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Apparently Adobe Systems can persuade skeptics that its Creative Cloud subscription plan is worthwhile -- as long as the price is right.

That's one finding from a survey by CNET and analyst firm Jefferies this month. Nearly half of the 525 respondents already are subscribers, and of them, 59 percent said deeply discounted introductory pricing was a "major" influence in signing up for the Creative Cloud.

The Creative Cloud subscription is a monumental change to Adobe's business. Instead of persuading customers to buy perpetual licenses to Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Edge, and other members of the … Read more

Intel today disclosed technology that it hopes will get more of its silicon inside smartphones and tablets.

At the International Electron Devices Meeting, Intel laid out its next-generation 22-nanometer "SoC" system-on-a-chip technology. An SoC puts most of a device's core functions onto one piece of silicon and is typically used in mobile devices where space and power efficiency are paramount.

"In the past...we were focused primarily on developing transistors with ever higher performance," Mark Bohr, an Intel senior fellow, said to journalists in a teleconference. "Now we're developing technologies with a much … Read more

Windows accepts nearly every kind of font, but managing them is a different story. Freeware font managers can fill the need, and there are plenty to choose from. Veign's Cfont Pro is a powerful tool for viewing and managing your system's fonts. It can install and uninstall font packages, print and export font data, and even repair common registry errors that can affect fonts. Its Preview mode lets you see fonts before actually installing them, and a SlideShow mode displlays installed fonts one by one. Cfont Pro's extras include a glyph viewer and a Zoomer tool that … Read more

It's time again to take the pulse of Adobe Systems and its Creative Cloud product and business overhaul.

In March, analyst firm Jefferies and CNET jointly surveyed people's opinions on Adobe's shift. Now we're running a new survey about Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription plan, Creative Suite 6, and Web design tools.

We'll run the survey for a few days and share results later so you can see if others share your opinions about Adobe.

Photoshop is a storied brand, and the Creative Suite that includes it and many other Adobe projects has been around … Read more

Disappointed about that hyped-up supposed Mars discovery that ended up evaporating? Turn your eyes toward Mercury.

A NASA news conference yesterday suggested what many scientists have suspected for decades: Mercury's northern pole most likely contains large deposits of water ice and possible organic materials. The new data comes from Messenger -- a NASA spacecraft currently orbiting Mercury -- which observed the icy deposits by measuring hydrogen concentrations on the planet. The findings were described in three separate papers published yesterday in the science journal Nature. … Read more

System Mechanic Free from Iolo Systems is a stripped-down version of much more comprehensive premium tool. However, it offers good basic cleaning and optimizing for Windows systems with seven primary tools: PC Cleanup, Registry Tuner, Startup Optimizer, Memory Mechanic, Drive Accelerator, Shortcut Repair, and Internet Connection Repair. It can back up and save Registry settings and Undo changes with its SafetyNet feature.

When you install System Mechanic, you have the option to install the full or free version; we chose the freeware. But we still had to provide our e-mail address to receive an activation key for the free version. … Read more

The "six strikes" copyright enforcement plan that aims to curb illegal downloads and peer-to-peer file-sharing has been postponed until 2013.

The executive director of the Center for Copyright Information, which is in charge of the copyright warning system, announced today that because of damage from Hurricane Sandy the organization's alert system will not begin until next year.

"Due to unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy which have seriously affected our final testing schedules, CCI anticipates that the participating ISPs will begin sending alerts under the Copyright Alert System in the early part of 2013, rather … Read more

There is nothing good about automated phone systems.

Really. Nothing. They only exist to save companies money. Oh, and, of course, to annoy customers.

Sometimes, you know that if you keep pressing "0" you'll get through to a human being. However, it seems that, when it comes to Apple's phone system, cursing down the phone might be of help too.

The Next Web seems to swear by it. It reports that once it hears you cursing or sounding angry, Apple's phone system ceases to offer you any more (often useless) options.

A contributor to Reddit, … Read more