Readdle developing native iPhone, Touch app...

Readdle on Tuesday announced plans to unveil an iPhone 2.0 application of its as-of-now web service, allowing users to read documents on their iPod touch or iPhone when offline. The company also claims the native application will enhance the service's functionality, citing seamless storage, page-by-page reading, bookmarks, and optimized PDF rendering, among other options. Readdle has not announced whether it will charge for the application when the iPhone application store launches.

Smith Micro releases Poser Pro for 2D, 3D design...

Smith Micro on Tuesday announced Poser Pro, which it says is designed for professional content creators within studio and production environments. The software offers advanced features that include scene-hosting plug-ins for popular 3D environments, as well as a 64-bit render engine, COLLADA support and advanced network rendering. Poser Pro offers 3D character design and animation tools that help artists integrate custom and pre-built characters into professional projects and production pipelines; it lets artists fine-tune light, shadow, color and detail on figures, and ships with distributable 3D characters that are specially designed to provide a starting point for scene development, thereby saving production time.

Divine Fiat unveils "Grunge" Keynote theme...

Divine Fiat on Monday announced Grunge, a new alternative Keynote presentation theme for Apple's presentation software. The theme includes the font "Base 02" for an edgy feel to written text, while pictures sit in an oval cutout. Dark lines radiate from the center of almost every slide, and the set includes 40 master slides, providing a wide array of options. Divine Fiat is currently selling Grunge for $30, and it is available from the company's website.

AOL Desktop for Mac, new browser, AIM client...

AOL on Tuesday unveiled AOL Desktop for Mac, a brand new portal software for the company's internet services, representing the first such major release in five years. The client offers email, messaging, and web browsing services, as well as access to the company's various content channels. AOL includes easy transition tools, which allow users to quickly import AOL favourites and mail from the former Mac OS X client. AOL Desktop for Mac is available from the company's website.

First Look: LaCie Hard Disk by Neil Poulton...

You should always backup your data so you never lose any of your files. While you can always backup your files to a USB flash drive or a DVD, those solutions may not be able to store enough data, forcing you to copy your data to multiple devices or discs. For most people the simplest solution is to backup data using an external hard disk, plugged into a Mac through a USB or FireWire cable. You can buy dedicated external hard disks, or connect an old external hard disk using a drive enclosure. If you want an external hard disk with a stylish exterior, however, you might want to consider LaCie’s Hard Disk by Neil Poulton.

Another Mac-clone maker surfaces on eBay...

Psystar's flagrant disregard of Apple's licensing agreement has opened the proverbial floodgates for individuals selling non-Apple Mac OS X systems, with a seller by the name of "chris555" offering $550 clones of his own design. AppleInsider reveals that the individual has configured a similar setup to that of Psystar, with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM, 250GB hard drive, a 20X DVD burner, and an Intel GMA 950 graphics card.

CS Odessa announces ConceptDraw Office...

Ukraine's CS Odessa has announced the development of ConceptDraw Office, a forthcoming project management suite. The suite collects the company's PRO, PROJECT and MINDMAP applications, and integrates them into a single platform; together the apps are claimed to handle "all aspects" of project management, from brainstorming and team creation through to planning, resources and results.

Sprint targets iPhone in new Instinct ad...

The iPhone is the target of a new Sprint commercial promoting Samsung's Instinct phone, due to ship in June. The ad pits the two devices in side-by-side competition, as each attempts to find a caller's location. Both are able to reach their end result in roughly the same amount of time, but the Instinct is able to deliver a more precise location, while the iPhone can only narrow positioning down to a few city blocks. The Instinct is also able to present a 3D view of its results.

Piper: Vodafone will bost iPhone sales, skew revenue...

Vodafone's announcement of iPhone sales in 10 different countries carries with it both positive and negative aspects, say analysts with the research group Piper Jaffray. The most dramatic change is in the number of potential subscribers, which should jump from 152.7 million to 292.5 million. This offers the possibility of a major boon to device sales, even though like the rest of the world, most Vodafone subscribers will not be rich enough to afford an iPhone and an accompanying plan.

Apple gains patents for iPod nano, more...

The US Patent and Trademark Office today granted several patents to Apple, among them a collection of iPod technologies. Predominant among these is the design of the iPod nano, despite it being on sale in the US since September of 2005. More than a dozen people are credited with the invention, including key designer Jonathan Ive and Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The patent may however apply specifically to the second-generation Nano, as it was originally applied for in September of 2006.

iTunes UK adds NBC/Universal, despite US boycott...

The UK iTunes Store has added a variety of TV shows from NBC/Universal (iTunes link) in spite of their absence from iTunes in the US. Selection is currently limited, but incorporates seasons of Heroes, House, Eureka, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and The Incredible Hulk. Unlike the standard iTunes pricing model, notably, which is consistent across all shows, active shows at the UK store (such as Heroes) are being priced at £1.89 per episode, while defunct ones have a separate rate of only £1.19.

NY Times: 3G iPhone in Europe before August...

The 3G broadband version of the iPhone should be on sale in at least some European countries before August, according to the New York Times. The newspaper cites an unidentified source "close to the situation," who says that the timing is connected to plans by Vodafone and Telecom Italia to release the phone across the continent. Specifically, Apple is said to want the 3G version on sale in new countries before the peak of the European vacation season, a time when many people might like to make use of functions such as the phone's mobile web browser.

Italy to have two iPhone carriers...

Italy will be one of the first countries in the world to support the iPhone on multiple carriers, an announcement reveals. Local carrier Telecom Italia, also known as TIM, has declared that it will also sell the device alongside Vodafone, which today uncovered its plans to sell the device in 10 countries around the world. Responding to further inquiries, TIM will only elaborate that it has "signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone in Italy within the year."

HighPoint debuts 4-channel SAS RAID card...

HighPoint has released the RocketRAID 2640X4, a four-channel PCI-Express x4 SAS RAID controller that supports RAID levels (0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD). The company claims the new SAS RAID controller offers a new level of flexibility, performance and reliability at an affordable price. The RocketRAID 2640X4 PCI-Express x4 bus speed delivers "true SAS performance" that is 2X the throughput speed of SATA bypassing performance bottlenecks that occur with PCI-Express x1 bus speeds limiting SAS performance throughput to SATA speeds, Highpoint claims.

Script Software offers CopyPaste Pro beta...

Script Software on Monday debuted CopyPaste Pro 1.0b, a beta update to the original multiple clipboard utility for the Mac. It offers a new instantly available window (like Apple's Application Switcher) that lets users navigate through the Clip History and Clip Archive as well as offers an editor called "Bean," which enables the users to edit clipboards. Rewritten in Cocoa and Objective C, the update also offers a new easier and simpler interface that follows the look and feel of Apple's Dock and Application Switcher and offers significant performance improvements, especially on Intel-based Macs and in Leopard. CopyPaste Pro is a Universal Binary for native operation on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs and runs on both Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

VMware Fusion 2 beta adds multi displays, more...

VMware today unveiled VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1, a free beta preview of the next major update to its OS virtualization software, which introduces many new features, including true multi-display support for virtual machines. In addition to using multiple displays, the beta also introduces experimental support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2, allowing users to run complex 3D software in a virtualized environment. When it ships, VMware Fusion 2.0 will be a free upgrade for all existing v1.x users, while new users can purchase Fusion for $80.

EarthBrowser 3.0: Doppler, browser, Northern Lights...

Lunar Software has released EarthBrowser 3.0, an update to the real-time three dimensional model of the earth that offers continuously updated global information. The software renders a virtual representation of the earth along with a large variety of current data, including new Doppler Radar and Northern Lights overlays, animated weather model forecasts from NOAA, and more. Animated weather model forecasts from the NOAA are continuously updated for the entire world, and include datasets for Precipitation, Snowfall, Temperature, Pressure, Humidity, Wind Speed/Direction and more.