The OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter from Other World Computing allows you to add an extra display to Intel Macs or Windows PCs using any standard USB 2.0 port. The adapter connects to HDMI, DVI, and VGA equipped displays (including projectors) in 32-bit color at resolutions up to 1600x1200 or 1680x1050 digital. Included driver software means that the display can be used in mirror mode or as an extension of the desktop. Up to four adapters can be attached to a single computer.
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: US$99 | Requires: Mac OS X 10.4+ or Windows 2000 & up | For further info...

Places 1.0, by UK-based The Dream Apps is an iPhone/iPod touch-based guide to the world, containing helpful information about some of the worlds most popular destinations. With pictures, quick links to Wikipedia, favourites and maps, Places is claimed to one of the most comprehensive and easiest to use virtual tour guides available. Over time, more features and destinations are planned to be added.
(Source: MacMegaSite) | Cost: US$1.99 | Requires: iPhone or iPod Touch; active Wi-Fi or cellular data internet connection for the ‘Maps’ or ‘Wikipedia’ functionality. | For further info...

The winner of the FT Climate Change Challenge this month is the “Kyoto Box”, made of two cardboard boxes, silver foil, transparent plastic and some black paint to make a solar cooker. Sunlight passes through the lid and into the inner cardboard box, painted black to absorb the heat. Silver foil on the outer box prevents that energy from escaping so that the inner box gets hot enough to boil 10 litres of water in a couple of hours.
The Kyoto Box is aimed at the three billion people who use firewood to cook and has the potential to deliver huge environmental and social benefits. “We’re saving lives and saving trees, “ says Kenya-based entrepreneur Jon Bøhmer. “I doubt if there is any other technology that can make so much impact for so little money.”
He will use the $75,000 prize money to conduct field trials. Continued…

If you're into Tweeting and you're on a Mac, you might like to know that Atebits' Tweetie for Mac is a desktop equivalent of its previously-released Tweetie for iPhone. Features include conversation view, independent composition windows, trend searches, threading of Direct Messages, a tear-off search results list, a browser bookmarklet for sending links to Tweetie, and more. Tweetie is for Mac OS X 10.5 (Universal Binary), and in its recent review of all Mac-based tweeting apps, it was the reviewer's preferred choice of the lot.
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: US$14.95 (until May 4) | Requires: MacOS X 10.5+ | For further info...

Prizmo 1.0 from Creaceed is an answer to the idle musing of no doubt many a user – an app that allows you to use your digital camera as a "scanner" for both 2D and 3D objects, including receipts, book and magazine pages, signs and posters, landscapes, and more. Its bundled software allows you to correct the resulting image for contrast, sharpening, and – impressively – for perspective, too. The resulting images can be printed, emailed, or saved to disk. Includes support for JPEG, RAW, and TIFF input images, and more. Any digital camera will do, but it for best results it recommend a 10-megapixel camera or higher. For potentially saving you the cost of a scanner such as the ScanSnap or the newly released NeatDesk for Mac, however, there is a price.
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: USD $39.95 | Requires: MacOS X 10.5+, digital camera | For further info...

Microsoft has released the latest updates for Office 2008 and Office 2004, to address a critical security issue in Excel and improve performance. The 2008 update requires you to have installed update #12.1.0. If you're using MS Office for Mac 2004, be advised that it will cease to be supported as of as of Oct 13, 2009, and will thus no longer receive any updates.
(Source: TidBits) | Cost: Free (update) | Requires: Mac OS X 10.4+ | For further info...

Billed as a unique tool for managing both projects and workgroups, Teamwork 4.1 is a very full-featured web-based team work manager, written in Java, with tools for project management, agendas and meetings, work logging, collaboration, and other functions. Project management data may be exported to MS Project. The latest version includes integration with Twitter and Google Calendar, a revamped interface, a business process extension, smart search functions, dynamic web parts that allow in-place and multi-line editing, and more.
A helpful, if Swiss-accented explanatory video online (“manADGEment” = management, “assee-knees” = assignees) gives a good picture of its features and advantages.
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: €90 per user; €790 for 10-user pack. | Requires: Java 5 & Mac OS X 10.4+, Windows, or Linux | For further info... /

PDF Studio from Qoppa Software allows you to carry out a wide range of editing operations to PDF documents without Adobe Acrobat. These include: annotating, scanning-to-pdf, fill PDF forms and saving them locally, changing security, highlighting text and more... It is offered in versions for Macintosh, Linux, Windows (including Vista), and AIX, and is localized for English, French, German, Spanish. (A Mac-only – and slightly cheaper – alternative is PDFpen by SmileOnMyMac Software.)
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: US$60 | Requires: Mac OS X, Windows, Linux\Unix | For further info... Continued…

BumperCar 2.2 from Freeverse Software is a web browser for children based on the same engine as Apple’s own Safari. Featuring a start page that encourages children to explore a collection of kid-friendly sites, it can be configured to be in a Home, School or Pre-School setting with personalized features appropriate for each location. It also filters out objectionable web content, limits the sharing of personal information, and forces Google to use a "Safe Search" mode. A “Tunnel of Mystery” teleports kids to a random kid-safe site. BumperCar. Parents may add additional controls of their own choosing in the Preferences. Unlike most other browsers, however, it isn’t free – but then, you can’t have everything.
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: US$29.95 | Requires: Mac OS X 10.4+ | For further info...

After an anti-climactic April’s Fool Day when the Conficker worm apparently failed to “phone home” for its dreaded instructions, its real purposes are now revealed. An analysis by the respected Kaspersky Labs concludes that the worm offers its victims a fake anti-virus product that will supposedly remove all malware for $49.95. It also downloads an email worm called Waledac, which steals passwords and sends spam.
Users should note that Conficker only affects Windows operating systems. Mac and Linux users are safe within the Mac OS part of their systems, and are vulnerable only within the Windows environments that they may run on their machines.
(Source: Wired) | Cost: | Requires: Windows | For further info...

Lest you think that The Library of Congress was just about books, it has begun releasing videos from its archives through its own YouTube channel, starting with 70 historical videos, inclulding the first ever moving image (a man sneezing), films from the Thomas Edison studio and industrial films from Westinghouse factories.
(Source: Wired) | Cost: Free | For further info...

Sweet Home 3D 1.8 from eTeks is an open-source, Java-based application for drawing the plan of a home, arranging furniture on it, and displaying the results in a 3D view. Doors, windows and items from a built-in catalogue of furniture and fixtures may be dragged in and resized manually after placement. Various textures of wood, tiles and others may be applied to surfaces, and changes in plan are seen immediately in a rendered 3D view plan and realtime walkthroughs are also possible. The quality of rendering is equivalent of most low-cost offerings of the past twenty years, but unlike others, Sweet Home 3D is offered under a GNU/GPL licence.
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: Free (donations accepted) | Requires: Mac OS X 10.4+, Linux\Unix, or Windows | For further info...

NeoOffice, the open-source suite based on OpenOffice that allows you to open and save Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), is now out in version 3.0, bringing with it new features and enhancements.
(Source: Macworld) | Cost: Free (donations accepted) | Requires: Mac OS X 10.3+ | For further info... /

Next time you decide to throw out an app that you no longer need, don't just throw it in the Trash – make sure that all its associated preference panes, cache, and other files are discarded as well. We normally use CleanApp for this purpose, but now you can also try the newly-minted Amnesia 1.0 from Koingo Software. It includes a secure delete option, a log of uninstalled files, a backup/restore option for applications and their related files, an option to move rather than delete files, rebuild of the Launch Services database after removing files, and other features.
(Source: Macintouch) | Cost: US$9.95 | Requires: Mac OS X 10.4+ | For further info...