Macintosh product news – September 1, 2010

Macintosh product updates and announcements for August 31, 2010:

Software

• At 88 miles per hour, Back to the Future took millions of spellbound viewers on a high-flying voyage across the space-time continuum in a trio of wildly inventive tales that broke box-office records around the world. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Academy Award-winning cinematic franchise that generated nearly $1 billion worldwide, Telltale Games will release a new game series this winter as part of the milestone soon after the Blu-ray debut and DVD release of the Back to the Future 25th Anniversary Trilogy on October 26, featuring all-new restorations of the classic films.
• FileMaker, Inc. has announced the Bento 3 Project Manager, a brand new set of templates designed to make it easy for Mac users to track their personal projects and manage their time within one integrated, intuitive place. The Bento 3 Project Manager includes a free 30-day trial of the popular Bento 3 personal database for Mac, plus two professionally designed, ready-to-use templates.
• Independent developer Gerald Aquila and award-winning designer Wolfgang Bartelme have released Firetask for Mac, their new GTD-based task management application for Mac OS X. Firetask for Mac is geared towards professionals, creatives and managers who need to enter, manage and delegate up to a hundred or more tasks every day. It is heavily optimized for keyboard control while providing a clear and visually attractive overview of all relevant tasks across different project task lists.
• Jumsoft has updated its free products for Apple’s iWork with 10 new Keynote Themes. The popular Goodies collection of exciting design templates, themes, images, and 3D objects is available for download for free. Jumsoft’s themes for Keynote were created to infuse presentations with creative zest, allowing users to focus on the content, rather than struggling with design. The themes contain up to 20 master slides, which include a mix of bulleted text and photo-oriented layouts.
• Yazsoft has announced Attachments menu 1.0 for Mac OS X. Attachments menu is a handy utility that lives in the Mac OS X menu bar to provide quick and easy access to all attachments located in Apple Mail. All attachments are efficiently categorized for your convenience. You can even refer to the actual email that contains a specific attachment at a click of a button. Attachments menu is also customizable to suit your work preferences.
• MacHighway has announced the launch of their new service, MacName. MacName provides domain name registration along with an easy way to connect and use your domain name with services such as MobileMe, Google Apps, Wix, Blogger, SmugMug and Squarespace, and allows you unlimited email forwarding addresses. MacName is for people who are satisfied with the site they’ve created, and now want an easy way to link their domain name to that site as the finishing personal touch.
• Before Dawn Solutions, Inc., has announced the acquisition of Braxton’s Link Tester, effective immediately. BLT, now renamed “Better Link Tester”, will join the skEdit editor in our development tools offerings. We will continue building on the great application that Braxton has started, and plan to bring our experience and imagination to the addition of new features.
• The new Zulu plugin for FileMaker server lets you manipulate your FileMaker calendar records of any iCal compliant application, including iCal itself, as well as of the calendars on your iPhone and iPad. Zulu isn’t “syncing” your data: when you see or edit a record in iCal or on your iPhone, you’re working directly with the FileMaker records on your server. So there are no worries about your data getting out of sync.
• Encyclopædia Britannica is launching a brand new series of educational and engaging apps for children, aged 8-12. The interactive apps have been designed to keep kids busy for hours on end with exciting facts, maps, memory games, puzzles, quizzes and videos and are a fantastic tool to help kids get their homework and projects done.
• Sketch Games has announce that Animal Ark – Africa now supports the Retina Display. The new update also brings a new content, better graphics and animations to iPhone 4 devices when compared to old Animal Ark – Africa. Best thing about the new update is that it is free to download for current owners of Animal Ark – Africa. New version (2.0) supports all devices and will automatically starts in iHD version (iPhone 4) or classic version (iPhone 3G/3GS, iPod Touch).

Hardware

• PogoPlug has rolled out a new firmware update that activates a number of new features they have announced in recent months, including their new cloud printing feature. In addition, both the Pogoplug Wireless Extender and Pogoplug Biz are now shipping. The print feature allows users to print with their iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and any other Internet enabled device at anywhere in the world! The setup is simple; all users need to do is plug any HP or Epson printer made since 2005 into a USB port on the Pogoplug. Or, if it’s a network printer, simply have it on the same network as the Pogoplug. The firmware update begins rolling out to Pogoplug users today, and all users should have the update by the end of the week.