plugins
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Arturia just released a free unison-based multi-fx plugin
Arturia just surprise-dropped a new multi-fx plugin and it’s free for a limited time. Refract is based on unison-based sound architecture and is free until January 4, at which point it’ll cost $100.
Universal Audio's SC-1 condenser microphone comes with new modeling software
Universal Audio just released the new SC-1 condenser microphone and the Hemisphere Mic collection modeling software. This software emulates classic mics and can also be used with the pre-existing SD-1 and SP-1 microphones.
PreSonus and Bitwig have teamed up to launch a universal file format for DAWs
PreSonus and Bitwig have teamed up to launch the open DAWproject file format. This innovation allows you to save an entire audio project in one DAW and open it in another.
Microsoft is helping developers build their own ChatGPT-compatible AI copilots
Microsoft has a lot of news at this year's Build conference around its AI "copilots," but it wants third-party developers in on the action too.
Amped Studio offers 'experimental' VST plugin support for its online DAW
Online digital audio workstation (DAW) music production apps are popular because, unlike local apps, they can run on machines that aren’t necessarily super-powerful. However, a downside is that you can’t use powerful VST plugins that do functions like noise reduction, auto-tune or sampled instruments. Amped Studio has announced that it has solved that problem, albeit in a limited way, with a new experimental update called VST/Remote.
Firefox will stop supporting web plugins (except for Flash) by the end of 2016
Horrible browser plugins used to offer extended multimedia features for website, often at the cost of a much worse overall experience -- thankfully, they're going the way of the dodo. Chrome recently banished plugins like Java and Silverlight (and made auto-playing Flash ads disabled by default), and now Firefox is doing the same. Mozilla just announced in a blog post that nearly all old-school plugins will not be supported in Firefox by the end of 2016. That's a long ways away, but it's still good news.
IE 11 on Windows 8.1 preview supports HTML5 Netflix streaming right now
Netflix recently detailed some of the technological developments needed to transition from Silverlight to HTML5 streaming video in the browser, and in a notable turn one of the first companies on board is Microsoft. It's not that surprising since Microsoft has made it clear it's pushing other technologies going forward, but it's still a stark example of how much things have changed in recent years. Netflix's Tech Blog announced today that anyone running Internet Explorer 11 in the Windows 8.1 preview can visit Netflix.com today and try out HTML5-powered video streaming right now. Already available on ARM Chromebooks (pictured above), Netflix says Microsoft has implemented the Premium video extensions it's been working on to provide support for GPU-accelerated 1080p video, DRM and encryption without proprietary plugins.
The Daily Grind: What plugin(s) can you not live without?
I recently returned to Lord of the Rings Online, and one of the first things I did after reinstalling was hunt down all the old plugins I had a couple of years ago. Some are more important than others, but one is basically indispensable. Without TonicBars, the LotRO interface is a horrific jumble of 27,000 hotbars and 127,000 abilities, but with TonicBars these abilities are kept neatly off my screen until I roll over the appropriate button and unfurl the underlying bar. You can also configure the plugin to display a hotbar only when various gameplay conditions are met, like, say, your health dropping below a certain percentage. So that's my indispensable add-on. What's yours? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Java, Silverlight left in cold as Firefox disables all plugins by default -- except Flash
In an effort to prevent "drive-by exploitations," upcoming versions of Firefox will have Java, Adobe Reader and Silverlight disabled by default, according to a recent Mozilla Security blog. All other third-party plugins except Flash will also be disabled, requiring users to enable them using the so-called click to play feature introduced last year. All that is to prevent "poorly designed" Firefox plugins from crashing or recent headline-grabbing exploits involving the likes of Java, with Adobe's Flash player being the one exception that works out of the box -- though versions longer of tooth than 10.3 won't see daylight without your say-so.
Securing Your Mac: A Guide for Reasonable People, Version 1.0
"How do I protect my Mac online? Should I run any 'security' applications on my Mac?" That question arrived several weeks ago via the contact form here at TUAW, and I have been trying to come up with a reasonable answer to it ever since. That question, or a variation of it, comes fairly regularly. Usually the person asking it has switched from Windows to Mac, and has brought with them an expectation that they should run some sort of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware programs. It's easy to be glib and say that the only really safe computer is one that is turned off and locked away. Conventional wisdom would have you believe that Mac users don't care about security, or think they are immune to security problems. That is a myth for everyone except Artie MacStrawman. On the other side, you have tech pundits who have been predicting the "downfall" of Mac security since 2004, and every time there is even the slightest bit of security news, there are plenty who want to jump and point and say "See! We told you Macs were no better than Windows!" Many of those articles and much of the hype about protecting your Mac comes from companies which also happen to sell you protection against these potential harms. The argument generally goes like this: "It is inevitable that Mac OS X will eventually have problems like Windows has, so you should buy one of our programs to protect yourself for when that inevitable day arrives." Ironically, one of the biggest security problems that Mac OS X has faced was the Flashback Trojan in April 2012, and none of the Mac anti-virus companies made much of a big deal about it at the time because none of them caught it before it was already identified as a problem. So What Is a Reasonable Person Supposed to Do? I have spent some time gathering information on what I believe are reasonable steps which will allow you to continue to use your Mac on a regular basis, and which will also protect you in case something does happen of any sort of "malware" whether that is a trojan horse, a virus, spyware, or any such thing. This advice comes to you from a neutral party. I do not have any financial stake in selling you software or services, nor do I believe the myth of the impenetrable computer, no matter what operating system you use. You will notice that many of the suggestions that I make are not specifically about protecting yourself from malware, in fact, a lot of it would apply if all you were worried about was what might happen if your computer was ever lost, stolen, or destroyed in a fire or other disaster. (Oh, and one last bit of prologue: while I did decide to number these so they could be easily referred to, I did not try to come up with a certain number of steps that you should take.) Step 1) Make Backups: Use Time Machine. Telling people to make backups is like telling people to eat better and get more exercise. Almost everyone knows that they should do it, almost everyone believes that they should do it, but far too many people still don't do it. But if you ignore everything else I say, please listen to this: Make backups. There's really no excuse not to make backups on your Mac. Every Mac comes with Time Machine, a built-in backup solution which is as easy as buying a second hard drive and plugging it into your Mac. Time Machine will prompt you to start using it, and will automatically keep things backed up. Using Time Machine is like wearing your seat belt in a car. Just do it, no excuses. Step 2) Make Backups: A Bootable Clone. Time Machine is great, but don't stop there. If you really want to be safe, you should have a clone if your hard drive. A clone is an exact copy of your drive which you can use to boot your computer in case the hard drive dies. You can make one of these using Disk Utility, but I suggest SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. Using Time Machine and bootable clone is like wearing your seat belt and having insurance. It's just a good idea. Extra Credit: If your house or apartment burned down tomorrow while you were away, would it take out your computer and your backup? What if someone broke it and stole your computer and backup drive? For these reasons, people often suggest having an off-site backup. There are several ways you can do this. The simplest path to offsite backup is making two clones of your drive, and bringing one somewhere like your office or a friend's house. OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion also makes it easier to alternate drives for Time Machine, allowing you to rotate drives in and out at will. Either way, you'd have a copy of your data locally and one someplace else. But both of those approaches require you to update those backups periodically and physically move the drives around. A more hands-off solution would be something like BackBlaze or CrashPlan or Mozy or Carbonite or JungleDisk or another app that does real-time, off-site backups. CrashPlan actually allows you to "buddy up" with a friend or family member who has a high-speed Internet connection; you back up to a spare drive at their house, and they can do the same at your place. Step 3) Use Dropbox for your most important files. Dropbox isn't a backup system per se, but it does have a few things to offer that can be quite helpful when dealing with computer security. The first is that as soon as you save a document to your Dropbox folder (or any of its sub-folders) it is immediately copied to the Dropbox website. That means that in a matter of seconds, there is an off-site backup copy. If you are working on a file at 10:15 a.m. and spill your coffee on your laptop at 10:20 a.m. Dropbox is the best chance you have of getting an up-to-date copy of that file. Likewise, if some sort of a security breach affected your computer and corrupted or deleted your files, Dropbox can help here too. First of all, Dropbox keeps all revisions of a file going back 30 days. Using the Dropbox web interface, you can go back and compare versions, and find the last safe, clean copy of an infected file. Dropbox will also let you restore files which have been deleted in the past 30 days as well. (There's an add-on service called pack-rat which will let you recover files beyond 30 days -- indefinitely, in fact.) File corruption can be a much more difficult problem to solve than file deletion. Being able to easily compare versions is a significant feature. Apple's Time Machine can do that as well, but by default it only runs once per hour, and a file you are actively working on may have been changed many times during that hour. Dropbox and Security: Some people might object to recommending Dropbox as a security feature because what you are doing is copying a file to a 3rd party where it could (theoretically) be compromised by a security leak at Dropbox. To me, it comes down to a matter of trade-offs. First of all, I don't have anything that would quality as "state secrets" in my Dropbox. My most important confidential information is stored in 1Password, which is encrypted on disk before being sent to Dropbox and is protected by what I consider to be a very secure master password (based on the information I learned by reading Toward Better Master Passwords and Better Master Passwords: The geek edition). Secondly, I consider accidental deletion or data corruption (or a hard drive crash) as much more likely than someone breaking into Dropbox to get at my files. Dropbox works for me because I don't have to think about it, it just runs, automatically, all of the time, on all of my computers. A reasonable person might decide to encrypt sensitive files locally before saving them to Dropbox. (You can do this for free with Disk Utility and an encrypted disk image, or use something like Knox.) You can also achieve similar sync-to-the-cloud results with Google Drive, SkyDrive, SugarSync or Dolly Drive. Step 4) Be Careful Where You Get Your Software. Now we are moving beyond the realm of backups and multiple copies of files and getting into computer security from malware. The most likely way that some sort of malware will get installed on your computer is by someone (or you) installing it, thinking that they are installing something else. If I can write a program and convince you to run it and enter your password when prompted, I can do pretty much anything to your computer. If you find a program through BitTorrent which claims to be some high-end software for OS X that you want but don't want to buy (or can't afford), you might be tempted to download and install it. You might tell yourself that you aren't going to use it often enough to justify buying it, or maybe you want to try it out before you decide to buy it. Whatever the reason, the problem is that you don't really know what you're installing. It might be a "safe" version of a cracked program, or it might be a program that will also install some other kind of malware on your computer alongside of the program that you think you are getting. Once you start installing software from an untrustworthy source, you're setting yourself up for trouble. So what is a reasonable person to do? Use the Mac App Store Apple promotes the Mac App Store as a safe place to buy and install software. Many applications are available for free, and overall the price of software these days is incredibly low for what you get. While no system is 100% foolproof, the odds of downloading some sort of malware from the Mac App Store are extremely remote. Use trusted third-party software. The downside to the Mac App Store is that Apple has placed so many restrictions on what apps can do, that many excellent, useful, trustworthy applications just are not available on the Mac App Store. I download and install third-party software all of the time, and I do so with confidence because I take what I consider to be reasonable precautions. Starting in OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), Apple introduced Gatekeeper which is designed to be another layer of protection against malware. By default, Gatekeeper will only allow you to run applications from the Mac App Store or from "identified developers" who have paid US$100 for a developer license and cryptographically signed their software to make sure that it hasn't been tampered with. Macworld has a good article explaining what Gatekeeper is and isn't. It is possible for a malicious developer to develop a malicious program, sign up for Apple's developer program and distribute that program on their website. However, the chances of that seem relatively slim. What is much more likely is that you might find a piece of software that you want to run, and see a warning that it is from an unknown developer. You might choose to open it anyway. This is where things start to get more difficult because there are legitimate apps out there which are made by legitimate developers who have not cryptographically signed their software. It may be that the software is a few years old and was developed before Gatekeeper was introduced. It may be that the developer made the app in his/her spare time and didn't feel like paying Apple for a developer certificate. A reasonable person has to weigh the potential consequences and likelihood of this application being some sort of malware. Has the app been reviewed by a reputable Mac-related website? Is it a well-known app? Be careful of any software which arrives via email or on some random tucked-away page on a web forum, etc. Step 5) Read first, install last. Perhaps the most important thing you can do to protect yourself is to stay up-to-date on Mac news. A story about an actual Mac malware problem is going to be very widely-reported. This does not mean that you need to refresh your browser or RSS feeds every 15 minutes, or that you need to read every Mac-related site out there. But take a quick glance through the headlines each day to stay informed. This goes along with checking for reviews of software that you are considering installing. Or try a simple search for the application and look for reviews from sites you've heard of before, like TUAW. As a corollary to that point: don't be the first one to try every new app that comes out. Let tech writers risk their computers. If you find something brand new, bookmark it and make yourself some reminder to check it out in a day or two. 999,999 times out of 1,000,000 it's going to be just fine, but Not Being First might be your best chance of not being that unlucky "one in the million." Do You Need Anti-Malware Software for Mac today? My answer is no. Is it possible that at some point in the future, Mac OS X users will need to run real-time anti-virus and/or anti-spyware software? Yes. It is likely? No. Mac security software has not shown itself capable of catching new attacks in real-time, and there are not many attacks to be protected against. If you insist on running anti-malware software for Mac, try either ClamXav or Sophos. Pick one but not both. Running two of these kinds of programs will cause far more problems than either one will solve. Just remember, whenever you read a claim that Mac malware is either an unavoidable inevitability (or a current reality), check to see if the person who wrote the article sells Mac security software. Use the tools Apple provides. Apple gained a reputation for not being overly concerned with security, but that seems to be slowly changing. They have published a page of security features in Mac OS X 10.8 called Safety. Built right in. There are several built-in features that you can control as well: Mac OS X has a firewall built-in. Go to System Preferences » Security & Privacy and see if it is enabled. (Your router may also have a firewall built-in.) While you are in System Preferences, look under "Sharing" and turn off anything that doesn't need to be on. Safer Safari There are several changes that you can make to Safari to make it safer. First, go to Preferences » General and uncheck the box next to "Open 'Safe' files after downloading." You may remember that browser security has most often been compromised through Adobe Flash, such that a security contest winner gave this advice: "The main thing is not to install Flash!". Java was also a recent security hole on OS X. It is possible to disable both Plugins and Java by going into the Safari Security Preferences, and unchecking the boxes shown here: I don't find myself needing Java in Safari all that often, so I find it simple to disable that altogether. I also regularly disable plugins, but I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that is a reasonable step for most people. Many would probably find it frustrating and annoying. Instead, I would encourage you to consider using the ClickToPlugin & ClickToFlash Safari extensions which will prevent plugins from running automatically but which let you run them when you want. That seems to be a much more reasonable and balanced approach. A Reasonable Protection If you made it to the end, I have a bonus suggestion which I think offers the best balance between practicality and security in protecting yourself from future malware threats. To understand how this tool works, you have to understand the system that Apple uses to launch programs (either visible apps or background daemons) whenever you reboot your computer and/or log into your computer. For example, when I log in, several applications start right away. I can see some of these by going to System Preferences » Users & Groups and then selecting my user account and 'Login Items' as shown here: But those are only some of the applications and daemons that run automatically. OS X has several different folders which can be used to auto-launch programs via the launchd system: ~/Library/LaunchAgents /Library/StartupItems /Library/LaunchAgents /Library/LaunchDaemons /System/Library/LaunchAgents /System/Library/LaunchDaemons /System/Library/StartupItems I checked those folders on my computer and found there were over 400 entries. That does not concern me at all, because not all of those programs are running, and the ones that are running provide some kind of service or benefit. However, this is also the most likely place that a piece of malware would try to hide. What do most people do if their computer starts acting strangely? Chances are good that they will reboot it. So if you were trying to get some kind of malicious software on someone's computer, the first thing you would try to do is make sure that if someone reboots their computer, your software will start up again. In fact, to avoid detection you might not want your program to do anything at first except make sure that it will start up when the computer is rebooted. Therefore, a good way to protect yourself is to keep an eye on these various auto-launch tools, and be notified whenever something is added to them. The tricky part is making sure that you don't overreact just because something happens in one of those folders. Chances are good that you had no idea those 400+ things existed, and none of them were malicious. Computers do a lot of good things in the background that we don't want to be constantly bothered with knowing about. Think about this sort of like you think about your basement or storage area in your house: you might have a lot of stuff in there, and you might not even need to care about most of it, but you would want to know if someone put something in your basement without your knowledge. The folks at CIRCL (Computer Incident Response Center Luxembourg) created a free tool to detect when something has been added to the automatic launch settings for OS X. You can download it at http://www.circl.lu/pub/tr-08/ and it will give you an alert whenever something is added to one of those folders. More detailed information about using that tool is available at MacFixIt. As long as you remember that this system is detecting all activity not just malicious activity then this could be a very powerful "early warning" tool. Because it is only checking a few, very specific places, it should not add any noticeable performance drain on your computer, unlike many other anti-malware tools. It is not a 100% guarantee of protection, but it is a very good reasonable precaution to make. Don't Panic, Do Plan Despite warnings of the "inevitability" of malware on the Mac, the reality has been a very limited sphere of trouble. That doesn't mean that you should ignore the possibility of there ever being problems, but right now there just is not much that I can recommend for proactive protection beyond backups, caution, and common sense. I have labeled this guide "Version 1.0" because it may need to be updated in the future, but this represent the most reasonable balance, in my opinion, for the reality of today's Mac user. Version history: 2012/12/01 -- Minor typographical edits. Amended backup section to note multi-volume Time Machine, CrashPlan buddy backup. Amended sync section (Dropbox) to cite other sync vendors.
Amazon offers Unity plug-ins to Kindle Fire devs, makes in-app payments possible
Game devs looking to enhance "engagement" (read: monetization) for their mobile titles now have an ally in Amazon. The Bezos-backed company has just made plug-ins available free to Kindle Fire developers using the popular Unity game engine. Now those devs will have access to APIs for In-Game purchasing and GameCircle which, in the latter case, allows for the addition of Achievements, as well as the ability to Whispersync across devices. So, what does this mean for you, the end user? Well, aside from the ability to continue playing from where you last left off on any of the company's tabs, it also brings mobile gaming that much closer to the console experience. But mostly that you can look forward to a future bill filled with micropayments.
Chrome Beta adds video engagement APIs, promises higher-quality video chats sans plugin
After concentrating on gaming and visual improvements in previous releases of Chrome, the browser's latest focus appears to be in video engagement. The latest beta includes a PeerConnection API that lets developers create real-time video chat applications without a plug-in. This builds upon existing WebRTC integration with a new getUserMedia API that should result in higher-quality video, audio, and data communications. The Beta also bundles in track support for HTML5 video, letting developers add in subtitles, captions, and other metadata -- the above photo, for example, is a screencap of a bike ride video enhanced with Google Map and Street View data. Another nice addition is a MediaSource API which adjusts video quality based on computer and network environments, which should put an end to those agonizing waits while the dancing inmate version of Gangnam Style buffers. Those interested can get their mitts on the new Chrome Beta today.
Google acquires iOS photo app Snapseed
Snapseed is a popular iOS photography app around here at TUAW -- not only have we spotlighted it a few different times, but the app also won a coveted Apple Design Award back in 2011. And now here's news that Google appreciates the app as well: The ad and search giant has acquired the developer of Snapseed, Nik Software, and reportedly plans to use the company and its technology to update its own photo editing and sharing tools. Nik also provides a number of excellent and popular plugins for other popular photo editing tools like Aperture, and for now, those plugins remain available for sale on the website. Presumably, that won't change, but we'll see what happens in the future. It sounds like Nik is still figuring things out post-acquisition, so any changes to Snapseed or those plugins are still yet to be determined. [via The Verge]
Browser extension enables SkyDrive attachments within Gmail
Gmail users who envy Outlook's SkyDrive integration will find that the proverbial grass is now a little greener on their side, thanks to fresh features in Attachments.me's Chrome and Firefox browser extensions. With the plugin installed, files residing in Microsoft's cloud service can be attached to emails from within Gmail. Also included in the update is support for user-created rules that can direct attachments to SkyDrive as they flood into inboxes. Can't wait for Gmail to gain similar support with Google Drive, or just prefer Redmond's storage solution? Hit the source link below to infuse Mountain View's web mail with some of Microsoft's storage locker mojo.
PSA: Adobe halts new installs of Flash on Android as of tomorrow
Adobe has been broadcasting as much as possible that Flash on Android is going away, although it's been offering a grace period for those addicted to the plugin. It's now time to wean yourself off. As Adobe warned earlier in the year, new installations from Google Play won't be an option from August 15th onwards. Any downloads after that point will be limited to updates for existing installations or to those willing to raid Adobe's archives -- assuming would-be users aren't already running Android 4.1, that is. While we'd still expect Flash to preserve some of its relevance in mobile as long as phones ship with it preinstalled, and alternatives like Skyfire persist, we'd strongly suggest getting comfortable with HTML5 and native apps from now on.
Seas0npass tethered jailbreak now available for Apple TV 2s running iOS 5.1
Apple TV owners no longer need to choose between jailbreaking or running the recently released iOS 5.1 update, now that FireCore has pushed new versions of Seas0nPass (0.8.3) and aTV Flash (black) (1.4.1). Currently, the jailbreak is still tethered, so if you should have to reboot your hockey puck, connecting it to a computer and repeating the process will be required. Unfortunately, the tools won't work on the new third generation Apple TVs yet, and even on supported hardware some plugins, like Plex and XBMC, are still listed as not working. All the details can be found beyond the source link for both the free Seas0nPass jailbreaker and $29.95 aTV Flash that adds more functionality.
Internet Explorer 9 gets WebM support with 'preview' plug-in from Google, internet video gets more friendly
Google has released an early WebM plug-in for Microsoft's latest and greatest browser, IE9 -- stepping in to fill a gap that Microsoft itself refused to fill. You may remember the firm's decision to not build in support for the new standard natively, but that it was "all in" with HTML5, WebM's close cousin. Billed as a "technology preview" at this stage of the game, the add-on will enable users to play all WebM video content just like the good Internet overlords intended them to, despite the fact that an additional download is needed. Microsoft said that it would allow for support and it appears to be following up on its word, regardless of other harsher comments made separately. Isn't it good to see big companies getting along? Now if only these same niceties played out in the mobile landscape, then we'd really be getting somewhere. [Thanks, ChrisSsk]
Mozilla evangelist asks Apple, Google and Microsoft to stop installing unwanted plug-ins
Asa Dotzler has been promoting Mozilla Firefox for more than six years, and he's not happy about other software vendors installing unwanted plug-ins in his browser. Among the vendors getting under Dotzler's skin are Apple, Google and Microsoft, each of whom also happen to produce a competing web browser. Apple, Google and Microsoft are by no means the only companies that install plug-ins to Firefox, but most companies at least ask the user before doing so. Dotzler is concerned about plug-ins like the iTunes Application Detector or Google Update being installed silently in the background without even a prompt. In Dotzler's view, this behavior is akin to installing a Trojan horse. Although the Firefox evangelist is not accusing Apple and the others of installing anything malicious, just the act of pushing unknown software is troubling. Since plug-ins and extensions are typically the leading cause of browser instability and crashes, even seemingly benign additions can cause user frustration. While silent plug-ins are doubtlessly annoying, the fact that it can happen is troubling. Instead of accusing other software companies of being evil, perhaps the Firefox developers need to change the code to prevent this from happening in the first place. If Apple or Google can install a plug-in without asking, what's to prevent a hacker from doing the same and grabbing your private data? Do Safari or Chrome allow silent plug-in installations? If not, then perhaps it's time to move on from Firefox. [Via MacStories]
The Road to Mordor: Pippin's top five plugins
This past week in LotRO's been a bit like riding river rapids: There's been a lot of rapid ups-and-downs, violent lurches to avoid dangerous objects, and a whole lot of noise that's drowning out the calmer waters ahead. For every piece of good news and positive word-of-mouth, there's been a lot of unfortunate bumps, such as server queues, dynamic layers, mouthy trolls and Codemaster's launch delay. However, I believe it's all going to settle down in a couple more weeks, and LotRO will emerge the better for it. So if this is your first week in Lord of the Rings Online, welcome! Find a great kinship, take time to smell the flowers, and hunt some orc for me. Today I'd like to take a look at one of the unsung heroes of the recent content patch -- the ability to create and use plugins (also called mods and addons) to enhance your user interface. While the system is still in beta and has a rough-around-the-edges feel to it, it's already shown great potential, particularly though the creativity that mod designers are pouring into it. While there are only a small number of plugins available as of right now and Turbine has yet to expand the scope of these Lua scripts beyond constrained limits, it's not too early to beef up your UI with these spiffy additions. Read on, free peoples of Middle-internet!
Macworld 2010: TypeDNA
On the last day of Macworld, I caught up with the guys from TypeDNA to take a look at what I soon realized was going to be a revolutionary bit of software magic for designers of any ilk. TypeDNA is a series of plugins for Adobe CS4 applications (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) which makes finding the right font a simple matter. It has several methods for navigating font collections, starting with a search by name, which is handy on its own. The functionality expands from there, doing such things as automatically offering suggestions for similar fonts and font harmonies. The harmonies feature is especially interesting, and the suggestions it offered while they were demoing it were very good. You can pick a font from the suggestions and search for similar fonts to find exactly the right typeface for your project. TypeDNA always offers a variety of suggestions, and recognizes that font choice is entirely subjective ... you make all the decisions, it just helps you navigate a large font collection quickly and intuitively. I'll be doing a more in-depth review as soon as the demo version comes out (soon). The full version will be available in March, and will run $59US per plugin, or $89US for a full set (3 plugins) and two licenses so you can use them on two separate machines.
