animate

The bottom line: Photoshop CS5 greatly expands the toolset that Adobe offers in its flagship product, charting new ways to make image manipulation easier while making older tools work better than before. Don't worry about the lack of a new interface; the new ways to get your project done make this version a must.

Photoshop has been in the English lexicon as a term to edit images for a long time, but the latest version of Adobe's flagship program stretches the canvas of manipulation much further than ever before. The look of the program has changed so little … Read more

Virtual meat hooks, flame throwers, and propane bombs are OK, but attack dogs are not: social-gaming behemoth Zynga has removed pit bulls from its roster of virtual weaponry in the Mafia Wars game after a complaint last month on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA's reasoning is that promoting a domestic animal as a weapon will only encourage misunderstanding and abuse of pit bulls, which have been routinely used in illegal dog-fighting activities and are often subject to horrific conditions as their owners attempt to toughen them up. The breed of dog has gotten bad … Read more

RealWorld Graphics' Cursor Editor is a nifty free app that you can use to create and edit special Windows cursors, including both static and animated designs. Drag-and-drop functionality, built-in drawing tools and image filters, correction capabilities, and support for sophisticated image-handling features such as layers and arbitrary selections give it capabilities we've usually seen only in large graphics packages that typically have correspondingly large prices. It can create custom icons, too.

A full Windows installer includes an optional component to support translations via community-made language packs, which we appreciate as a feature but declined to install. The clean and … Read more

Keynote for iPad lets you create presentations using only a touch screen, your content, and a huge number of ways to present your ideas. Like the other iWork for iPad apps, Apple has made it easy to get started using Keynote with a Getting Started presentation that shows you how to use each of the program's features.

The touch screen interface is very intuitive, with slide navigation on the left side of the interface, and close-ups of the slides in your main working area. In the left navigation you can add, delete, duplicate or reorder slides all with a … Read more

It must be a relief to many that our petty indiscretions, those that appear online and seem to haunt us daily, will soon become so normal as to be irrelevant.

It must be a particular relief to Nick Levasseur, a Democratic New Hampshire state representative, who, according the Huffington Post, used Facebook to offer his rather strong views on anime. Reports failed to record why Levasseur is so pained by the rather beautiful Japanese style of animation.

However, he is reported to have written on his Facebook page these rather difficult words: "Anime is a prime example of why … Read more

Sometimes, love is two-dimensional. Especially, it seems, for men.

I never thought I would be able to write a more moving headline than "Man marries video game character." But here we are, gathered today, to celebrate the union between Lee Jin-gyu and a pillow.

Yes, it has taken a mere three and a half months for the video character betrothal to seem nothing more than cheap publicity for stunted minds.

What is so very beautiful and exciting about this union is that the husband can take his new bride anywhere. I have, indeed, embedded a little footage of the happy couple at the amusement park, strapped in for what promises to be a wild ride.

The bride, you see, is called Fate Testarossa. It would be beneath me to suggest that she is built for speed. Indeed, she seems from the footage to offer a comforting and reassuring presence in a world that has clearly gone beyond any normal definitions of insanity.

Fate Testarossa is a magical character in the Japanese anime series "Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha." And she is imprinted on this "dakimakura" pillow in a most lifelike, serene representation.… Read more

Cylekx is a free graphic design program, and it proves that sometimes the best things in life aren't free. Graphic design programs typically have a steep learning curve, but Cylekx's curve is so steep that you'd better saddle your yak.

Familiarity with industry standard graphics programs suggested figuring out this program would be a breeze, but Cylekx's interface is confusing and cluttered. There's a Help menu, but nothing about this program is intuitive. Most graphics programs have common features and tools, with similar toolbars and palettes. Cylekx has a toolbox, but instead of icons, it … Read more

Do they give awards for "Most Inventive Re-Imagining of a Classic Paper Game"? If so, I nominate Hanged for iPhone (which should also be in the running for "Best Stop-Motion Love Story" and "Game Most Likely to Make You Pull Out Your iPhone and Tell Friends, 'You Gotta See This!'")

If that sounds like a lot of gushing for what is essentially Hangman: Extreme Makeover Edition, it's because Hanged is such a clever and pleasant surprise.

The game has no menus, no instructions--it is just Hangman, after all. I don't want to … Read more