Opera Offers Browser Update

Opera Software has unveiled the release candidate version of its web browser Opera 10.

Opera said the Release Candidate is "feature complete, with a surprising array of new features, a fresh look and feel, a new application icon, and enhanced speed and performance". The full version of the web browser is expected to be made publicly available on September 1. (See also "Hands on with the Opera 10 Web Browser Beta")

Opera 10 benefits from Opera Turbo, the new bandwidth-booster for slow Internet connections. The browser also features improvements to Opera Mail, Opera's built-in e-mail client, as well as resizeable thumbnail tabs for tabbed browsing and the chance to personalise the overall look and feel of the start page. Opera claims the browser is more than 40 percent faster than Opera 9.6.

"The release candidate pushes us closer to the final launch of Opera 10," said Jan Standal, vice president of Desktop Products, Opera.

"We paid special attention to the mail client, which is one of our most enduring and popular features. Now, we are very close to releasing the best browser in Opera's long history."

Opera 10 Release Candidate can be downloaded from Opera's website.

Wikipedia Changes Editing Policy

he innovative online user-written encyclopedia Wikipedia is growing up, and with its growth comes a massive change to how it operates. Back in its early days, Wikipedia could be edited by anyone. Then it nixed the concept of anonymous edits and required authentication. Now contributors can write what they want, but if editing certain articles, the changes must be verified by an experienced volunteer before publication.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the parents behind the Wiki Empire, calls the new philosophy "flagged revisions." Changes to certain articles on the site are invisible until approved by an "experienced volunteer," which, according to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, may be "anybody who has been around a very short period of time [on the site] and hasn't been blocked." Once approved, the changes will appear, but it's uncertain exactly how long the process might take -- could be hours, weeks, or months.

At the moment, a few thousand articles on the U.S. site are beholden to the new rule -- such as those about President Obama, Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears -- but Wikipedia wishes to broaden its scope and apply these new rules to every article about a living person. The German language version of Wikipedia already restricts editing on all of its articles, so it's not a long shot that a similar attitude may hit the U.S. site soon. (A programmer pulled back the veil on that anonymous editing a few years ago with a tool that exposed the source of edits, so readers could assess their credibility.)

Vandalism is the reason behind the change. All too often Wikipedia pages are marred by opposing political views, immature writers, and false information. A recent example was the falsely reported death of Senator Edward Kennedy in January; a sad proclamation that is now, unfortunately, all too true.

This may come as a shock, an affront to the democratic philosophy behind Wikipedia. Some bloggers claim this is a "failure," and that the credo of Wikipedia has died hard. But exactly the opposite may be true: I feel as though this is a necessary step in taking a Web site from the playground to the stadium. Wikipedia should now be taken more seriously, rather than taken with a grain of salt.

AndreaMosaic 3.32.3

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AndreaMosaic allows you to create you own photographic mosaics, also known as Photomosaic. Choose the photo you want to reproduce, then choose any collection of photos to be used as the tiles of the mosaic, including film and videos. AndreaMosaic is a professional tool, it provides an easy to use interface, and many advanced features to achieve outstanding mosaics. Such features include on-the-fly creation of image variants, automatic cropping to fit the tile aspect ratio, advanced photo mosaic rendering with intelligent color adjustment, advanced analysis and selection of the tile images to match the details of your image and prevent close duplicates, handling of large image collections and high resolution mosaics. And best of all.

Kontakt Player Launched

Native Instruments has introduced Kontakt Player, a free software instrument based on its Kontakt 3 sampler. It offers universal playback for available Kontakt libraries and forms the basis of a new category of "Kontakt-powered" instruments.

The new player is the central instrument for all Kontakt sound materials for both studio and live performance environments. It accommodates all regular Kontakt-format libraries as well as all generations of third-party Kontakt Player instruments, including Kompakt and Intakt formats as well as Native Instruments' Akoustik Piano, Elektrik Piano, and Bandstand instruments.

The new player is based on the Kontakt 3.5 engine, and features 64-bit support, extended memory addressing, advanced DFD streaming, true multiprocessor support, and more. It provides complete playback functionality with universal import and sound manipulation via its Performance View panels. It omits only the in-depth editing features of the full-featured Kontakt 3.5. All sound libraries are managed in a graphical library browser, providing an overview of your sound collections.

Kontakt Player is also the basis for a new range of self-powered, sample-based instruments, which will be available for download and purchase directly from Native Instruments. Now available are the company's new Maschine Drum Selection--hard-hitting drum and percussion sounds for modern electronic and club music styles--and Evolve Mutations--a new instrument for movie, TV, and game composers.

The Maschine Drum Selection, priced at $59, contains 20 full drum kits adapted from the company's Maschine factory library. As a Kontakt-Powered instrument, the Maschine Drum Selection is ready to play both as a standalone instrument and as a plug-in for all major instrument hosts, providing an assortment of gritty urban kits, heavily processed acoustic drums, and vintage analog samples for various electronic music genres. It offers soundshaping controls, and includes a flexible graphical step sequencer that can be used to set up intricate grooves directly within Kontakt Player and Kontakt 3. All kits are also included in additional formats for use within Kore 2, Kore Player, and Battery 3.

Developed in collaboration with sound design house Heavyocity, and powered by the Kontakt engine, Evolve Mutations includes instruments, rhythms, and ambiences designed to add depth and impact to dramatic music. It contains 275 new instruments based on 2GB of exclusive sample material. It offers playback and sound shaping functionality within the Player software, including efficient envelope, filter and effects control. All sounds can also be loaded into the full version of the Kontakt 3 sampler for advanced sound editing. It sells for $119.

The launch of Kontakt Player is also accompanied by the free Kontakt Factory Selection, a 650MB download featuring 50 instruments from the Kontakt 3 library. This collection features sounds and instruments from Kontakt's Band, Synth, Urban Beats, Vintage, and World libraries.

Kontakt Player runs as a stand-alone application or as VST or Audio Units plug-in, and as RTAS under Pro Tools 7 or 8. The Kontakt Player requires Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5, a G5 running at 1.8GHz or an Intel Core Duo processor running at 1.66GHz, plus 1GB RAM.

Microsoft Takes Windows 7 RTM Public

Microsoft will kick off the public roll-out of Windows 7's final code Thursday when it posts the official "release to manufacturing" (RTM) build of the OS on its for-pay developer and IT professional sites.

As Microsoft announced last month when it declared Windows 7 finished, RTM will be delivered first to TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers.

Only the English-language editions of Windows 7 will hit the download sections of the two services tomorrow. Other language-specific versions of the new operating system will be available on TechNet and MSDN Oct. 1.

Software and hardware vendors will be able to download Windows 7 RTM Thursday as well, from either MSDN or Microsoft Connect, the company's primary beta software portal.

Some beta testers will also be able to grab Windows 7 RTM on Thursday. Last week, Microsoft did a 180 and said that people who participated in its invitation-only Technical Beta Program will be rewarded with a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, which they can download from Connect.

Companies with Software Assurance plans can download RTM starting Friday.

The general public, however, will have to wait until Oct. 22, Windows 7's launch day, to put eyes legally on the final version. Pirated copies of RTM have been widely available on file-sharing sites since mid-July.

Users not on Windows 7's A-list can still download the Release Candidate (RC), which Microsoft makes available free-of-charge on its Web site. Although the company had originally pegged Aug. 15 as the drop dead date for Windows 7 RC, it has since extended the deadline to Aug. 20.

Firefox Hits 1 Billion Downloads

Mozilla's Firefox Web browser has just hit a new milestone, reaching its 1 billionth user download. The big event happened Thursday night, according to the company's official download counter.

To be clear, that's 1 billion total downloads since Firefox's 2004 debut -- an atypical type of statistic to flaunt. Still, if you look at the more standard measures of success, Firefox is showing impressive growth, while the long-time industry giant continues to slide.