Both Parallels and VMware, the two frontrunners in virtualization software for OS X, have released updated versions of their VM software, including not only speed improvements, but also support for the latest version of OS X, Mavericks, which is expected to be released by the end of September.

Virtualization packages allow you to run a secondary OS directly on the hardware of your current system, without any emulation to mimic hardware functionality. As a result, virtualization offers a much faster means of running a secondary operating system, with many programs and services running at full native speeds or even faster in some cases. In addition, with the proper amount of RAM and other resources you can run multiple guest operating systems simultaneously, to test software, run servers, and perform other tasks.

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There are three primary virtualization packages for OS X. The firs... [Read more]

Formerly known as Read It Later, Pocket is one of the most popular apps on Android. It lets you easily save news articles and other items to your account, so you can pick them up for reading at a more convenient time. And because it syncs your data to the cloud, you can even use it to pick up your reading on a different device. Pocket is short-term bookmarking at its finest, and now, it's coming to Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch.

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One of Pocket's coolest features, which will absolutely be making its way to the smartwatch, is Pocket Listen. Using text-to-speech technology, this feature reads your articles allowed, which can be nice while you're driving or otherwise preoccupied. And now, with the Pocket app for Galaxy Gear, you'll be able to control Pocket Listen without having to pick up your phone. You'll be able to pause and play whil... [Read more]

Adobe Systems' Lightroom offers tools to catalog and edit photos, especially those taken in higher-quality raw photo format.

Adobe Systems announced a new subscription plan for photography enthusiasts, a $10-per-month bundle of Lightroom and Photoshop that's designed to cater to people dissatisfied with Adobe's previous Creative Cloud options.

The deal is a good price -- Photoshop alone costs $10 per month for existing Creative Suite customers, but only for a limited time, after which it jumps to $20 per month. The new subscription package offers Photoshop, Lightroom, 20GB of cloud storage space, and access to Adobe's Behance network. The new bundle is $10 a month with no expiration date. It will be available once Adobe releases Lightroom 5.2, which is in testing but should enter the market "in a couple weeks," according to Adobe.

The new package has three catches, however: first, it's a subscription, and there are plenty of people who don't like subscriptions. Second, you have to sign up by December 31. Third, you have to have bought Photoshop CS3 or later.

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