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Corel seems to be on a roll lately; after releasing WinZip System Utilities just last week, this morning the company announced VideoStudio Pro X4.

VideoStudio Pro is aimed at home users and small business professionals who want to create professional-looking videos, but without the hassle, steep learning curve and price of Adobe Premiere Pro and the likes.

This new version introduces several features:

Stop motion animation: You can now capture still frames using a webcam, camcorder or DSLR and use them to produce an animation. Tools such as "onion skin view" let you compare the previous image in the sequence with the current one and make the animation as smooth as possible.
Processor optimization: Corel says the app is optimized for Intel's new Sandy Bridge systems, and have shown us some graphs with very impressive numbers. We've been unable to test this particular point, but if you have a recent-generation Intel or AMD Fusion system, VideoStudio performance should be blazing. Even on our older test system performance was quite impressive.
Customizable workspace: You can drag the video preview window to your secondary monitor (if you have one) and tweak just about any other element in the window layout. Once done, you can save your ideal workspace in one of three slots.
Share-to-Web: VideoStudio Pro X4 hooks directly into YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Flickr, so you don't even have to launch a browser to upload your final product. Edit, produce and share from within the app itself.
Smart Package: Video projects typically consist of many files; Smart Package lets you bundle all video assets for a given project into one ZIP file which you can password-protect and keep in a safe place once you're done editing.

I've had a chance to play around with a pre-release version for a few days, and have put it through its paces editing a short video for my day job. Overall, I've been impressed with how easy it was to create pro-looking results. If you do any sort of video editing but are leery of the investment other apps require (both in dollars and effort), VideoStudio Pro is well worth checking out. To see a bit of the interface itself and what the app can do, watch the video after the jump.

Note: We'll be running a give-away of ten VideoStudio Pro X4 licenses later today, each worth $100 USD. Keep your eyes peeled for the giveaway post!

Continue reading Corel releases VideoStudio Pro X4, we go hands on (video)

Corel releases VideoStudio Pro X4, we go hands on (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A good chunk of Walter Isaacson's new biography of Steve Jobs focuses on Microsoft and Bill Gates.

In the book, he characterizes former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates as "a business person" but not someone who necessarily made great products: "He ended up the wealthiest guy around, and if that was his goal, then he achieved it. But it's never been my goal, and I wonder, in the end, if it was his goal."

In the same passage, he also discussed Microsoft as a company. "They've clearly fallen from their dominance," he said. "They've become mostly irrelevant. And yet I appreciate what they did and how hard it was. They were very good at the business side of things. They were never as ambitious product-wise as they should have been."

Microsoft, of course, would strenuously disagree with those assertions. The latest edition of Windows has sold more than 450 million licenses, and the company continues to maintain a dominant position in business software. While the jury's still out with regard to its cloud efforts as revenue generators, platforms such as Office 365 are making inroads against Google and other companies in that area.

But Apple has framed itself as primarily a mobility company, with products such as the tablet and smartphone, and that area has also proven troublesome for Microsoft. Windows Phone has attracted critical praise but not enough sales to dent either the Apple iPhone or the growing family of Google Android devices; and Microsoft remains largely absent from the tablet game until the launch of Windows 8 sometime in 2012.

Jobs also had some things to say about current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "When the sales guys run the company, the product guys don't matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off," he said. "It happened at Apple when Sculley came in, which was my fault, and it happened when Ballmer took over at Microsoft." As a consequence, "I don't think anything will change at Microsoft as long as Ballmer is running it."

Microsoft's efforts with Windows 8 (particularly when it comes to tablets) and its revamped Windows Phone strategy (which involves a host of new manufacturing partners, including Nokia, in conjunction with the wide-ranging "Mango" software update) will determine whether Jobs' prophecy plays out. If those efforts succeed in a big way, then Microsoft could have a turnaround story in mobility to rival Apple's own. If they fail, then Redmond has some very serious problems.

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Over on the Internet Explorer Blog, Microsoft has posted results from an extensive comparison of the top five Web browsers. The goal: to determine whether Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, or Opera 11 is able to squeeze the most life out of your laptop's battery.

A baseline was determined with test systems sitting idle, and then browsers were pointed at about:blank, a news site, the HTML5 Galactic demo, and the IE9 fish tank demo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IE9 came out on top -- though Firefox 4 was a very close second on nearly every test. As you can see, the other browsers didn't necessarily fare quite as well, with Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera all posting significantly worse scores. In Opera 11's case, a laptop battery would last over one hour more with Internet Explorer 9 installed.

But what we'd really like to know is where did Microsoft find the dilithium crystals required to run a Galactic Total Power Consumption test...

IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don't say we didn't warn you. As anticipated, Leap Day is all about Microsoft in Barcelona, and Microsoft is all about you, the consumer. Redmond today officially unveiled the Consumer Preview of its forthcoming desktop operating system. Want to get an early look at the OS? Peep the source link below. Keep in mind: you'll need a 1GHz processor, either 1GB (32-bit) / 2 GB (64-bit) of RAM, 16GB (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit) available disk space, DirectX 9 graphics with WDDM 1.0 or higher and 1024 x 768 minimum screen resolution to run the new OS. Or, for the more faint of heart, check out our detailed preview and have a look at the press info after the break. The beta version of Windows Server "8" is available now as well for those who may be interested, via the TechNet link that follows.

[Thanks, all]

Billy Steele contributed to this report.

Continue reading Windows 8 Consumer Preview now available for download

Windows 8 Consumer Preview now available for download originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The good news is that Raspberry Pi's highly anticipated teeny-tiny Linux computers are on sale now, just barely making the promised February launch window (good thing it's a leap year). The better news, is that the $25 Model A version has gotten an upgrade from the planned 128Mb of RAM to 256Mb matching the Model B, which still throws in an extra USB port and an Ethernet hookup for $10 more. Unfortunately there is some bad news as well, while the Model A is going into production "immediately", cheapskates will have to hold off a little, as the Model B is the only one on sale right now. Built on a Broadcom BCM2835 700MHz ARM11 processor, they're intended as a cheap computing option that require only a keyboard and RCA or HDMI-connected display to give a full desktop experience including gaming and HD video playback . The team also announced it has secured manufacturing and distribution agreements that should guarantee a steady supply, without the previous limitation of 10,000 at a time batches. Need more technical details? Hit the FAQ page below, or put down a few Hamiltons -- they can be ordered directly from distributors Premier Farnell / Element 14 and RS Components -- and find out how it runs (Fedora, Debian and ArchLinux are currently supported) for yourself.

Update: It appears the servers of both retailers are completely crushed by traffic at the moment, and we're told RS will ship in the UK only. Good luck in your struggle with that most difficult of questions: Keep mashing F5, or get some sleep and try again in the morning? Raspberry Pi's Twitter account reports Farrell appears to have already sold out, so keep that in mind. A press release and video demo from the BBC follow after the break.

Continue reading Raspberry Pi credit-card sized Linux PCs are on sale now, $25 Model A gets a RAM bump

Raspberry Pi credit-card sized Linux PCs are on sale now, $25 Model A gets a RAM bump originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 01:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know those fridge magnet kits composed of a whole bunch of words? The ones you put all over your fridge door and then try to arrange into all sorts of juvenile and/or amusing sentences. Well, Farragomate is the social, webby version of that very same pastime.

You get to play with a bunch of random strangers in real-time, and make up sentences out of a pre-set collection of words, including some fairly naughty ones, and all players' nicknames. As you can imagine, some of the results are not child-friendly.

There are ten rounds to a game. Once a round is done, players get to vote for their favorite sentence from that round. You can't vote for your own creation, of course. There's in-game chat, too.

I think the vocabulary could be made a bit more eclectic, but even as it is, it's a nice way to spend a few minutes and meet random strangers on the Internet (always a thrilling experience).

Farragomate is a social fridge magnet game where you make up sentences originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft has pushed back the curtain from the app store it plans on integrating into Windows 8, in the process kicking off what will surely be a vicious competition with Apple and its own app storefront for Mac OS X Lion.

Unlike Windows Phone, whose own app store is growing at a relatively slow rate (and whose total number of apps on offer lags well behind that of Apple's App Store for iOS), Windows comes with a sizable user base. Third-party developers will want to leverage those hundreds of millions of potential customers for profit, and will thus scramble to build "Metro"-style apps to fill the Windows 8 app store. At least, that's how Microsoft hopes the process will unfold.

In order to sweeten the deal for developers, Microsoft will give them 80 percent of every dollar generated off an app's sale, provided the app in question earns more than $25,000. Less than that, and Microsoft will pay out 70 percent, a ratio that has become something of an industry standard.

Microsoft is also designing the store with businesses in mind.

"Enterprise developers have been asking about their path to market with Metro style apps," Ted Dworkin, partner program manager for the Windows Store, wrote in a Dec. 6 posting on the new Windows Store blog. "And, in turn, IT administrators have been asking about deployment and management scenarios, such as compliance and security."

Microsoft's way of fulfilling those enterprise needs, apparently, centers on giving businesses direct control over app deployment. "Enterprises can choose to limit access to the Windows Store catalog by their employees, or allow access but restrict certain apps," he wrote. "In addition, enterprises can choose to deploy Metro style apps directly to PCs, without going through the Store infrastructure."

Windows 8 beta will arrive in February 2012, with the final release later that year. Unlike previous versions of the operating system with their desktop-style interface, the upcoming operating system's start screen centers on a set of colorful, touchable tiles linked to applications--the better to port it onto tablets and other touch-centric form factors.

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Mozilla Messaging, citing Mozilla's increased focus on Web-borne communications, will be reintegrating with Mozilla Labs.

The Messaging subsidiary was formed in 2008 to focus on Thunderbird, but given Mozilla Labs' current focus on identity and contact management, it now makes sense for the groups to be merged. Thunderbird will be unaffected by the change -- some URLs might change, but that's it -- and presumably Messaging's F1 and Raindrop will thrive in the Labs playground.

What this means for the end user -- for the hundreds of millions of Firefox users -- is that the next big additions will be communication- and messaging-oriented. Contacts and F1 will be almost certainly be baked into Firefox 5 or 6, both of which will be released this year -- and, who knows, there might be something else even more exciting up Mozilla Labs' sleeve!

Mozilla Messaging reintegrates with Labs, unifies focus on Web-based communication originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Click here to read How Dry Cleaning Works: It's Not What You Think

For me, dry cleaning has always belonged in a category of miracles, along with color-safe bleach, dry shampoo, and acupuncture. They seem to work, but is it only because we'd like to believe they do? So we decided to take a look past the counter and '80s-style decals to figure out, what is dry cleaning, anyway? More »

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Version 5.3 of Skype for Windows has just been released, with the main emphasis of the new release being improved call quality, and the quality of video received by mobile Skype users. Presumably one party of the video call must be using Skype for Windows 5.3, though.

Beyond improved call quality, not much has changed. You can now see your friends' presence icons when contact cards are collapsed, and the topic editing button is now always visible on the conversation header. For a complete list of changes, hit up the Skype Garage blog.

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Skype 5.3 for Windows released, improves mobile video call quality originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Click here to read Beautiful Stop-Motion Film Promoting Sushi and Sustainable Fishing

Sure, it's an ad for a Portland-based restaurant called Bamboo Sushi, but instead of promoting the establishment, it uses beautifully filmed hand-crafted miniatures to bring attention to the issues with current fishing practices that are damaging the world's fish stocks. More »

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This morning, an updated version of the stock Android Music app was leaked along with a new version of Android Market. The new Music app, which is labeled 'version 3', is similar to the leaked build from December, but it has received a ton of polish -- and indeed, it looks almost ready for prime time.

If you don't have Android 2.3 -- or don't want to root your phone to install the leaked Music app -- take a look through our gallery, and then read on for our initial hands-on impressions.

Gallery: Leaked Honeycombish Android Music app

Continue reading Leaked Android Music app images and hands-on review

Leaked Android Music app images and hands-on review originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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