Adobe releases Flash-like HTML5 design tool Adobe Edge

Adobe Systems today announced the first public preview release of Adobe Edge, a new HTML5 web motion and interaction design tool available for free on labs.adobe.com for Mac and Windows. Web designers can use the tool to bring animations, similar to those created in Flash Professional, to websites using standards likes HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

Because HTML5 is a moving standard, Adobe says it is adopting an open development methodology for Adobe Edge. For now, this means the company is releasing the software on the Adobe Labs website sooner than it would during a normal development process in order to allow user feedback to help shape the final product. Adobe Edge is not yet even considered in beta. It is being designed as a fast and lightweight professional-grade tool that complements Adobe's existing Web tools, such as Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5, Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5, and Adobe Flash Builder 4.5.

The preview enables you to add motion to existing HTML documents without hampering design integrity of CSS-based layouts, and it also allows you to create visually rich content from scratch, using familiar drawing tools that produce HTML elements styled with CSS3. You can import standard Web graphics assets such as SVG, PNG, JPG, and GIF files and style them using CSS3. The design stage utilizes WebKit to enable design, preview, and manipulation of content. The timeline feature lets you define and customize motion applied to HTML elements. Content created with Edge is designed to work on modern browsers including those on Android, BlackBerry Playbook, iOS , HP webOS, and other smartphone mobile devices as well as Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer 9.

"Over the last year Adobe has delivered on several significant HTML5 milestones including contributions to jQuery, submitting code to WebKit, and enhanced HTML5 output in Creative Suite 5.5," Paul Gubbay, vice president of Design and Web Engineering at Adobe, said in a statement. "Now, with Adobe Edge, we're taking our HTML5 tooling to a whole new level and look forward to getting some really useful feedback from the community over the next few months, as we refine the product."

Koolance Releases 184CFM 120mm Fan

Koolance have released a high speed 120mm fan, with airflow rated at a whopping 183.5CFM, that’s more than double what most conventional 120mm fans offer. The fan codenamed FAN-12038HBK-184 features a dual ball bearing system, a maximum rpm of 4,000 and dimensions of 120x120x35mm all the while producing a not very silent noise level of 59dBA. Not recommended for users who enjoy a silent system.

There’s no balance between noise and performance with this monster of a fan, it’s all about the performance. This fan is perfect for overclockers looking to squeeze that last drop out of their air cooling setups, and especially well suited to watercoolers sporting thick radiators, that need large amounts of airflow to be effective.

Assuming you’ve got a great pair of noise cancelling headphones or can deal with the noise for the bigger picture of extra performance, you can purchase the fan here for a very reasonable $11.99 USD.

Nvidia releases WHQL-certified 270.61 GeForce drivers

Nvidia has released the first 270-family GeForce drivers with Microsoft's blessings. The WHQL-certified 270.61 update is largely comprised of the changes we saw in the previous 270.51 beta, including a massive 241% to 516% performance optimization for GTX 560 Ti and GTX 580 owners running Dragon Age II with specific high quality settings.

In certain configurations, both cards also get a 4% to 19% improvement when playing Mafia 2, Metro 2033, Left 4 Dead 2, H.A.W.X. 2, Civilization V, Far Cry 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Just Cause 2. Although no specific gains are mentioned for GeForce 400 series products, Nvidia says the latest update contains minor tweaks for last-gen cards, so don't be surprised if you see a slight boost.

Desktop: Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

GeForce version 270.61 also brings an "Nvidia Update" feature that notifies you when new drivers are available and directs you to the download location. Although this isn't as streamlined as Steam's solution for AMD Radeon owners, it's a step in the right direction. Nvidia 3D Vision and 3D Vision Surround users will want to skim the release notes (available on our download pages above) as there are tons of new profiles and other updates.

Nvidia quietly releases GeForce GT 520 card

Nvidia has quietly added a new member to its GeForce 500 series of graphics cards: the GeForce GT 520. The card takes the place as the lowest cost DirectX 11 GPU in Nvidia's product line-up at around $60 -- on par with the AMD Radeon HD 6450 -- and is also being billed as a replacement for integrated graphics and suitable for HTPC systems.

Looking at the official spec sheet the GT 520 will have 48 CUDA processing cores, an 810MHz core clock speed, a 1620MHz shader speed, 1GB of 900MHz DDR3 memory, and a 64-bit memory interface providing a total bandwidth of just 14.4GB/s. The card features a low-profile design and a single-slot cooler that in all require only 29W of power. Like other Nvidia GeForce 500 series cards, the GT 520 will also support the company's PhysX and 3D Vision technologies.

Curiously, according to Nvidia's own performance charts, the card will be quite a bit slower that the $60 GeForce GT 430 and more on par with the old GT 220 and even the GeForce 9500 GT that was launched almost three years ago. Basically the improvement is in the power consumption front and smaller footprint.

The GeForce GT 520 is available now from Nvidia's add-in-board partners, which may make some tweaks to Nvidia's standard design like offering passive cooling. The card will also show up in pre-built systems from major manufacturers.

Gigabyte releases Sandy Bridge SATA checker utility

The past few days have seen some of the world's biggest companies in the computer industry announce replacement and repair programs to deal with Intel's 6-Series chipset flaw. PC makers including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Toshiba have pulled systems from their online and retail stores, while motherboard makers Asus, Gigabyte and MSI have pledged to offer customers hassle-free solutions in what is expected to be a costly recall for the chip giant.

For now a simple workaround is to plug any hard drives or optical drives into the unaffected SATA III 6Gbps ports on your motherboard. But Gigabyte is aware not everyone knows how to do that and has come up with a simple utility to guide less tech-savvy users. Interestingly, it seems the utility isn't tied solely to Gigabyte motherboards either.

Essentially the Gigabyte 6 Series SATA Check tool will detect any devices hooked up to the SATA II 3Gbps ports and provide guidance as to which ports to use instead. Needless to say the utility does not fix the problem with the chipset, but merely makes it super-easy to identify whether you're using the affected ports or not. In case you are using three or more SATA devices the company reasonably advises users to prioritize important devices on the SATA III ports (e.g. the hard drive with your operating system on it), and the less important devices on the SATA II ports (e.g. a DVD ROM).

Revised P67 and H67 boards are expected to begin appearing in April and manufacturers should start offering replacements accordingly. In the meantime, if you are already stuck with one of the faulty ones and need some help with your SATA ports -- or know someone who does -- you can get Gigabyte's 6 Series SATA Check tool here.

Apple releases iOS 4.3 with Safari, iTunes updates

pple has released the latest version of its mobile operating system two days ahead of schedule. The update is already available through iTunes and brings several new features to Apple's iPod touch, iPhone and iPad product lines. Among iOS 4.3's highlights is faster Safari performance. Apple has ported the Nitro JavaScript engine used by the desktop version of Safari, supposedly doubling JavaScript performance in some instances.

Version 4.3 also sees the addition of Personal Hotspot, which was first introduced on the Verizon iPhone 4 and lets you share your mobile data connection with other devices over Wi-Fi. Apple has made it easier to share media as you can now access your entire iTunes library with any iOS device over your wireless home network. For instance, iTunes Home Sharing can stream music and movies from your Mac or PC to an iPhone or iPad.

AirPlay has been opened up to third parties interested in using the feature. Applications and websites with AirPlay support will be able to wirelessly stream audio, video and photos to your TV -- assuming you have an Apple TV or the AirPort Express. The iPad's physical side switch has received additional functionality. You can configure it to serve as a mute toggle or an orientation lock, as it originally did prior to iOS 4.2.1.