creative

Adobe tries discounts to woo Final Cut Pro ranters

Adobe Systems has fired another shot over Apple's bow.

The company today announced its Switcher Program, which will allow people who have purchased any version of Apple's Final Cut Pro (or Avid Media Composer) to receive a 50 percent discount on Creative Suite CS 5.5 Production Premium or Premiere Pro CS 5.5.

"We're hearing from video professionals that they want pro level tools that address cutting edge work but also allow them to use legacy footage and workflows," Jim Guerard, general manager and vice president of professional video and audio at Adobe, said … Read more

E3 2011: 5 things I learned

LOS ANGELES--Another year, another show floor filled with bright lights, thunderous music, and scantily dressed women showing off big-budget studio games. Sometimes it feels like E3 never changes.

Yet, I've been to roughly 10 E3s in my life dating back to the Sega Dreamcast debut, and in my first on-the-show visit in a few years, the landscape has subtly and definitely altered from years past.

So here are my final observations about this year's show.

Everyone wants to be accessible. The … Read more

Creative's inPerson HD cam is made for Skype HD

Designed to work with HD video calling in Skype, Creative has introduced a $149 high-end Webcam, the Live Cam inPerson HD, which features built-in H.264 video compression.

Creative says by offloading the video processing to the Webcam you get, "Smooth movement and video calls every time."

Here's a look at its key specs:

Full HD 1080p video capturing at up to 30 frames per second Wide-angled glass lens with auto focus Skype HD certified Live Central 3 software (create movies, add special effects, and share media online) Extras: business card scanning software, H.264 decoder, security … Read more

Creative launching iPod Nano rival

Though most of its features mimic those of the iPod Nano, Creative's new Zen Style music player is trying to up the ante by including Bluetooth and a microSD card slot.

Available next month, the Zen Style M300 is Creative's latest attempt to carve out a bigger slice of the portable music player market.

The $79 device is a combination music, photo, and video player with a built-in FM radio and touch-control buttons to maneuver around the 1.45-inch screen. A built-in mic allows for voice recording.

The included Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity lets people listen to music through any compatible Bluetooth wireless headset as well as through Bluetooth wireless speakers. The microSD card slot can hold up to 32GB of music beyond the unit's internal storage space.… Read more

Adobe issues CS5.5 and iPad-aware Photoshop

Opening a few new chapters today, Adobe has begun selling its CS5.5 software suites, releasing a revamped Photoshop CS5 that dovetails with a new collection of iOS apps, and beginning a subscription pricing model.

Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5 products actually consist of a variety of suites emphasizing work such as video production, Flash and Web programming, and design. The Master Collection, which incorporates all of the products, costs $2,599, and at the other end of the scale, CS5.5 Design Standard costs $1,299.

Collectively, the features show that Adobe is turning, though with the nimbleness … Read more

Joi Ito dives into the MIT Media Lab (Q&A)

Consider this list of institutions and companies that are at the center of the Internet and technology worlds: Creative Commons, Mozilla, Technorati, ICANN, Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Twitter, Six Apart, and Flickr. What do they all have in common?

If you answered Joi Ito, you're spot on. And now you can add the MIT Media Lab to that list. Ito is a Japanese venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has been running and investing in technology companies like those listed above and serving on the boards of important institutions for years. And on Monday, he was … Read more

The making of the World's Biggest Pac-Man game (Q&A)

When we think of Pac-Man, we think of a single screen, and a series of new mazes that become available only after players finish the one they're on.

But that's not how Ashley Ringrose and his colleagues at Sydney, Australia-based Soap Creative agency thought of the mega-hit 30-year-old video game. So when they were given a chance to design a promotion for the game that was both innovative and social, the lightbulb that went off over their heads was all about big.

Big, as in the World's Biggest Pac-Man game, in which fans are able to design … Read more

Adobe CS 5.5 inches closer to build once, output many

Let's get this out of the way first: if you're looking for updates to Photoshop, move along, there's nothing to see here. Ditto for Illustrator and Fireworks. While there's a lot going on in Adobe's bump to Creative Suite 5.5, those products will retain the CS5 moniker. As for the rest of the crew, the updates to the applications fall into four categories: single source, multiple target workflow enhancements; improved interapplication integration; performance boosts and interface tweaks; and broader support for a variety of formats. I'm not going to list all the various … Read more

Adobe Creative Suite 5: Why buy when you can rent?

While tablet fans slaver over iPad apps and creatives ideate over the new features in Creative Suite, I think investor relations folk will be the ones scrutinizing Adobe's adoption of a subscription plan for its Creative Suite products and what it might mean for Adobe's still-strong bottom line. (Never fear, though. You can still buy everything outright.)

I'll preface this discussion by saying I'm not a big fan of software rental, or really rental … Read more

Adobe wakes to mobile world, Web standards

Adobe Systems is something of an industry punching bag in some circles for offering software wedded to a personal computer era we're supposedly outgrowing.

It's time to update that corporate image.

As part of the debut of Creative Suite 5.5, the company today announced a collection of new software that includes three iPad applications; Flash tools better at creating content that reaches devices beyond PCs; and developer tools that bring some of Adobe's strength in design tools to the Web standards world of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

It's not going to be enough to placate … Read more