Adobe has confirmed that they will launch Adobe Creative Suite 3 at a special event in New York on March 27 that will be webcast. The long-awaited suite of creative tools is expected to kick-start Mac Pro sales, and will be the first release of CS3 that is optimised to run natively on Intel-based Macs. Adobe is calling the March 27 announcement “the largest software release in Adobe’s 25-year history.”

Adobe has released this teaser video and the Adobe website has pages detailing its “What’s In The Box” campaign to help build further anticipation. Adobe also confirmed plans to make an entry-level version of Photoshop available online as a hosted web service.

Update: Adobe Systems has confirmed plans to announce its Creative Suite 3.0 bundles at a special event later this month, it does not plan to ship the software until later in the Spring.

“We are announcing Creative Suite 3 on March 27th,” Cara Cassidy, a member of Adobe’s Creative Solutions PR team, wrote in a blog posting this week. “However, the software will not ship until later in Spring 2007.”

Apple has released DVD Studio Pro 4.1.2 which provides some important bug fixes and addresses compatibility issues with DVD Studio Pro 4.1 HD DVD projects and Toshiba HD DVD players.

DVD Studio Pro 4.1.2 also updates the Disc Description Protocol (DDP) 2.1 to DDP 3.0 and the Cutting Master Format (CMF) 1.0 to CMF 2.0, which is required for HD DVD replication.

This update is recommended for all DVD Studio Pro 4.1 users, is available via Software Update, and also as a standalone installer. More info and download link (9.9MB) here.

Apple will hold a special event at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show on Sunday, April 15. Apple has used such events in the past to launch significant product releases. Although Apple has not given any details, many expect Final Cut Studio 6 might make its way in to the light.

Apple will also have a large booth at the show, which is typically the first booth attendees see as they enter the South Hall. I have attended many of Apple’s NAB events is past years and they are always exciting. I will not be attending NAB this year, but I will still be posting any significant announcements from this important show. NAB 2007 runs from April 14 – 19.

Google has added real-time traffic reports to Google Maps. Up until now, only mobile client users had access to traffic data. Traffic information is available for a limited number of locations for well-populated cities like New York, Portland, Salt Lake City with more coming.

The simple interface shows traffic by color.

Continue reading Google Adds Real-time Traffic to Maps…

NeoOffice.org has released a preview version of NeoOffice 2.1, the Mac OS X-native version of the OpenOffice.org office suite, through its pay-for Early Access Program $25 and up). The new release adds the latest features from OpenOffice 2.1, open/edit/save of Microsoft Office 2007 Word documents, execution of VBA macros in Excel documents, support for linear programming extensions for spreadsheets, and more. The final release of NeoOffice 2.1, scheduled for March 27, will be free.

Seems the open source will be doing for Mac users what Microsoft will not, allowing for Visual Basic macros. Also making the Mac compatible with the new file format in Word 2007 on Windows ahead of Microsoft. If you never tried NeoOffice, I encourage you to download it free, sure beats paying Bill Gates and company for Microsoft Office with bells and whistles you probably do not use.