additional features to allow the use of networked or shared Zebra printers as well. There's also now...

About Objects has added extra class dates to its schedule to accommodate developers attending Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco June 7-11.

The classes, "Objective-C for Beginners," scheduled for May 29-30, and "Introduction to iPhone and iPad Development," scheduled for May 31 through June 4 (the week immediately before WWDC), will be held near the Apple campus in Cupertino, California,, and will give developers who are new to the platform an opportunity to get up to speed on Objective-C and the iPhone SDK (software development kit) before attending the conference's technical sessions.

About Objects will repeat the Objective-C for Beginners class June 5-6, and the Introduction to iPhone and iPad Development class June 7-11, in parallel with WWDC. The latter dates had been scheduled prior to Apple's announcement of WWDC 2010. The classes will be conducted at the Hilton Garden Inn Cupertino, located at 10741 North Wolfe Road in Cupertino,...

publicspace.net has announced Vitamin-R 1.06 (http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/index.html), an update of its Mac OS X compatible productivity tool for creative professionals. The new version sports improvements centering around usability, presentation and workflow.

Vitamin-R is a collection of tools and techniques for managing attention and maintaining motivation. According to the folks at publicspace.net, it complements the task capturing and organizing features of modern to-do list managers by forcing you to concentrate fully on one task a time and keeping distractions at bay. It breaks down large, vaguely defined tasks into a series of short "time slices" of between 10 and 30 minutes, each with specific and actionable objectives.

Vitamin-R provides you with the "Now & Later Board," complete with FastType magic, to give you a place to...