Native Instruments has announced Alicia's Keys (www.native-instruments.com/aliciaskeys.info), software that recreates Alicia Keys' personal grand piano. Developed in close collaboration with the Grammy-winning artist, the software is used as the primary instrument on her new album and on the current world tour.

Designed as a comprehensive digital recreation of Key's own custom Yamaha "C3 Neo" grand piano, and based on Native Instruments' Kontakt 4 sampler platform, Alicia's Keys provides a piano sound designed to accommodate R&B, soul and pop styles. The instrument was recorded in Alicia's personal studio by her engineer Ann Mincieli and sampling expert Thomas Scarbee over the course of two years.

Alicia's Keys utilizes 17GB of high-resolution samples with 12 discrete velocity layers per note, and emulation of crucial sonic aspects like key release...

NetGear (http://www.netgear.com) has announced two new networking accessories for home theaters, as well as new networking accessories and NAS products.

The High-Performance Wireless-N HD Home Theater Kit (pictured) is a carrier-grade solution for wirelessly playing multiple jitter-free 1080p HD video and audio streams to every room in the house. The Universal WiFi Internet Adapter for Home Theater Devices and Gaming Consoles delivers Wireless-N performance of up to 300 Mbps through the Ethernet port of consumer electronic (CE) devices such as Internet TVs, game consoles, Blu-ray players and more.

The Universal WiFi Internet Adapter for Home Theater Devices and Gaming Consoles (WNCE2001) will be available in May at a manufacturer's suggested retail price of US$79. The High-Performance Wireless-N HD Home Theater Kit will be available in third quarter of the year with pricing for the kit and for single...

On the new "MacVoices" (http://www.macvoices.com) Tim Robertson of OWC Radio guests. 


He closed out the Macworld 2010 Main Stage with an all-star roster of guests pulled from the audience to talk about what Macworld means, both present and future. The new "MacVoices" shares their thoughts.

"MacVoices" is an Internet show and podcast that delivers in-depth discussions with the most influential people in the Mac industry, as well as "the individuals who are out there making it happen on the front lines of the global Apple community," according to host Chuck Joiner.

The Franklin Group (http://www.franklin3d.com), a division of Paradigma Software, has released Franklin 3D 1.0 for Runrev. It's a 3D game and simulation engine that integrates with Runrev 4, the cross platform software design system from Mirye Software and Runrev.

With Franklin 3D 1.0 for Runrev Pro, you can build cross-platform, hardware accelerated games for Mac OS X (with OpenGL) or Windows (with DirectX or OpenGL). Franklin 3D includes over 400 methods, including support for display control, model loading and callbacks. It includes the engine plus a collection of example projects.

RunRev is a cross-platform, visual development tool that creates applications that run on multiple operating systems and is based on Rev, the English-like programming language inspired by Apple HyperCard.

Franklin 3D for Mac OS X costs US$199.99. Non-commercial, academic versions are also available, starting...

Blue Room Software (http://www.blueroomsoftware.com) has announces ImageArchiver for Lightroom 1.0. It's an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Export Service plug-in designed to simplify the creation of disk image and compressed archives of your Photoshop Lightroom image collections.

All of the image archive creation features found in Blue Room Software's peer ImageArchiver products for both Aperture and iPhoto have been brought to the users of Adobe System's Photoshop Lightroom 2 photo processing tool.

ImageArchiver for Lightroom requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher and Photoshop Lightroom 2.0. It's Universal Binary so runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.

ImageArchiver for Lightroom 1.0 costs US$9.95. A fully-functional 15 day demo is available for download.

Just when you thought Maxis will be the only network operator to sell authorized Apple iPhone 3G and 3GS sets in Malaysia, DiGi -- a Malaysian mobile phone company run by Norway’s telecoms giant Telenor -- has announced that it will be offering the Apple iPhone 3G and 3GS in the first quarter of the year, reports "Yongkailoon" (http://www.yongkailoon.com/2010/03/01/digi-to-offer-the-apple-iphone/).

“Growth is coming back this year,” DiGi’s Chief Executive Officer Johan Dennelind said in an interview with "Bloomberg" (http://www.bloomberg.com) television in Kuala Lumpur. The DiGi deal will end Maxis Communication’s monopoly on selling iPhones in Malaysia, "Bloomberg" adds.

Mac OS X and Phone market share for Internet usage dipped from January to February, according to the latest market share survey from NetMarketShare (http://www.netmarketshare.com). However, the iPhone saw a slight increase.

According to the report, among operating systems, Mac OS X had 5.02% of the global market share in February, compared to 5.16% in January (that's global market share; in the US it's almost 10 percent). Windows remains dominant with 92.12% as of February. That's up from 92.00% in January. Apple's highest percentage was 5.27% in October 2009.

The iPhone's market share also rose, according to Net Applications. The Apple device had 0.50% of the global market share in February, compared to 0.48% in January. Of course, I've long argued that the iPhone should also be included in the Mac OS X market share, as it runs a derivative of Mac OS X. If it were measured this way,...

March opens with a full "MUG Event Calendar" for the week.

Macworld 2010 is still making waves at more than one Mac User Group, Alan Oppenheimer will visit a California group to talk about security, a Final Cut Pro User Group will celebrate three years together in Louisiana, while an Australian group will celebrate 30 years of Australian Macworld with Anthony Caruana. Other topics on this week’s agenda include home theater, iPhoto, backup, the Mac mini as media center, iDisk, troubleshooting network connections, and more.

"The MUG Event Calendar" can be found at The MUG Center (http://www.mugcenter.com),, an online resource for Mac User Groups, Mac User Groups are starting to officially celebrate the holiday season.

MUGs are good places for making new friends in the Mac community, imProving your computing skills, finding solutions to technical Problems, and perhaps locating a good deal on...

EFI (http://www.efi.com) and Xerox Corp. is shipping the Fiery Network Controller for the Xerox WorkCentre 7700 series of color multifunction printers (MFPs) for office environments. Fiery controllers are easily deployed in Mac and Windows environments and support all industry standard networking protocols.

The WorkCentre 7700 Series MFPs are one of the first to support Fiery VUE, the desktop application that makes publishing of professional-looking finished documents fast and simple for all office workers, according to Leah Quesada, vice president of office marketing, Xerox.

With speeds up to 50 pages per minute (ppm) in color and up to 75 ppm in black and white, the WorkCentre 7700 Series handle everything from general office documents to high-volume color print jobs. These MFPs also manage multiple printing, copying, scanning and faxing tasks simultaneously.

Targeted at enterprise customers across...

On the new "MacVoices" (http://www.macvoices.com), Tim Debenedictis of Carinia Software talks about the history of their astronomy software, Voyager, and how it has gone mobile as an iPhone app.

"MacVoices" is an Internet show and podcast that delivers in-depth discussions with the most influential people in the Mac industry, as well as "the individuals who are out there making it happen on the front lines of the global Apple community," according to host Chuck Joiner.

Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the Chinese factories that build its Macs, iPods and iPhones, reports the "Telegraph" web site (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7330986/Apple-admits-using-c...?).

At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories that supply the company. Apple didn't name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China.

The "Telegraph" reports that that Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. "In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage...

TuneWear (http://www.TuneWear.com) is shipping the US$49.95 TuneSonic Crystal with Mic & Control earphones for the iPhone and iPod. It's available in chrome silver or crystal pink versions.

The TuneSonic Crystal with Mic & Control is an in-ear type earphone employing a 9mm neodymium rare-earth magnet driver. It houses "Swarovski Elements” rhinestones on its smooth aluminum body.

The earphone cable is protected with a magnetic shielding, and the 3.5mm stereo mini-jack is 24k gold plated. The Y-connector on the cable is rubber protected.

The remote control button can control music and video functions such as play, pause, next and previous. The button allows you to answer and end calls on iPhone 3GS/3G. The microphone can also to be used for recording voice memos on some devices.

TuneSonic Crystal with Mic & Control includes four different sized ear tips. The tips are made of...