Adobe uses a computer's GPU to accelerate the Liquify plug-in. (Click to enlarge.)

Adobe Systems has released a second sneak peak of Photoshop CS6 that shows new work to give a hardware boost to the image-editing software.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) speeds the Liquify tool, which lets people smear images in a finger-painting way, according to a Zorana Gee, a Photoshop product manager. She demonstrated the change in a YouTube video, the second in what looks to be a series of previews of the software. An earlier Photoshop CS6 preview showed new raw image editing tools adopted from the Lightroom 4 beta, a darker user interface, and improvements to brush size selection. Expect Adobe to add more previews but to withhold some goodies for the official launch sometime later in the first half of 2012.

When firing up the Liquify plug-in with the current Photoshop CS5.x to edit a 100MB image, the image arrives only gradually, broken up into m... [Read more]

Reckless Racing 2 is here and it's got all the bells and whistles we were missing in the original.

The sequel to one of our favorite iOS racing games is out today, and new game modes, customization options, and car upgrades make Reckless Racing 2 the best in its genre at the iTunes App Store.

When the original Reckless Racing came out, it was a revelation of what a savvy developer could do on an iOS device. With great-looking graphics, ultra-realistic physics, and a retro edge, Reckless Racing demonstrated a new breed of racing game on iOS.

Reckless Racing 2 ($4.99) has all of the things we liked about the original, but adds tons of features and new tracks, and organizes the game modes to make a better all around gaming experience. The game comes with 24 routes with both dirt and tarmac variations and some races even have a mix of both surfaces. The physics in the original were exceptional, and this sequel continues the tradition, possibly making it the best power-slide racing game in the iTunes App Store. The tracks are also longer and more varied than the original, with big straightaways, clifflike drop-offs, and even better scenery.

... [Read more]

Popular music subscription service Rhapsody today brings its library of tracks to Android tablets running Honeycomb.

While Rhapsody has long been a fixture as a music player on many Android phones and the iPhone, today's newly released app was specifically created for tablets. And different from the iPad app, it's not simply a scaled-up version of its smaller-screen counterpart. According to Chief Product Officer Brendan Benzing, the folks at Rhapsody "re-imagined the entire experience" in order to take advantage of the extra screen real estate of a tablet and the capabilities of the Android Honeycomb OS.

Users of the new app will notice artist photos and album covers front and center in the refreshed interface. Also, tablet users get access to the huge library of editorial content that's available on the Rhapsody site but inaccessible from previous mobile apps. And finally this newest release even lets you download playlists to local memory for easy playing while offline.

Rhapsody for Android tablets (download) is available now for free for devices running Android Honeycomb OS.

Elements of the Creative Cloud

Unimpressed by Adobe Systems' Creative Cloud, its forthcoming $50-per-month subscription plan? Adobe wants to change your mind.

The company offered some new details today to show people that the Creative Cloud plan gets people access to more than just the full Creative Suite (CS) Master Collection and tablet-oriented Touch programs. Specifically, according to Scott Morris, senior director of product marketing on Adobe's digital media team, there are these elements:

• The Creative Cloud will include Adobe's Muse and Edge software for creating Web pages. Muse won't be part of the Creative Suite, and Adobe hasn't decided whether Edge will be.

• When Lightroom 4 is out of its current beta-testing phase, it'll be added to the Creative Cloud subscription, too. Lightroom isn't included in CS.

• Creative Cloud subscribers will get early access to new features as they're done without having to wait for them to arrive in the official new CS apps.

• An online social-network community will let people share files, comment on each other's work, and follow each other.

Creative Cloud has several other elements, too, including 20GB of online storage that can be used to sync files across mul... [Read more]

Cocoon for IE looks and works like Cocoon for Firefox.

The Cocoon add-on for Firefox rounded up a bunch of highly useful security features and presented them to you in one tight package. Cocoon has come to Internet Explorer, and it's available exclusively on Download.com today.

The first beta of Cocoon for Internet Explorer ports the add-on's entire feature set from Firefox to IE, and it'll work on IE8 and IE9 as far back as Windows XP. Features included are IP address anonymising, antivirus scanning of downloads, malware blocking, on-the-fly disposable e-mail addresses, secure public Wi-Fi, and encrypted browsing history.

After it's been installed, you can turn on Cocoon at will to get at its protection toys, and then deactivate it to browse normally. I detected no lags in browsing with it on, though, so once it leaves beta it might become one of the best security add-ons for IE. What's holding it back? Currently, the beta version has problems with cookie management when logging into some services.

iOS and Android versions are on their way, although the iOS version is expected to be finished first. Rather than present the features in an add-on, the iOS version will be a standalone browser. Interestingly, Cocoon is ... [Read more]

Olympus' PEN E-PM1

If there's any doubt about the accelerating shift from traditional SLRs to more compact interchangeable-lens cameras, let the newly released Mac OS X 10.7.3 update put them to rest.

Of the eleven cameras whose raw image formats Lion now supports, six of them are compact mirrorless models. They are the Nikon 1 J1 and V1, the Olympus Pen E-PL1s, E-PM1, and E-PM1; and the Sony Alpha NEX-5N. All these models forsake SLR's flip-up mirror and optical viewfinder, enabling a more compact design.

Raw photo formats, available on SLRs and high-end compact cameras, leave the processing to the photographer rather than relying on the camera's assumptions about how best to make a JPEG. The result is better ... [Read more]

Syncing your iTunes library to an Android device is easier than you may think.

doubleTwist is a two-part application that can allow your iTunes for Windows or Mac library to journey into Android Land (and back) with ease. One part of the application, including a media player for your convenience, runs on your Android device. The other runs on your computer and automatically locates your iTunes library and populates its own list for syncing. Read on to find out how to set this up.

These instructions will cover the Windows setup.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 1: Download doubleTwist for Windows and doubleTwist for Android.

(Credit: doubleTwist.com)

Step 2: Connect your Android device to your computer via USB. Enable USB file storage by dragging the notification shade and pressing the appropriate option (what you see is dependent on your Android device).

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

St... [Read more]

Demoing BitTorrent Live (photos)

What if you took the decentralized, distributed theory that powers torrent technology and applied it to live streaming?

That question, or one similar to it, is what BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen must've asked himself a few years ago. The answer is BitTorrent Live, and it's currently working its way through a series of weekly real-world tests at the BitTorrent headquarters in San Francisco.

BitTorrent Live is a live-streaming technology that leverages the bandwidth of everybody watching the stream to lighten the stream's network load. It could be applied to everything from family weddings to corporate conference calls to multiday music festivals, says Cohen.

"Live streaming is a big challenge that people have been trying to solve," he said. "We're hoping that this is a fundamental technology that will change how people use the Internet."

Basically, BitTorrent Live is torrent theory applied to a live stream, but powered by completely different code. Even i... [Read more]