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.

Don’t forget, Flash runs on game consoles.

Posted on April 2nd, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Uncategorized.

There’s an important fact that I think has gotten lost in all the shuffle of all the recent news on Flash Lite and FlashCast.

There is a Flash Player available on all the major game console platforms.

- Nintendo Wii
- Playstation 3
- Playstation Portable (PSP)
- Xbox 360

So what does that really mean? Well, at the moment, not much. :)

But as Flash evolves I definitely see it becoming a more viable game development platform. We’ve already seen Flash games on the web become extremely popular, so popular that some Flash games like fl0w and Alien Hominid later graduated to full-fledged console games. Flash is already becoming a popular development platform for mobile phone games because of the quick development time and ease of portability. I think it’s just a matter of time before Flash evolves to the point where it would be a legitimate platform for a dedicated gaming machine.

Now the hardcore gamers out there will say that fl0w was pretty and all, but it didn’t have the eye popping graphics of a usual 3D console title. That’s very true, but Flash is getting to the point where it can do some pretty interesting 3D stuff. Papervision3D is one of the better Flash 3D engines available out there, and it’s got a pretty damn fun X-Wing demo too (but I would suggest using the options to turn invert mouse off) :)

Flash isn’t ready to be a serious console game platform yet, but the possibilities are there.

[tags]Flash, Wii, PS3, fl0w, Alien Hominid, PSP, PaperVision3d[/tags]

0 comments.

Calsoft, Flash, and TV in your car

Posted on March 30th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Flash Lite.

There’s an interesting press release out from an engineering company called Calsoft.

California Software Company Limited (Calsoft) has partnered with U-Eyes, China to enhance one of its products, the electronic visor (sun-shield) of a car, by incorporating a flash player in the device.

This software enables the visor in vehicles to serve a dual role, to shield the sunrays, besides providing entertainment. While passengers of the cab can watch a film or a music video, there is room for useful information in the form of tailor made advertisements. This not only cheers up the traveler but also keeps him/her informed of any special offers or events. The best part is that the content can be updated or changed, depending on the requirement.

That’s right, a [tag]Flash[/tag] Player in the car sun visor. That’s definitely new territory for flash. :)

CalSoft licensed the Flash Player SDK and [tag]Flash Lite[/tag] years ago before Macromedia got gobbled up by Adobe. It’s cool to see that they have found some creative and useful ways to utilize the technology.

[tags]Adobe, Flash, Flash Lite, CalSoft, U-Eyes[/tags]

0 comments.

How many Flash developers are really out there?

Posted on March 29th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Adobe, Flash Lite.

So I was reading this article on Flash Lite at RCR news and ran into this interesting line:

Perhaps most importantly, though, Flash has the benefit of a community of more than 1.3 million developers, many of them game-makers

Oh really? Hmm. I’ve seen Adobe say something like there are 2 million+ Flash developers out there, some estimates say over 3 million, but regardless of the number I wouldn’t say that “many” of them are “game-makers”. Most seem to be still doing web work for Agencies or interactive CD-ROMS, integrating Flash with PHP, doing Flash Video stuff, etc.

But I continued pondering these mysterious numbers and asked another question. How many mobile Flash developers are out there? Any guesses?

I think that as more carriers like Verizon and Docomo commit to Flash-based technologies the numbers will go up. Device Central and CS3 should also help with that, but ultimately I think that Adobe needs to convert some of those hardcore Java, BREW, and Symbian developers in order to really take over the mobile world.

[tags]Flash Lite, developers, Adobe[/tags]

0 comments.

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