Apple announces ‘revolutionary’ Final Cut Pro X

Final Cut Pro X, Apples newly-released editing software, is made to save time, easily organize data and offer robust post-production capabilities.

After months of intense anticipation, Apple today unveiled Final Cut Pro X, the most recent version of its widely-used editing suite. The software is available immediately for $299.99 through the Mac App Store.

As with most things Apple, the software is “revolutionary,” with magic powers capable of transforming the entire movie industry. Plot lines will now always make sense, actors will never give a bad performance, and the good guy will always win.

Ok, we kid. But Final Cut Pro X does have some truly impressive new features that will change the way editors work — or at least make it easier for them to work the way they like.

First up is the Magnetic Timeline, which replaces the standard timeline with a new format that allows editors to easily organize and rearrange clips however they like. Another handy feature, Clip Connections, links story clips to other elements, like tiles and sound effects. This makes it easy to keep the elements related to a specific clip connected when the clip is moved around. Compound Clips allows editors to group multiple clips together, and move them or apply effects as a single unit.

Another immensely helpful addition to Final Cut Pro X is background processes. Lik Content Auto-Analysis, for example, which uses the metadata taken from the camera that shot the imported media and applies useful tags, like shot type (e.g. wide, medium, close), to the files. Using the automatically generated keywords, the clips are automatically assembled in the “Smart Collections” section of the “Event Library,” where all clips are store for new project. Not only is this supposed to make it easier to keep things organized, it takes out a massive amount of time-consuming work involved in editing large projects.

Perhaps the most-needed upgrade to Final Cut — an absent feature that we know made some editors stop using the software — is background rendering, which means editors don’t have to stop working just to wait for their software to sluggishly apply changes.

Other useful additions, include Auditions, which allows for quick clip comparisons, plus a wide range of post-production goodies, like customizable effects and improved audio editing.

In addition to the totally overhauled design and functionality, Final Cut Pro X is a completely “rebuilt from the ground up” app, Apple says. The massive software is 64-bit and requires the use of a high-end Mac with some heavy-duty hardware, so check to make sure your system meets the minimum requirements before dropping the cash.

Apple also offers Motion 5, a companion app for creating professional motion graphics, and Compressor 4 for advanced encoding. Both apps will cost $49.99 each through the Mac App Store.

Sony PS3 hacker George ‘GeoHot’ Hotz ‘works for Facebook’

Huge news in the hacker world: Renowned PS3 and iPhone jailbreaker George "GeoHot" Hotz now reportedly works for Facebook.

Just when you thought the massive hacker stories were over for the evening, another twist comes in: Hacker George ‘GeoHot’ Hotz, who recently settled a lawsuit with Sony for publishing a PlayStation 3 crack online, now works for Facebook, according to various sources. His exact position with the company is unclear, but he may be on a the development team tasked wit building the social network’s rumored new iPad app.

The rumor of Hotz’s break into “legitimate” product development comes first from jailbreak hacker Joshua Hill (aka p0isixNinja), who said in a recent interview that Hotz had made the move. Hill reportedly challenged Hotz to a iPad 2 jailbreak duel. (Both hackers come from an iOS-cracking background.) Hotz declined, saying that he wanted to remain out of the attention of the media after the debacle with Sony.

Gabe Rivera, creator of news aggregator Techmeme, said that he noticed on Hotz’s Facebook page a message that reads, “Facebook is really an amazing place to work…first hackathon over.” Hotz reportedly published that post on June 17, but he is said to have worked at Facebook since May.

Hotz has become somewhat of a symbol for the hacking community. Hacktivist group Anonymous launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Sony in April as retribution for suing Hotz. Coincidentally or not, the DDoS onslaught came at the same time as a monstrous breach of Sony’s PlayStation Network put the personal data of as much as 100 million people worldwide at risk.

Those hacks became the preface to an ongoing campaign by Lulz Security, who hacked Sony in a variety of ways. The group later went on to attack everyone from PBS to the CIA. By chance, LulzSec announced tonight that it was disbanding, and would never perform another cyberattack under the LulzSec pirate flag again. There is so far no evidence that GeoHot going corporate has anything to do with LulzSec’s sudden death.

ICANN approves new top-level domains: Now .anything is possible

Forget .com: ICANN has made it now possible to create an almost limitless number of custom domain names, a move the organization believes could usher in a new Internet boom.

In the most significant change to domain name regulations since the institution of .com, the Board of ICANN, the body that regulates how domain names work, has approved the creation of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that will allow for a near-infinite variety of new website addresses. The colossal decision not only enables corporations and other organizations to create domains like drink.coke or buy.apple, but they could theoretically create .almost .anything .they .can .think .of.

“ICANN has opened the Internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination. No one can predict where this historic decision will take us,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and chief executive of ICANN in a statement.

“Today’s decision will usher in a new Internet age,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN’s Board of Directors told reporters. “We have provided a platform for creativity and inspiration, and for the next big dot-thing.”

Despite these claims of grandeur, three massive barriers will hold back the onrush of new domains. First, the price: new custom domain available through the program will cost $185,000 to register. Second, those seeking to acquire one of these new domains must prove legitimacy to their claim of the terms they want to use in their web address. Third, only “established public or private organizations” can apply. And those that do must prove that they have the technological infrastructure to support the domain.

Some domain applications may be discarded for other reasons, said Dengate Thrush. For instance, if the domain could infringe on religious or social sensitivities, like .nazi, then ICANN will not approve the creation of the domain.

Currently, a mere 22 gTLDs exist — things like .com, .org, .net or .gov — as well as about 250 country-level domains, like .uk or .cn. ICANN expects between 300 and 1000 new domains to come into existence as a result of the new program.

Organizations who seek a ‘.anything’ domain may send in applications as soon as January 2012, through April 2012. ICANN anticipates that the first new domains will be approved by the end of 2012.

Ultimate Collection of Free Photoshop Styles

Photoshop users can save time during the design process by  making use of layer styles. Whether you are saving your own custom style to be used multiple times throughout your design (such as with a button), or using pre-made styles created by other designers, taking advantage of this feature in Photoshop can greatly speed up your workflow.

In this post we’ll link out to a number of useful Photoshop layer styles that can be downloaded for free. Many of them have been created especially for text, others for buttons, and some are more general. Download the styles and apply them to your layers for instant results.

for more and downlaod click here

Mistake leads 1,400 Facebook users to crash girl’s birthday party

More than 1,000 people showed up for a German girl's 16th birthday on Friday after she inadvertently posted the party as a public event on Facebook.

Next time you post a party to Facebook, make sure you set the invitation to “private,” or you might end up with a giant mess on your hands. Just ask Thessa, a teenage girl from Germany, who learned that lesson the hard way late this week: Police estimate that between 1,400 and 1,600 random Facebook users showed up at her Hamburg home on Friday after she accidentally made her party public on the social network.

The 16-year-old literally fled her home prior to the big event to avoid the mischievous hoard, reports Reuters. Which makes perfect sense considering 15,000 people accepted her party invitation prior to the big night. The party’s cancellation notice went entirely ignored.

Despite Thessa’s absence, police say more than 1,000 people partied outside the suburban home from about 7pm until 2am. There was little violence reported during the impromptu party, but some revelers did suffer minor injuries, police said. In total, 11 people were reportedly taken into custody for minor scuffles that caused bodily harm, resisting arrest, a little bit of private property damage and at least one instance of “violating explosives laws.”

“It was by and large a peaceful party,” said Mirko Streiber, a Hamburg police spokesman. “There were some fires set alight, some acts of violence and with considerable alcohol consumption there was some property damage. There have been larger organized birthday parties in Hamburg but this may be the largest unorganized birthday party ever.”

“We had cordoned off the house, some 100 police were on the ground, four of them on horses — but that did not keep the kids from celebrating,” Streiber told the Associated Press. “[T]he party was a hit.”

Something tells us that, if this had happened in the United States, everything might not have gone so smoothly. Just a hunch…

Watch a video report about the party:

Chinese teen sells kidney for an iPad 2

A Chinese teenager shows just how badly he wanted an iPad 2.

In a true show of brand loyalty, a 17-year-old Chinese teenager sold his kidney in order to buy an iPad 2. Shanghai Daily reports that Anhui Province Zheng was able to net 20,000 ($3,084.45) for the organ but now as his health is worsening, he is regretting the decision. “I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it. A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan.”

Zheng sold the kidney in late April. The surgery, as it turns out, was performed at a hospital that did not meet the qualifications for organ transplants. After Zheng returned home with his new Apple electronics (reported to also include an iPhone – we’re uncertain whether this is a typo or Zheng simply stocked up on his iOS devices), his mother demanded to know where they come from. After she learned of their origin, she reported the matter to the police. The hospital is claiming to know nothing about the surgery.

The story was originally reported by SZTV news channel. In the video, Zheng reveals his large scar, and it appears that his family is very emotional discussing the situation. Apple fanboys are known to be devoted to what can be considered ridiculous, zealot-like lengths, but this type of iOS idolatry puts them all to shame. Take a look at the original TV broadcast below, reported entirely in Chinese.

40+ Textured Vector Icons By InstantShift

InstantShift, a popular blog on web design and development, is sharing a set of 40+ good looking icons.

The icons are simple-yet-beautiful, have a chic texture over them + come in 2 formats:

• .PNG – which are sized 32x32px
• .PSD – which are layered and can be resized as you wish

P.S. They are free to use in both personal and commercial projects.

For Download: http://www.instantshift.com/2011/05/31/freebie-40-awesome-textured-icons/

Facebook taking over globally with almost 700 million users

The latest Facebook statistics say that the company is nearing 700 million thanks to increased usage in countries like Brazil and India.

Growth may be no surprise when it comes to Facebook, but it seems as if the California based social networking giant will be reaching 700 million users soon according to some analysis done by the Socialbakers Facebook statistics site.

Countries such as Brazil, Phillipines, Indonesia, Mexico and Argentina are responsible for much of the social website’s international adoption recently. According to Socialbakers’ statistics, almost half of the U.S. uses Facebook already, with 149 million users. It makes sense that the company would be concentrating on tapping overseas growth since America is a spent vein.

Indonesia has the second largest amount of Facebook users at the moment with 37 million, but the countries with the most significant amount of growth in the month of May are Brazil and Egypt with 11%.

What is interesting about Brazil and their 1.9 million new users is that the country already has a dominant social networking site—Orkut. This site bombed when it came to the U.S. but has more than 100 million users worldwide, split almost evenly between Brazil and India. With these two countries in the top 10 list of growing Facebook users, the Google owned Orkut may be seeing it’s demise in the face of Facebook’s momentum.

Along with the 700 million worldwide users, the Washington Post reports that the site is expected to host 100 billion photos once summer rolls around. According to their statistics, close to 6 billion photos are uploaded monthly with female users taking part in the majority of the picture uploading. The Post says “the number of profile photos posted on Facebook has tripled since 2006”.

700 million users really isn’t that many people when you think about the Earth’s current population of 6.8 billion. Facebook still has a ways to go before it takes over the world.

Google +1 makes its official debut

The pieces of Google's social puzzle are starting to pull together as it finally reveals what +1 is all about.

It’s officially time to say our goodbyes to a social network called Google Me. The Mountain View company unveiled a new feature called Google +1. In its company blog, Google explains that its +1 symbol shall become the Internet’s new code for “this is pretty cool” and will now show up in search results to let users recommend links and stories. Not social enough? Google further describes +1, saying that these recommendations will come from people you know, linking the feature to the long-described layered approach Google is taking with social. Of course, if you don’t have a significant amount of Google contacts (which will be generated from Gmail, Buzz, and Reader), don’t worry – you’ll see “how many people across the web have +1’d” something.

In short, Google sums it all up saying that “the beauty of +1’s is their relevance – you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when are you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results).”

Once a plethora of code names and over-published rumors regarding Google’s social project hit a fever pitch, we heard that the company had settled on something called +1. At the time, it was believed to be related to the new user profile pulldown beneath the toolbar (which Google denied) and that something called a “Loop” (which could be Google’s version of Facebook friends) would also have to do with the new feature. While it remains to be seen if all these elements will integrate to create the mystical Google social project, it certainly seems to a “layered” way to create some sort of networking for the site. What +1 will most importantly do, if successful, is encourage users to create Google Profiles, which were recently updated.

In an interview with Mashable, Google rep Jim Prosser made no secrets that this was a way to compete with Facebook – while also giving search results a more personal touch. And of course, this feature will not integrate with Facebook’s “closed system” but there is a possibility +1 could see some action from Twitter. As for sharing data with other social sites, Quora and Flickr are possibilities, “which Google considers ‘open web’ apps.”

+1 will begin rolling out over the next few months, or you can visit Google.com/experimental to get an early hands on. Also check out the video below for more.