For all you graphics geeks who have been waiting eagerly to find out whether or not Adobe has screwed up all of your favorite Macromedia design tools, now's your chance to plunk down $1,000+ to find out. CS3 launches today, and it's as freakin' thorough as expected. You can buy Design Premium for $1,799, Design Standard for $1,199, Web Premium for $1,599 and Web Standard for $999. Also available are separately wrapped apps: Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe Fireworks CS3, and Adobe Contribute CS3.

If you've been holding out on buying a new system, Adobe says go ahead: All of the programs run as Universal apps for both PowerPC Macs and their Intel-based successors, with some significant speed improvement there. Adobe also says that you get a speed boost running CS3 on the latest Windows hardware.

Follow the jump to see CS3's new scary clown mascot plus some extra specs...

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UMPCs have yet to take off, yet Intel's already launching an alternative to the overgrown handhelds—the Mobile Internet Device (MID). These mini-tablets will run Linux, not Vista, as their operating system.

They'll have screens ranging from 4.5 to 6 inches and each device will carry a dual-core processor clocked from 600 to 800 MHz. The MIDs will have Wi-Fi and 3G HSDPA complemented by entertainment-friendly features. Design-wise, they look slicker than many of their UMPC counterparts. For now we can only hope they don't follow the UMPC's painful path to popularity. – Louis Ramirez

Intel to Launch Linux-powered Mobile Internet Device [ZDNet]

Although our gut reaction to seeing the words "new" and "memory card specification" in the same sentence is a hearty "WTF mate?!", the SxS format seems to be different, and perhaps justified. Sony and SanDisk are teaming up to produce the SxS cards to be compatible with ExpressCard slots and be used in pro camcorders—like the ones we're seeing at NAB this week—and are useful for people who really need quick access and transfer speeds.

How fast? How about 800 Mbps? Plus it's going to be nice and thin at only 5mm, so it will fit into the sleeker pro cams that are all the rage these days. The first camcorder from Sony to support this format will be the XDCAM EX series, which are available later this year. – Jason Chen

SanDisk and Sony Announce SxS(TM) Memory Card Specificaation for Professional Camcorders [Japan Corp via Digitimes via Tracy and Matt]

Now that everyone who's even a little somebody's getting (ahem, Meizu) into the touchscreen phone game, the nobodies are making some noise as well. Here's Deeda's Pi Phone, which supposedly has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, flash, Instant Messaging, Google Maps, zooming, vibrational touch feedback, bajillions of supported audio and video formats (including MPEG4), UWB, and a calculator—among other things.

The Pi is supposedly the highest in their touchphone line—the lower two being the Kiku and the Menx—and will be available with storage sizes of 8, 30 and 60GB. The entire thing smells of baloney to us. And we're talking the phony kind, not the delicious kind. Mmmmm, baloney. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Deeda via Uber Gizmo via Esato]

This house sitting robot from Japan doesn't actually walk your dog, feed the kids, or fetch the mail, but it does make sure your house doesn't get robbed. Well, not exactly. It doesn't stop the actual act of burgling, but it does take snapshots of whoever broke in and made off with your HDTV and your collection of Knight Rider DVD boxsets.

Also, when the sensor is set off, the robot gives you a call on your 3G videophone and can stream a live feed so you can make sure it's not your cat going berserk again before you call the popo. – Jason Chen

Impress [via Plastic Bamboo]

Hey dudes, Jason here. I'm back after a week of nonstop eating, sleeping, and general debauchery in lands East of here. Not only have I brought back about 10 pounds worth of food in the form of an even larger gut than before, I've also brought back some neat Asiangadgets. Here's one.

This Japanese boxcutter, as you can see, is unlike the retractable ones we have here. Instead, it's like a knife with serrated edges that can tear through cardboard with a sawing motion just as easily as it goes through tape and other packing material. There's even a convenient sheath so you don't "accidentally" shiv your wife (or yourself) in the face when it's not in use.

Not sure where you can find this online, but had I known these were so good I would have bought more than one. – Jason Chen

This is the Stance Angle Chair, a piece of furniture which will make La-Z Boy owners look like athletes. It comes up with just about every position you can think of that is acceptable in the modern workplace . As well as foot rests, there are knee rests (useful should you want to bring out your inner Lewinsky in front of your boss). You can even be supported standing up should you need a rush of blood to the butt.

There is, however, one drawback. There is no point buying the Stance Angle unless you also buy in to the TaskMate, a hydraulic platform that will raise your computer to the appropriate level. And you'll sure need the support when you find how much the combo costs - a sphincter-loosening $1,200 to $1,500 for the chair, $800 to $900 for the TaskMate. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [Plasma2System via Oh!Gizmo]

There are speakers, and there are SPEAKERS. This one, from the Geneva Lab, is one of the latter. As well as having a dock that will fit just about every iPod (video, nano, mini) there is a built-in, slot-loading CD player that also plays CD-ROM and MP3, and an FM radio with preset digital tuner. It comes with remote control and can connect to other sources, including the TV. Oh, and don't think the speaker stand comes for free - that you have to pay for.

The Geneva XL is available in black, white and red. Vital statistics are 21.7" x 23.5" x 15.8" and it weighs 84 pounds. Price is.... $1075. Like I said, Aiiiiiiiiii!. –Ad Dugdale

Product Page Geneva Lab via Red Ferret

It's also known as the Luna and the Fashion High, but here's Nokia's 8600 in all its glory. UK retailer Carphone Warehouse posted a pic and details of the phone, describing it as "a handset with a distinctly fashionable feel."

"The rounded corners and smooth features," the blurb continues, "give it an almost futuristic appearance." Yeah yeah yeah. Other specs include a 2 megapixel camera, MP3 player and 1GB of built-in memory. No details of price or shipping details as yet, but UK customers can pre-order if they want, and it will definitely be cheaper than the 8800. –Ad Dugdale

Nokia High Fashion [Carphone Warehouse via New Launches]

A new sketch show from the BBC, Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul, takes off Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. It rather makes Apple's current Mac vs PC ads look like outtakes from a Frasier episode. Given their pedigrees, Paul Whitehouse (he did The Fast Show) and Harry Enfield (er, he didn't), the comics behind the skit, could have done better. Nice sweaters, though. –Ad Dugdale

Sony finally followed Panasonic's lead by introducing a prosumer-level camera that records to a flash drive. But not just any flash drive, the XDCAM EX records high-def video directly to two ExpressCards. That's good news for MacBook Pro owners as they'll be able to pop the card into that snug slot and edit away.

Budding Spielbergs will marvel at the camera's small size that can capture video at 1080i, 1080p, or 720p at variable frame rates. This means you can do graceful slow motion shots, or crank the speed way down to get some fast frenetic action. So when is this coolCam shipping, and at what price?

Sony's PR guy told us the camera would ship later this year, probably in the fall, with a price somewhere in the neighborhood of $8000. Of course all of this is speculation at the moment, but the company's Z1U camera retailed at that price when it was introduced three years ago. Sony was quick to point out the EX was not a replacement for the Z1U or the V1U but instead an intermediate camera between those two and the high-end HDC-950.

With its small size and solid state technology, just imagine how great the skateboard videos and shots of guys getting hit in the nuts will look on YouTube in high definition. –Stephen Schleicher

Today at the Panasonic event at NAB, the company let it be known that by the end of the year it will be shipping 32GB cards for its HPX500. Yeah it is a $14,000 dollar camera you don't care about, but the announcement of the 32-gig card is a great road map to where the solid state technology is headed.

The 32GB cards will sell for around $1800, causing the current 16GB cards to drop to $900, the 8GB will fall to $700, and the 4GB cards will hover around $600. When laptop manufacturers adopt flash memory for their internal hard drives, $1800 is going to seem like an insane price to have for these cards that will allow you to record two hours of DVCPro video.

Take the jump for the really confusing price structure map delivered as only Panasonic can do it.

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If you're interested in high-end video production, you'll want to take a look at Apple's Final Cut Studio 2. It's chock full o' apps, included a smooth new update to Final Cut Pro, now in version 6, Its main coolness is its ability to crunch HDTV video down to manageable sizes, made possible by ProRes 422, a codec for compressing video that Apple claims to be able to do the video equivalent of stuffing a basketball through a garden hose.

We watched a lengthy demo of the new software, and found it to be a remarkable polyglot, able to handle all kinds of footage all in one big bucket, something that's really important to broadcasters and filmmakers these days. When there are dozens of varieties of HDTV and regular TV to deal with, this is not a new feature, but welcome by Final Cut users.

Check out a few of our pics in the gallery below, and read more about Final Cut Studio 2 on the next page.

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Samsung's CEO Yun Jong-yong said in a recent interview that they will be "very selective in choosing new markets" and have decided to forego the market for "the cheapest models," generously leaving it to Nokia. Apparently, "cheap phones would not fit its brand image." Instead, they want to sell "luxury versions" of cheap phones—wha? What exactly are "high low end products"? Contradictions. Exploding. Brain. –Matt Buchanan

Samsung aims for higher end of cheap phone mkt: CEO [Reuters]

The internet is now officially a place to pick up girls, since they outnumber guys on the internets in the US by over 6 million users. Of course, most of them look nothing like Scarlet Johansson, but we can't all be picky. Apparently, only 66 percent of them have heard of YouTube, however. Of course, the more pertinent question is, "are any of you reading Giz?" –Matt Buchanan

More Women Online [eMarketer via Slashdot]

The "S-series" sounds like a product put out by a real corporation, but unfortunately this is just a concept from Simon Enever. We love his slider camera design and the non-gaudy implementation of wood. It screams, "I'm wealthy, tasteful and nautical—but your iPod is cute, really."

Why do we tease you with products that aren't real? Because we are cruel. –Mark Wilson

S-Series Cellphone [techeblog]

Apple's Final Cut Studio 2 only has one actually, totally, new program. It's called "Color". Essentially described as advanced colour correction, I was confused as to why what sounded to be a pack of professional filters were being touted as their own program. Then I checked out the video on Apple's site.

I grabbed a bunch of screencaps and posted them after the jump. The multi-pane interface allows for multiple colour graphs/scopes, along with what appear to be a multitude of timeline formatting options. I'm very interested in the ability to colour correct only parts of the image and sharing colour profiles among users with ease. Anyone spot interesting stuff?

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The hardware part of the sermon is over, we believe. Right now, they're going over Motion 3 video effects and faster hardware compression on the 8-Core Mac Pros. A 10-minute HD clip takes only 6 minutes to compress compared to 18 minutes in the previous version of the compressor. That's about it. Nothing to get hypnotized by. More in a bit...oh wait, actually, we're done....weird. No "One more thing." –Brian Lam

Red One's compatibility with Apple's ProRes was a welcome surprise. There was some worry on our part, after the Red One camera delays, and after the prototypes were nearly lost to thieves last year. So we're happy to see it taking off like this. Congrats to Ted Schilowitz, and his team.

To learn more about this 4k resolution super camcorder by the founder of Oakley glasses, read here.

And even though the pro cam is out of the range of most of our prices and needs, it can't hurt to take a look at the rad hardware designs. –Brian Lam

Red One Camcorder [Gizmodo]

Apple introduced Open Format for Final Cut Pro, allowing you to mix different formats on the timeline. They say "it just works," and from the demo, looks like all kinds of formats can nicely live together on the same editing timeline, where they had to be transcoded to work together before.

Then Apple showed some uncompressed 1080p footage with other resolutions and frame rates, all edited together in real time. Nice.

They then showed us a side-by-side comparison of ProRes and uncompressed HD, and it was hard to tell the difference between the two. Then the kicker? The ProRes footage was 10th-generation. Impressive.

Apple also let its pal AJA intro a new piece of hardware for editors, trotting out its AJA I/O HD, a device that works with Apple's ProRes, with the codec embedded in the AJA IO HD hardware. It's 10-bit 4:2:2 video that lets you edit HD and up-down convert HD on a Macbook. Looks cool with its blinkinlights! $3495

Apple's also announced its new compression format, ProRes422, will enable 4K video with the RED camcorder, shooting in 4K.

Final Cut Studio 2. FCP moves to Version 6. Offers uncompressed 10-bit compression at standard def file sizes. for example, uncompressed HD file that's 1TB would be 170GB with ProRes422. Changes the world for HD editors.

Rob Schoeben, talking Final Cut, the video editing application. Now there are 800K users. Yeah, Final Cut is big, big big. Lots of plug-ins. Showed a snappy video of all the cool video that's been created on Final Cut Pro.

Introduced Final Cut Server. Gives editors ability to share video with each other. It's cross platform, and does lots of media asset management. Also has keyword searches for video, with access controls to keep the riff-raff out. There are workflow templates, too. Can be customized for your organization. Watches over the flow of work and triggers things to happen, review and approve.

Gizmodo is camped out by the door at the Venetian Hotel ballroom, awaiting the Apple press event slated to begin in one hour (11am Pacific Time). Schmoozing with Apple press contacts, we're hearing "it's going to be a big show."

No indication about what that means, but we're here at the opening meetings of NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters), we're hooked up via EVDO and stoked for the announcements. All we have is rumors and spec so far, but that will all be turned into fact soon enough.

There's a huge crowd lined up, and it's so full we're not even sure if we can get our photog in. But we'll bring you pics and commentary either way, so stick with us—we'll be your eyes and ears! –Charlie White

In the US alone, the East Coast has recently lost 70% of its commercial bee population, with the West Coast not far behind those numbers. Apparently it's a result of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), when colonies essentially cease to be (no pun intended). From the Independent:

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines. Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby....Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Our Bees? [via boingboing]
Photo

No, the world is not ending. But modder Ben Heck has taken the innards of a PS3 controller and magically fitted them into the Xbox 360 body. This includes the battery and USB charging port, making this "PS360" controller completely functional on your PS3. After once opening/destroying a Dual Shock with the hopes of fixing it, we appreciated this line from Heck himself:

It may not look like much but there was a good deal of finangling to get everything to fit and work correctly, especially the right analog stick.

Hit the jump to see the process.

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It's a strange phenomenon, we talked about the HTC X7500 for so long that it felt like the real product could never actually exist. But Boy Genius Report got their well-manicured fingers on a real model and stripped it down slow tease style for us all to enjoy.

Hit the jump for our favorite shots. And if that's still not enough, you could visit their site since they went through all the trouble. We're not the jealous types.

Slut.

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[via TechEBlog]

Long term, a pen that requires proprietary 2"x2' paper technology could never support your daily inundation of soon-to-be-forgotten-unless-written-down-immediately genius. But for one glorious, "I do have a pen AND paper!" week, you could dominate.

And $29.95 for one week of self-satisfaction is a bargain in my book. –Mark Wilson

Product Page [via geekologie]