As part of its Deal of the Day promotion, Amazon is offering significant discounts on several Philips Hue products. These are ‘certified refurbished’ products, meaning they look and work like new and come with a 90-day warranty. Whether you’re looking for a thoughtful tech gift, or just to score some new smart home products for yourself on the cheap, you don’t want to miss this sale.

• White and Color 4-Bulb Starter Kit – Buy for $115 $160
• LightStrip Plus Dimmable LED – Buy for $45 $65
• Ambiance A19 Hue White 60W Dimmable LED – Buy for $29 $42
• Ambiance A19 2-Pack 60W Dimmable LED – Buy for $19 $25
• White and Color 3-Bulb Starter Kit – Buy for $87 $120
• LightStrip Plus Dimmable LED Smart Light – Buy for $19 $27
• White 2-Bulb Starter Kit – Buy for $52 $84
• White and Color Ambiance 60W Dimmable LED – Buy for $30 $42
• Smart Bridge Second Generation – Buy for $28 $39
• Other Philips Hue Deals – Click here

Note: As always, shipping is free with Amazon Prime. For those of you who aren’t a Prime member, you can still get free shipping by signing up for a 1-month free trial here.

Other deals worth checking out

• Dyson V8 Animal Cordless Stick Vacuum $326 $500
• Funcl Wireless Headphones starting at just $19
• DJI Mavic Air Quadcopter with remote $700 $800
• Logitech G910 Orion Spark RGB Gaming Keyboard $108 $180
• Tello Quadcopter Drone with DJI flight tech $80 $100
• Philips Hue Smart LED HomeKit-Enabled Starter Kit $100 $150
• Canary View Indoor 1080p security camera $49 $100
• Ecobee4 Smart Thermostat (HomeKit compatible) $200 $250
• Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Waterproof Speaker $130 $150
• PlayStation Gold Wireless Headset $71 $100
• iTunes movie deals

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/11/15/save-philip-hue-smart-home/

More than 300 Apple stores in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand will be selling a Harry Potter wireless coding wand starting this December.

Created by British computing and coding startup Kano, the digital wand will also be demoed in Apple stores from December to January. This is a physical device which works in tandem with Kano’s app, allowing children to build blocks of code visually in a manner similar to Apple’s Swift Playgrounds app.

These blocks of code are then transformed into a Harry Potter spell with a wave of one’s “magic” wand. The spells let kids do all sorts of things, like make feathers fly, potions bubble, pygmy puffs change color, musical notes change their pitch and so forth.

Step-by-step challenges are provided for those wishing to see how changes in the code affect the spells. The more curious types can even dig deep into the actual code.

Kano CEO told Business Insider Apple approached them to get the wands into stores.

We’ve known the folks at Apple for a while in different parts of the organization but in this instance the opportunity was to bring in the wand, especially because it’s designed ground-up to work with iOS and with tablets.

That’s not surprising at all given Apple has been teaching kids how to code with its “Today at Apple” sessions held in stores and the ”Everyone Can Code” lessons.

The device also works with Windows and Android.

This is yet another nice way to get kids into coding. I think it’s going to be successful because the wand is directly related to the things children dig: magic, Harry Potter lore and gadgets. I mean, how cool is it that kids get feedback from a physical object in their hand.

The Harry Potter coding kit is available from Kano for $99 a pop.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/11/15/harry-potter-coding-wand/

Apple today announced an update to Motion for Mac.

Motion his Apple’s software for easy creation of powerful motion graphics with support for cinematic 2D, 3D and 360° titles, fluid transitions and realistic, hardware-accelerated effects.

Motion 5.4.2 brings a comprehensive set of color grading tools and a pair of fun new effects.

The new color tools include color wheels, color curves, hue/saturation curves and custom LUTs that match the pro color-correction features in Final Cut Pro. In fact, the same Final Cut Pro X tools can now be used in Motion to fine-tune the look of titles and motion graphics.

Apple shared a short video to show off how the app’s new tiny planet filter lets users create interesting spherical effects with 360-degree video, give it a quick watch right below.

The new filters include a customizable comic effect that turns any image or video into color or monochrome comic book illustration and a fun new tiny planet filter. This one transforms 360-degree videos into spherical animations that can be keyframed to change over time.

Here’s the full changelog:

Advanced color grading

• Use color wheels in 1-up or 4-up layouts to quickly adjust hue, saturation and brightness.
• Apply professional color curves to make ultra-fine adjustments to color and contrast.
• Hue/saturation curves let you select and change a specific hue or brightness level while leaving other parts of the image unchanged.
• Use the eye dropper with the color and hue/saturation curves to quickly sample parts of an image for adjustment.
• Apply custom LUTs from popular color grading apps and sites.
• Adjust color corrections over time with precise keyframe controls.

Comic filter

• Instantly turn any photo or video into a comic book illustration.
• Choose from a variety of styles to create color, monochrome or grayscale artwork.
• Refine the comic book look with simple controls to adjust ink edges, fill and smoothness.

Tiny Planet filter

• Add the Tiny Planet filter when adding 360º video to a non-360° project to create interesting spherical looks.
• Use the Z and X Rotation parameters to wrap your tiny planet effect into an infinite cylinder.
• Adjust the Y Rotation parameter to move your subject horizontally within the tiny planet.
• Animate the field of view to transition from a close up to a satellite view flying high above your footage.
• Give generators and titles a powerfully warped look by applying the Tiny Planet filter.

Core Text engine

• Core Text engine ensures accurate display of Arabic letters, Indic vowel signs in Devanagari and Thai diacritics.
• Correct rendering and animation of emoji, thin glyphs, capital letters in various point sizes and vertical text are joined and tracked correctly.

The previous update brought native support for ProRes RAW files, including ProRes RAW HQ files created by ATOMOS recorders and DJI Inspire 2 drone, along with under-the-hood tweaks resulting in smooth playback and real-time graphics creation on laptop and desktop Macs.

Final Cut Pro X and Compressor were updated today, too.

Final Cut Pro X received support for third-party workflow extensions from Frame.io, Shutterstock and CatDV support to the professional video app, plus other new features and enhancements. Motion was enhanced with a comprehensive set of color grading tools and fun new filters such as a customizable comic effect and a tiny planet filter.

Compressor gained a new 64-bit engine that takes full advantage of all the memory in your computer to increase performance when encoding high resolution and high frame rate video. The app continues to support 32-bit codecs for those times when you need to work with key legacy formats.

The Motion 5.4.2 update is available at no additional charge to existing users of the software. New customers can get Motion for $50 from Mac App Store.

Education customers can purchase Apple’s Pro Apps Bundle for Education for $199.99, which includes Final Cut Pro X, Motion, Compressor, Logic Pro X and MainStage.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/11/15/apple-motion-5-4-2/

Apple today announced the Compressor 4.4.2 app alongside the major Final Cut Pro X 10.4.4 update which brought out support for third-party workflow extensions.

Compressor is Apple’s advanced encoding companion to Final Cut Pro.

In the most recent update, Compressor now supports SRT closed captions allowing video editors to deliver their captioned video to the web and international markets without compatibility issues.

Under the hood, the app has moved to a new 64-bit engine. Apple says this lets Compressor take full advantage of all the memory in your Mac to boost performance when encoding high resolution and high frame rate video.

While the engine is now 64-bit, the app still supports for 32-bit codecs for those times when you need to work with key legacy formats.

Here’s the full changelog:

• 64-bit architecture takes advantage of all memory in your Mac to support high resolution images and projects.
• Backward compatibility supports legacy 32-bit formats.
• View, edit and deliver closed captions in the SRT format, which is used by a wide range of websites including Facebook.
• Compressor uses source media properties to automatically configure MXF and QuickTime settings.
• Automatic configuration of settings applies correct frame rate, field order and color space.

Final Cut Pro X and Motion were updated today, too.

Final Cut Pro X received support for third-party workflow extensions from Frame.io, Shutterstock and CatDV support to the professional video app, plus other new features and enhancements. Motion was enhanced with a comprehensive set of color grading tools and fun new filters such as a customizable comic effect and a tiny planet filter.

Compressor 4.4.2 is available at no charge to existing users. New customers can get Compressor for $50 from Mac App Store.

Education customers can purchase Apple’s Pro Apps Bundle for Education for $199.99, which includes Final Cut Pro X, Motion, Compressor, Logic Pro X and MainStage.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/11/15/apple-compressor-4-4-2/

Apple on Thursday announced a major new update to Final Cut Pro X, bringing third-party extension support to the professional video app, plus a host of other new features and enhancements.

Video editors can now take advantage of extensions from the likes of Frame.io, Shutterstock and CatDV. These workflow extensions make it possible to use third-party tools and services from within the Final Cut Pro interface, enhancing production workflows.

Other features in Final Cut Pro X 4.4.4 include batch sharing (especially useful when transcoding dailies on set for quick turnaround or delivering multiple versions of a project), video noise reduction and a handy comparison viewer that makes it simple to view reference images while color-grading clips in the timeline, among other enhancements.

There’s also a new timecode window for collaborative editing that displays project and source timecode in customizable, floating timecode windows, as shown on the screenshot right below. Apple says this lets video editors and others in the editing room to follow along by displaying color-coded clip names, roles, project timecode and source timecode in a customizable display.

Other enhancements include:

• High-quality video noise reduction: Minimizes artifacts in low light or archival footage.
• SRT closed captions: You can now create and deliver closed captions in SRT format or, alternatively, burn them into the video stream itself for compatibility reasons.
• Improved marquee selection: Quickly select individual clips or the entire secondary storyline which saves valuable time for common edit operations.
• Batch sharing: Export multiple clips or projects in one step.

Final Cut Pro 10.4.4 is available at no charge to existing users. New customers can get Final Cut Pro X for $300 from Mac App Store.

Education customers can purchase Apple’s Pro Apps Bundle for Education for $199.99, which includes Final Cut Pro X, Motion, Compressor, Logic Pro X and MainStage.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/11/15/final-cut-pro-x-third-party-extensions/