New QuarkXPress 10: Major overhaul modernizes the publishing package

Quark has let loose QuarkXPress 10, a massive overhaul of its cross-media publishing package for both Mac and Windows. QuarkXPress has been revamped from top to bottom, starting with an under-the-hood conversion from the Carbon to the Cocoa programming environment and ending with a new cutting-edge graphics engine and a refreshed user interface. More than 50 feature enhancements promise to streamline the design process and improve the user experience.

QuarkXPress 10 interface overview.
Several years in the making, this new version has updated a half million lines of code, added 350,000 new lines of code, added more than 500 new dialog boxes and palettes, and added 1300 new icons designed for Retina display resolution.

QuarkXPress is now ready for action on all levels of media creation for the foreseeable future. It supports Lion and Mountain Lion features like Recent Items, Dictation, and File List in Dock. It is fully compliant with current Mac OS APIs and is Mavericks-ready.

“In recent releases of QuarkXPress, there was a big focus toward digital media, and we have some added digital functionality in version 10, but we also tried to focus on features that are relevant no matter what media you’re designing for,” said Gavin Drake, Quark’s marketing VP. “A lot of what we see in version 10 is about features and functionalities that go across all media.”

Quark 10 sports a state-of-the-art Xenon Graphics Engine designed to leverage the most powerful and advanced multicore, multiprocessor, and multithreaded processing and image-handling technologies. “The Xenon Graphics Engine is a brand-new graphics engine...that was developed by our Core Technology Group, and this is the first implementation...within one of our products,” Drake says.

Xenon has what Quark calls a “native and deep understanding” of image and vector files such as PDF, AI, TIFF, JPG, PNG, and PSD, and it uses a new Adaptive Resolution feature to render the best performance at the most appropriate screen resolution. The new engine understands fonts, vectors, colors, layers, and gradients, meaning that patterns, complex gradients, and radial blends will look much better than on previous versions, according to Quark. The program can now directly manipulate TIFF color channels and clipping paths.

QuarkXPress 10 offers improved rendering of a variety of image formats.
“The Xenon Graphics Engine drastically improves the clarity with which pixel and vector files...are rendered within QuarkXPress. It always delivers the best on-screen resolution in real time, regardless of zoom, crop, and even while positioning graphics,” said Drake.

Thus, with the Xenon Graphics Engine, saving does not have to go to disk; text remains text; vectors remain vectors; and images stay as they are without being baked into RGB. In the past, for example, image previews would be cached somewhere on the hard disk, and the time to create image previews would vary depending on the type and size of the image, and the computer used. Quark 10 no longer uses image previews. The graphics engine just draws the image directly on screen using the latest processor technologies.

A vector-performance comparison between QuarkXPress 9 and QuarkXPress 10 shows a huge improvement in clarity.
“The Xenon Graphics Engine handles all of the color management, so depending on what color setup you are using, the graphics engine just applies the correct model in real time to the image on the screen without having to go to a source file and create an updated RGB preview of an image that reflects your color space,” said Drake. “For example, perhaps you switched your view and color settings into grayscale. In QuarkXPress 9 we would have to go and create a new grayscale image preview. That takes time and disk space. Now we just apply a grayscale color model to the image with Xenon, and it’s there instantly.”

QuarkXPress 10 has been optimized to take full advantage of high-resolution Retina and HiDPI displays. Adaptive Resolution means you always get the best resolution on screen, with precise positioning of imported graphics.

From the new full-screen view to auto-hiding dockable palettes, QuarkXPress 10 has been redesigned inside and out to improve the user experience. All told, there are fewer dialog boxes, less palette clutter, palette shortcut keys, palette drag-and-drop, and an enhanced page navigator. You can apply style sheets after creation, set default tool preferences from existing objects, reorder layout tabs, view Unicode values in the Glyphs Palette, and more. An enhanced Palette Sets feature lets you easily remember favorite configurations.

The measurements palette completely replaces the functionality of the Modify dialog box, while still including the previous shortcut keys, and enabling continued access to a layout with the option to modify more than 100 layout settings as you interact with the page.

QuarkXPress 10’s streamlined measurements palette is the the go-to place for tweaking a layout.
Layers are now supported on master pages, and the Paste command remembers layers. If those layers don’t exist in the target layout, QuarkXPress 10 will create new layers automatically. A new palette preference can turn this feature on or off.

New thumbnail page previews in the print dialog box ensure that your output settings are correct before you print. The new PDF Pass-Through Transparency feature lets you avoid flattening while creating smaller, device-independent PDFs. QuarkXPress objects can now interact with placed PDFs and maintain transparency.

QuarkXPress 10’s print preview.
The Key Item Space/Align feature lets you align and space objects relative to a key item in the layout; just select a key item first, and everything else will be relative to it. The Highlight Missing Fonts feature makes it easy to find text that uses a missing font in a layout. You can even change the highlight color in the preferences.

Bezier tools
Bezier tool enhancements include the abilities to continue or close an existing path, and support for joining two paths.

Like its counterpart from Adobe, QuarkXPress 10 gets with the QR-code revolution. The new version lets you generate vector Quick Response (QR) codes directly within the program and style and color them the way you want. It supports text QR codes such as URLs, SMS, and vCards.

Full-screen color browsing features let you use the full size of your screen to add and edit colors. You can browse Pantone colors in multiple views.

QuarkXPress 10 lets you choose among Pantone colors in multiple views.
QuarkXPress 10 now lets you import images and hyperlinks from Microsoft Word, so you can directly integrate Word documents with embedded or linked pictures into a layout. Hyperlinks are automatically honored and added to the Hyperlinks palette. East Asian typography features are now in every edition of the program, so you can control Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean layouts.

HTML5 is where it’s at. Flash and Blio are out.
Improved IME (Input Method Editor) support corrects entered text without your having to retype the phonetic text by choosing different characters from the candidate list. You can send text to Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and third-party IMEs.

“Typing Japanese and Chinese text is time-consuming, because users have to type the phonetic (“unconfirmed”) text first, and then choose the Han characters from a list of candidates provided by the IME. Once the user chooses from the candidate list, the text becomes “confirmed” (entered). However, correcting the entered text when the user selects a wrong character(s) is very time-consuming because the user would have to retype the phonetic text again,” said Drake. QuarkXPress 10 makes the process more efficient by letting users choose different characters from the candidate list without having to retype the phonetic text each time.

QuarkXPress 10 also has updated support for App Studio, QuarkXPress’s built-in mobile app creation companion, providing continued support for the software’s ePub and HTML5 authoring tools.

While the company has released few specific details so far, Quark says there is a detailed roadmap dictating a series of updates for App Studio. However, Quark has revealed App Studio’s new abilities to flip shapes horizontally and vertically, and to set a separate trim view pasteboard color.

The flip-pages feature in QuarkXPress 10’s App Studio.
QuarkXPress 10 will be available for Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8 and Windows 7 and 8 for $849. Upgrades cost $349. It will also support Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) when Apple releases the OS update. It will open legacy file formats from QuarkXPress version 7 and higher. The software will be released publicly in mid- to late August as a cross-platform, perpetual license with dual activation.

QuarkXPress 10 will no longer support OS X Leopard (10.5) or Snow Leopard (10.6), Windows XP or Vista, Flash (SWF), Blio, or HTML 4; it will rely on HTML5.

App Studio slideshow.
Quark recently instituted new upgrade guidelines for all users, encouraging legacy owners to upgrade to QuarkXPress 9, the current version. Owners of QuarkXPress 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 have until August 30, 2013, to upgrade to QuarkXPress 9. Those with the Buy 9 Get 10 Free promotion, will receive QuarkXPress 10 for free. Owners of QuarkXPress 8 have until August 30 to upgrade to version 9, and until December 31 to upgrade to version 10 for free. Also, starting now, and for a limited time, Quark is offering all QuarkXPress 9 users a 20 percent discount on preorders of QuarkXPress 10.

Researcher finds major encryption flaw in older mobile SIM cards

Hundreds of millions of mobile handsets using older SIM cards are vulnerable to a flaw that allows attackers to gain complete control over affected handsets, German security expert Karsten Nohl has reported.

What Nohl has spent two years researching could turn out to be the most significant flaw in SIMs in many years when he reveals its full details at a presentation scheduled for the Black Hat security conference at the end of this month.

Nohl's briefings to the media and short website description have so far been light on detail, but the teasers he has been willing to put out sound alarming enough.

According to the Security Research Labs chief scientist, a quarter of 1,000 SIMs tested by his team had proved vulnerable to a weakness in the older DES (Data Encryption Standard) encryption used to secure them.

This made it possible to take control of a handset using a binary SMS text message to upload malware. This piggybacked on the carrier over-the-air (OTA) process through which SIMs are transparently updated via the JavaCard programming interface.

Attackers could use the method to eavesdrop on calls, sent premium text messages, and even in some circumstances, conduct payment fraud.

Only a proportion of the world's handsets used DES in its vulnerable form but this still amounted to 750 million, overwhelmingly older handsets, he said. Not all SIMs using DES seemed to have the flaw, but enough batches to cause major concern.

The size of the issue could define its seriousness with carriers unsure about Nohl's estimates. Most SIMs from recent years would use a different standard, Triple DES (3DES), and be immune to the attack.

The research had been sent to the GSM Association so it could be passed on to carriers, Nohl told media outlets.

"Cards need to use state-of-art cryptography with sufficiently long keys, should not disclose signed plaintexts to attackers, and must implement secure Java virtual machines," he wrote in a blog. "While some cards already come close to this objective, the years needed to replace vulnerable legacy cards warrant supplementary defenses."

Nohl has form when it comes to sniffing out mobile handset issues. Between 2009 and 2011 he publicised a number of security flaws in the GSM standard, most famously in its A5/1 encryption cipher, which could allow call interception between the handset and the network base station.

Despicable Me 2': How Steve Carell Wins 'Major Points' With His Kids -- and Their Friends

He has starred in some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful contemporary comedies, but to his kids, Steve Carell’s coolest job doesn’t even show his face.

Having previously lent his voice to the animated Over the Hedge and Horton Hears a Who!, Carell earned big kudos from his kids (Annie, 12, and Johnny, 9) with 2010's Despicable Me.

PHOTOS: From 'Anchorman' to 'Office': Steve Carell's 10 Best Roles

“They definitely like the animated stuff,” Carell says of his daughter and son. “When I can do the voice from Despicable Me for their friends, that wins major points: ‘Hello! Come over and have some waffles at our house!’ ” he adds, off the cuff, in a pitch-perfect Gru voice. “They just think that’s the best.”

While promoting the sequel to Despicable Me, out July 3, Carell also has some more adult-friendly fare hitting theaters.

The Way, Way Back, marking Oscar-winning screenwriters Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s co-directorial debut, is a summer friendly, coming-of-age story set in a sleepy seaside town. Having debuted at Sundance earlier this year, the indie will open in select theaters across the country July 5.

Clooney, Bullock's 'Gravity' to Open Venice: Is It a Major Awards Contender? (Analysis)

Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, a 3D sci-fi drama that stars Oscar winners George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts lost in space, will kick off the 70th Venice International Film, the fest announced Friday morning. (The festival runs from Aug. 28 through Sept. 7, and, as always, will overlap with North America's Telluride and Toronto film festivals.)

Based on the talent involved and the way that Warner Bros. is positioning the film -- the studio is giving it an Oct. 4 release date, which is just a week earlier on the fall calendar than the slot Warners used to launch Oscar-winner Argo last year -- I am inclined to think that the long-gestating film is going to be a major player this awards season. But, one must note, the folks who schedule the opening-night slot at Venice have, in recent years, had a hit-or-miss track record of picking films that also appeal to Oscar and Golden Globe voters.

PHOTOS: Jason Bateman to Jennifer Lopez: The Actors of the Academy's 2013 Class

Gravity, which will open the fest but will not be in competition for its various awards (as was the case for The Great Gatsby at May's Cannes Film Festival), will follow in some considerable footsteps:

Julie Taymor's Frida (2002) went on to Oscar wins for makeup and original score and noms for actress, art direction, costume design and original song, plus a Golden Globe win for original score and nom for actress (drama); Joe Wright's Atonement (2007) went on to an Oscar win for original score and noms for picture, supporting actress, adapted screenplay, art direction, cinematography and costume design; Ethan and Joel Coen's Burn After Reading (2008) went on to Golden Globe noms for picture (musical or comedy) and actress (musical or comedy); Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010) went on to an Oscar win for actress and noms for picture, director, cinematography and film editing, plus a Golden Globe win for actress (drama) and Golden Globe noms for picture (drama), director and supporting actress; and Clooney's The Ides of March (2011) went on to an Oscar nom for adapted screenplay and Golden Globe noms for picture (drama), director, actor (drama) and screenplay.

PHOTOS: Oscars Time Capsule: The Infamous 1989 Academy Awards

But it will also, however, follow in some less distinguished footsteps:

Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys (2000) went on to only a sound editing Oscar nom; Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006) went on to only a cinematography Oscar nom; and Milcho Manchevski's Dust (2001), Woody Allen's Anything Else (2003), Steven Spielberg's The Terminal (2004), Tsui Hark's Seven Swords (2005), Giuseppe Tornatore's Baaria (2009) and, last year, Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) all received no major awards recognition.

Gravity could conceivably show up in Toronto, as well, but most films play either at Telluride and Toronto or at Venice, not at some combination thereof. In recent years, far more future Oscar and Golden Globe nominees and winners have passed through the former route than the latter -- perhaps because a larger contingent of the North American press covers the former events.

Indeed, seven of the past 13 best picture Oscar winners (Crash, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, The King's Speech, The Artist and Argo) and 10 of the 26 best picture Golden Globe winners (Almost Famous, Lost in Translation, Sideways, Brokeback Mountain, Walk the Line, Babel, Atonement, Slumdog Millionaire, The Descendants and Argo) screened at one or both of those fests, whereas only one future best picture Oscar winner (The Hurt Locker) and two best picture Golden Globe winners (Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain) screened at Venice.

Paula Deen loses two major deals

Paula Dean in happier times. Her recent racial slur controversy has given the celebrity chef little to smile about.

In the latest blow, Walmart (WMT, Fortune 500), the world's largest retailer announced late Wednesday that it cut its ties to the embattled cooking star.

"We are ending our relationship with Paula Deen Enterprises and we will not place new orders beyond those already committed. We will work with suppliers to address existing inventories and agreements."

Walmart sold Paula Deen branded baked goods, cookware, dishware and kitchen appliances. This news comes on the heels of an announcement made by Caesars Entertainment Corporation Wednesday morning that it too will end its relationship with Deen.

Caesars (CZR, Fortune 500) operates Paula Deen-themed restaurants at four of its casinos: Horseshoe Southern Indiana, Harrah's Tunica in Mississippi, Harrah's Joliet in Illinois and Harrah's Cherokee in North Carolina.

"While we appreciate Paula's sincere apologies for statements she made in her past ... we have mutually decided that it is in the best interests of both parties to part ways at this time," said Jan Jones Blackhurst, executive vice president of communications and government affairs for Caesars Entertainment.

Related: Orders for Paula Deen cookbook surge

Deen's troubles began when almost two weeks ago when a deposition in a discrimination lawsuit was released in which she admitted using the n-word in the past. Dean has insisted she does not tolerate prejudice, but her apologies have failed to suppress the controversy.

Last week the Food Network said it wouldn't renew Deen's contract when it expires at the end of the month. Pork producer Smithfield Foods, with a line of Deen-branded hams, dropped her as a spokeswoman on Monday.

Twitter: @sajilpl

Taylor Momsen Signs With Major Modeling Agency

Taylor Momsen has been signed by Next Modeling Management. Credit: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/

Little J is heading for the big time. Taylor Momsen, who played fashion designer hopeful Jenny Humphrey on Gossip Girl for five years, has signed on with Next Modeling Management, one of the biggest modeling agencies in the world.

PHOTOS: Gossip Girl cast -- then and now

She'll be joining the likes of Alexa Chung, Ellie Goulding, Jessica Alba, and Lana Del Rey, all of whom are also repped by the agency. The kohl-loving blonde isn't exactly a neophyte when it comes to posing in front of the camera: Momsen has appeared in campaigns for Material Girl, Madonna and her daughter Lourdes Leon's clothing line, and John Galliano's Parlez-Moi d'Amour perfume.

PHOTOS: Gossip Girls' top 10 OMG moments

The retired actress, 19, has been focusing on her band, The Pretty Reckless, since the show wrapped last December. In a spoken word video that debuted in October 2012, the singer, who once described her look as that of a "high-class hooker," recited lyrics from their track "Under the Water" in the nude.

PHOTOS: Hollywood's hottest bad girls

Tell Us: Do you think Taylor Momsen will make a good model?

Twitter: @sajilpl

NPR Special Coverage: Court Issues Opinions On Major Cases

Listen to NPR's Special Coverage Of The Supreme Court Decisions
The U.S. Supreme Court issued opinions on four major cases this week that dealt with same-sex marriage, affirmative action in college admissions and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In an NPR special, journalists and guests discussed the court's decisions and the implications of the rulings going forward.
Host: Linda Wertheimer
Guests: Ron Elving, NPR senior Washington editor; Nina Totenberg, NPR legal affairs correspondent; Tom Goldstein, publisher of and contributor to SCOTUSblog; Wendy Kaufman, NPR correspondent; and Michael Fauntroy, associate professor of political science at Howard University
Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin: The court issued an opinion Monday in a case that was a challenge to the University of Texas' affirmative action admissions process. Abigail Fisher said she was denied admission to the university because of race. In a 7-1 vote, the court sidestepped the underlying issue of the case and instead sent the case back to the lower courts with instructions to conduct a more thorough factual inquiry. The justices ruled that the lower court "did not hold the university to the demanding burden of strict scrutiny articulated" in an earlier Supreme Court ruling — 2003's Grutter v. Bollinger.
(Read the ruling)
Shelby County v. Holder: On Tuesday, the court struck down what is seen as the linchpin of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. By a 5-to-4 vote, the court invalidated the formula — adopted most recently in 2006 — used to determine which states and local governments had to get federal approval for changes in their voting laws. The decision frees nine mostly Southern states from this "pre-clearance." Many voting-rights advocates were angered and dismayed by the court's decision, and critics say it could lead to more lawsuits. (Read the ruling)
United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry: Both of these cases dealt with the issue of same-sex marriage, but in different ways. In United States v. Windsor,
the court ruled 5-4 on Wednesday to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 federal law that confines marriage to a man and a woman. As NPR's Liz Halloran reports, the court's decision does not embrace a national constitutional right to same-sex marriage but makes married gay couples living in states where their unions are legal eligible for federal benefits already enjoyed by married heterosexual Americans.
Hollingsworth v. Perry
involved California's controversial Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriages in the state. The court ruled in a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority, that supporters of the law did not have standing to bring the case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge a lower court's ruling that invalidated the law. While this allows same-sex marriages to continue in California, it does not have broader implications across the country, and the justices avoided the underlying issues. (Read both rulings with annotations)
 

Shanghai Festival: 'The Major' and 'Reliance' Win at Golden Goblet Awards

HONG KONG – Yuri Bykov’s The Major and William Olsson’s Reliance have emerged as the top-ranked entries at the Shanghai International Film Festival’s Golden Goblets awards, each taking home three titles.

A dark tale about a Russian detective's spiraling into moral oblivion as he attempts to conceal a hit-and-run which led to the death of a passer-by, The Major – which premiered at the Critics’ Week at Cannes last month – was named Best Film, while Bykov himself secured the Best Director prize as well as an Artistic Achievement Award for his score for the film.

STORY: Keanu Reeves Kicks Off 'Man of Tai Chi' Tour 

Meanwhile, Reliance won a Jury Prize, with screenwriter Angus MacLachlan and cinematographer Vachan Sharma also netting prizes in their respective categories. Released a week before its international premiere in Shanghai, Olsson’s film revolves around the breakdown of a family after one of its members were subjected to a sexual assault at home.

Financed by mainland Chinese studio Bona Film Group, Dante Lam’s Unbeatable brought some cheers to the local crowd with its stars Nick Cheung and Crystal Lee winning the Best Actor and Actress titles. Cheung plays an ex-convict forced to make a living in illicit boxing matches, with Lee delivering a critically-acclaimed turn as the ten-year-old girl he’s trying to take care of.

The competition jury was chaired by Tom Hooper, who was joined in Shanghai this year by fellow directors Chris Kraus (Germany), Khosro Masoumi (Iran), Jiri Menzel (Czech Republic) and Ning Hao (mainland China), and also Chinese actress Yu Nan and French critic Michel Ciment.

The festival’s Asian New Talent Awards were already unveiled on Friday, with South Korean director Roh Doek’s Very Ordinary Couple winning the Best Feature prize. Singapore’s Wong Chen Hsi was named Best Director for his work Innocents, while mainland Chinese filmmaker Liu Juan took the Jury Prize for Singing When We Are Young.

The jury for this young-director showcase was led by mainland Chinese director Lu Chuan, and also comprised Indian festival programmer Aruna Vasudev, Korean director Choi Dong-hoon, US producer Gary Kurtz and French actress Laura Weissbacker.

The festival, which began on June 15 by bestowing Oliver Stone and Tsui Hark with honorary awards before screening Monsters University, concluded its nine-day run on Sunday with a screening of the U.S. heist caper Now You See Me.