Apple has released Aperture 2.1 introducing an open plug-in architecture that makes it easy to use specialized third party imaging software right from within Aperture. Available via software update, Aperture 2.1 includes the Apple-developed plug-in, Dodge & Burn, which adds brush-based tools for dodge (lighten), burn (darken), contrast, saturation, sharpen and blur. Over the coming months, third party software developers will deliver image editing plug-ins for localized editing, filters and effects, noise analysis and reduction, fisheye lens correction and more.

Apple has released Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.3 with stability fixes for the Mac Pro model that was introduced early in 2008. Available via the Software Update application, or as a download at the Apple Support Web site. The updater installs the Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update application in /Applications/Utilities. Users must launch that application to complete the firmware update process.

Apple has updated Safari 3.1 their cross platform Web browser now the first to add support for HTML 5 video and audio tags, and CSS animations. Safari 3.1 also supports CSS Web fonts, and Apple claims it loads Web pages 1.9 times faster than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2.

The browser requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher, or Windows XP or Windows Vista. Safari 3.1 is free and available via Apple’s Software Update application, or as a download at the Apple web site.