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Posts tagged with "mac"

Translate Tab Puts Google Translate In Your Mac’s Menubar

I use Google Translate quite a bit. Automatic, “machine-made” translations of entire sentences are usually bad and may lead to some funny nonsense, but the service has gotten better over the years and, admittedly, it’s useful to quickly look up synonyms from one language to another, or get the general sense of a blog post about technology and Apple (which I do on a daily basis for articles from Macotakara or MacMagazine). And whilst heading over Google Translate via the browser is pretty effortless these days thanks to application launchers like Alfred and LaunchBar, I’ve been looking for a way to embed the translate UI of Google’s website on my Mac in a way that’s always there but unobtrusive, ready to be used when I need it.

Translate Tab does this at $2.99. It takes Google Translate, and puts it inside a nicely translucent, white Lion-like popover in your Mac menubar, which you can access with a keyboard shortcut (and if you’re geek enough, customize with automatic clipboard entry through Keyboard Maestro). Tab Translate can be considered a site-specific browser, and I like how it’s been slightly tweaked to fit inside the popover with no horizontal scrollbars, retaining Translate’s functionalities such as alternate translations.

If you use Google Translate a lot and you’re tired of opening a new browser tab every time, you might as well spend $2.99 on Translate Tab on the Mac App Store.

Adobe Unveils “Carousel” To Sync & Edit Photos Across Mac and iOS

Today Adobe introduced a new product that could bring photographers’ favorite Adobe app, Lightroom, to a reality; it’s called Carousel. Carousel could be Adobe’s answer to Apple’s Photo Stream service, although Adobe’s solution is not integrated into the OS like Apple’s iCloud service. Carousel will let you enhance and share all of your photos across your Mac and iOS devices (Android & Windows versions are in development).

Carousel “brings a highly tuned version of the Lightroom/Camera Raw engine to mobile devices, combining it with excellent multi-device syncing.” Other Carousel options are:

  • You get access to all your images on all your devices.
  • All edits are non-destructive: tweak a setting on one device & you’ll see the edit ripple through your other devices.
  • It’s easy to collaborate with friends & family: people you invite to share a photo catalog can view photos, add new ones, apply adjustments and preset “looks,” and flag favorites.
  • You can easily publish to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

The iOS and Mac versions are not yet available but based on John Nack’s blog post, it may have already been submitted to Apple. All the applications will be free but the service will be subscription based - $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year will get you unlimited storage and photos but if you’re an early adopter the price will be $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year.

The ability to edit your photos and have them sync everywhere is a feature that Apple’s Photo Stream does not currently have, it simply syncs photos taken with your iOS camera to the stream but it will be free.

Demo video after the break.

Read more

Report: Apple Considering USB 3.0 For Macs

According to VR-Zone Apple has been investigating third party USB 3.0 host controller chips and may be considering to add support for the latest USB standard in upcoming Macs. Many had presumed that with Thunderbolt Apple may not opt to support USB 3.0, but given that USB 3.0 chips have negligible cost (below $3) it may be seen that Apple embraces the standard as a complement to their Thunderbolt ports.

Intel has yet to add support for USB 3.0 on their chipsets and support is not expected until next Spring, which may explain why Apple is reportedly talking to other manufacturers. Compared to USB 3.0, Thunderbolt controllers are much more expensive at $10 to $15 per chip with corresponding chips on the device also required. This cost associated with Thunderbolt is an inherent limitation in the technology that could be compensated by supporting USB 3.0. As Electronista explains “USB 3.0 would, as a result, still be useful as a catch-all for faster devices that don’t need Thunderbolt in addition to the USB 2.0 devices it would inherently recognize.”

Apple may be aware of Thunderbolt’s current obstacles, the sources added. Apple is supposedly talking directly with some of its hardware partners, most likely early Thunderbolt supporters, to have them develop external drives more suited to the home or to small companies. [Electronista]

[VR-Zone via Electronista]