Video review of the Amp’d Q with Flash Lite UI

Posted on April 30th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Amp'd, Flash Lite.

I know many of you are still looking for pics/vids of the Amp’d Q Flash Lite UI in action. Noah at Phonedog.com did a short 60 second video review of the Amp’d Q that you can see on YouTube

Also be sure to check out the cool Q microsite at ampd.com (all done in Flash, of course). The microsite includes a preview of the upcoming Q commercial! :)

[tags]Amp’d, Motorola Q, Flash[/tags]

4 comments.

ShiftCast has a Flash Lite dev kit?

Posted on April 25th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Flash Lite.

I was poking around in some [tag]Flash Lite[/tag] related press releases and I stumbled upon a release from ShiftCast.

ShiftCast, a new mobile start-up in Philadelphia, PA has announced that they have released a mobile software application and development kit that will enable small companies and indie developers to rapidly design and deploy professional mobile applications in minutes using Macromedia Flash Lite and a few specialty tools included in their mobile design SDK. This $1300 mobile design kit includes several finished mobile application templates compatible with Windows Mobile and Nokia/Symbian S60 phones such as streaming television, rss readers and stock analytics etc. Shiftcast tech personnel (as stated on their site) even assist SDK users with putting their first mobile creations together.

Sounds interesting, but at $1300 it better be damn good! :)

I poked around a little bit more on google and couldn’t find more details on their dev kit other than a link to http://shiftradio.com and http://shiftcast.mobi. If anyone has some more info please send it my way.

You can read the full ShiftCast press release here

[tags]shiftcast, adobe, flash lite[/tags]

1 comment.

Digg.com is holding a Flash contest!

Posted on April 24th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Uncategorized.

The Digg API Visualization contest is under way!

Digg has just released its new API, which provides developers with access to the amazing data, information, and processes of the Digg site. To celebrate this milestone, we’re challenging you to come up with the most creative and dynamic Flash visualizations and applications that utilize the Digg API.

Prizes include a killer Falcon Northwest gaming PC and a free copy of Flash CS3.

Get more info at digg.com/contest

[tags]Digg, Digg API, Flash, contest, Adobe[/tags]

0 comments.

A good review of Device Central CS3

Posted on April 20th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Adobe.

Alessandro over at biskero.org has a pretty good review of Device Central CS3, with pics!

Go check out the Device Central Review at Biskero.org

[tags]biskero, Adobe, Device Centra, CS3[/tags]

0 comments.

Adobe releases media player…with DRM?!

Posted on April 16th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Adobe.

There’s tons of Adobe news today, most of it revolving around the release of Creative Suite 3. But in addition to that eagerly awaited release Adobe also announced that they’ll be releasing Adobe Media Player, a standalone desktop version of the Flash player with brand new features.

From Wired:

The Adobe Media Player has two elements that will appeal to content producers, but might leave consumers with some doubts. The first is a mechanism that will allow advertising to be embedded in downloaded clips in such a way that it can’t be separated from the content.

The second element is a “security” model (DRM) that will tie downloaded content to specific machines or users.

While both options are solely at the discretion of the content producer, a lack of DRM features in the Flash browser plugin is arguably one of the reasons for its success and by adding DRM to the desktop client Adobe may well be shooting itself in the foot.

Hmm, this is both good and bad. It’s good because one of the factors that kept major content producers from using Flash was the lack of DRM to help monetize the content, now that barrier is gone. But it’s bad because there is a huge potential for end-users to get annoyed by intrusive and limiting DRM rules, not to mention the potential for annoying ads which have already blemished Flash’s reputation on the web. We’ll have to see how this pans out.

Read more on the Flash Media Player at Wired Blog

[tags]Adobe, DRM, Creative Suite 3, Flash[/tags]

0 comments.

Should Adobe open source Flash Player right now?

Posted on April 13th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Adobe, Flash Lite.

Recently one of the writers at ZDNet posted an opinion piece on whether the Flash Player should be open sourced. This article riled up a lot of people at Adobe including Ted Patrick, technical evangelist at Adobe. Ted Patrick’s response blasts the notion that Flash Player development happens in a vacuum, and gives great examples of how the Flash Player has evolved with the help of developers outside of Adobe. It’s not an open source community, but it’s certainly not a completely closed development process either.

I agree very much with Ted in that regard. My own experiences with Adobe have shown me that the Adobe developers are very open to suggestions, constructive criticism, and new ideas. They very proactively seek qualified beta and alpha users for their products and they value customer input. You don’t often hear about it because Adobe development is kept under wraps, but a lot of people outside of Adobe get early access to products to provide testing and dev help.

The issue of an open sourced flash player is particularly sensitive in the mobile arena where many companies are trying to minimize risk and cost by using open source technologies. I personally don’t buy into that logic completely, use the technology that is best for your needs. Open sourced code is great and I think that in an ideal world all platforms would be open. But today’s reality is that open source tools are a bonus, not a requisite, when it comes to picking the right platform for your business.

However, as a proponent of Open Source I can’t deny that I feel that if the Flash Player were open we would probably see much more penetration in the mobile arena, and more developer acceptance in general. But that’s not to say that Adobe hasn’t already contributed to the open source effort. As Ted says:

I do agree with Ryan that some aspects of the player should be open source, then again some aspects already are. We donated the brain of Flash Player to Mozilla as open source in the Tamarin project. The JIT ECMA4 runtime will power Javascript in FireFox and all enhancements will be shared among the OS participants.

In the future I see the Flash Player getting more and more open, but for now we’re not going to see a completely open player and I don’t think we need to.

[tags]Adobe, open source, Flash[/tags]

2 comments.

Flash Lite on iPod? Maybe…

Posted on April 12th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Adobe, Flash Lite.

While perusing the web I stumbled upon a post at Ludicrous Software that mentioned a Wired article that talked about reviving the dying art of Album Covers with interactive media. My interest really piqued when I read this part:

A very simple demonstration that we’ve done takes the Gnarls Barkley liner notes and does a fly-through (using Adobe Flash Lite). You’re actually moving through the lyrics and artwork. It’s sort of like a theme park ride through the album. It’s really, really cool-looking on an iPod.

Now at this point I’m thinking to myself “Ipod!? Did he just say Ipod!?! Ipod and Flash Lite in the same paragraph!?!”

So I keep reading.

White also pointed to Warner’s Wamo pack, which gave Japanese cell phone users digital albums with ringtones, video, full tracks and artist interviews. Wamo packs aren’t new — they launched overseas a year ago. But White says Warner plans to produce more of these bundles. He also mentioned that while Wamo packs use Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, or SMIL, for their interactive menus, Adobe’s [tag]Flash Lite[/tag] would be a better candidate for “the level of sophistication people expect from Warner Music Group’s artists.”

“Yes, YES!!” I say to myself. “This is exactly what the Flash Lite community needs!”

But then I read the next line:

(Adobe confirmed that Warner’s iPod/Flash Lite demonstrations had taken place, but said that the company “has not announced any joint plans for Flash or Flash Lite to be used in next-generation digital albums.”)

Damn. :(

But all hope is not lost. With Apple’s recent announcement of 100 million iPods sold, Adobe would probably love to work with Warner to get their Flash Lite client on that platform. Apple’s been pretty protective of their platforms though. The real question is will Apple let Adobe officially play in their sandbox.

Time will tell.

[tags]iPod, Adobe, Apple, Warner, Flash Lite, Wired[/tags]

1 comment.

Motorola Q Amp’d Edition is available on the Amp’d Website

Posted on April 10th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Amp'd, Flash Lite.

Yes folks, the time has arrived. You can now order your [tag]Flash Lite[/tag] enabled Amp’d Q directly from get.ampd.com

Have fun!

[tags]Amp’d, Flash Lite, Motorola, Q, mobile[/tags]

1 comment.

I can’t wait for mobile Flash Video

Posted on April 9th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Adobe, Amp'd, Flash Lite.

So as everyone probably knows by now, Flash Lite 3 will feature Flash Lite video support.

There are some pretty obvious applications of this new feature (youtube anyone?) but there is a lot more to it than that.

For me personally I am looking forward to the ability to easily overlay graphics on video. Real estate is at a premium on most mobile device screens and anything you can do to get two things to exist in the same space is a bonus. The first thing I’m going to do when Flash Video hits mobile is slap video controls and state messages (buffering, paused, playing) on top of the video so I can save some space. This is especially true for fullscreen video like we do for the Amp’d Motorola Q. The ability to bring up controls on top of the video in Flash is going to be killer.

Speaking of controls, the ability to control video should be greatly improved with FLV support. With the current device video solution in Flash Lite 2.1 you can only do so much. Want to scale your video? Good luck with that one. Want to scrub through the video? You’d better hope the seek() functionality is implemented on your target device. With FLV support we should have a whole new realm of options available, I only worry about performance. :) All indications point to the Flash Lite 3 client being quite a bit heavier than its predecessor, let’s hope that doesn’t hurt the player’s adoption rate.

[tags]Flash Lite, FLV, Amp’d, Adobe[/tags]

0 comments.

Flash is the new publishing tool of the century

Posted on April 5th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Uncategorized.

“Flash is the new publishing tool of the century”, that’s the tagline for a recently published article at UK newspaper The Guardian. The article focuses on the views of Mark Anders, Senior Principal Scientist at Adobe and the guy in charge of building the future of the Flash authoring tool.

How has Flash thrived? “It’s a combination of broadband and in the number of people being comfortable with it,” says Anders. Flash is the new publishing tool of the century, he argues: “We have let more people publish - whether it’s blogging or having a MySpace page, or uploading to YouTube.”

Bold statements, but true. :)

The article also delves into Apollo references and Flash Lite references, but I think the big thing to take away from it is that Adobe is not forgetting that an easy but powerful authoring tool is just as important as getting the player on as many computing devices as possible.

Read the interview with Adboe Senior Principal Scientist Mark Anders

0 comments.

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