Ever since Adobe started the Open Source Initiative last year a lot has happened. For one, it enabled many technology proficient companies to start developing devices that could support the Flash runtime. This caused a big stir at MAX when Intel & Qualcomm (among others) announced they would be supporting Flash and AIR on TV’s & a host of other consumer devices.
Fast forward two months and Adobe is doing it all over again. This time they’re going to open up the messaging technology behind Media Server that allows for the super-fast streaming of video, audio and data – RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol). What is this good for you ask? Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch says
With the RTMP specification, developers and companies will be able to provide users with optimized audio, video and data streaming, no matter what kind of device the user is on or where the content is coming from.
What does Multi-Screen mean? (more…)
It’s crunch time. I’m crushing my keys furiously to finish yet another week of projects with insanely tight deadlines. My little Yorkie is nipping at my heels telling me it’s time to dine and my wife is pleading for my attention to pick out furniture for the new loft. I need to finish the project, it needs to be done right, and it needs to be done fast, and I’m screwed!
That was what I was thinking anyway until I found Arthropod. I was having a problem seeing what was going on with my flash movies while they were trying to communicate with External Interface. My traces weren’t coming through in FlashTracer and I was doing my best ray charles impression with sub par success. I needed to see trace statements at the very least to have any shot at completing this project before sundown.
Arthropod came into my life on January 16th, 2008 and has already carved out a special place in my heart, I don’t know how I didn’t hear about it until now. It’s a simple idea executed very well that allows you to trace Debug.log(’something’) statements in an AIR Application on your desktop, you can also trace any DisplayObject and take snapshots of the stage. After setting up Arthropod I was finished in five minutes. I was getting an error because of a scoping issue and it couldn’t be easier to find after setting up a couple log statements.
Arthropod was developed by Carl Calderon and you should drop some money in his donation box like I did if you end up using the software. Contributions were also made by Lee Brimelow who writes theflashblog.com and Stockholm Postproduction. Great work Carl, you saved my life!
Broadcom is onboard, Sigma Designs is onboard, ARM is onboard and their partners Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments are all onbaord to deliver your components, your galleries, your XML websites and your awesome preloaders to TV sets and consumer devices everywhere. The good news is that all these devices run on Intel chips and Intel has been working closely with Adobe to make this happen. The bad news, they’re all going to be running Flash-Lite to start. But never fear, Intel has something special up their sleeve.
The big CES show in Las Vegas isn’t usually the event of the year for us new-age internet types, unless of course you’re a Mac. Apple has owned CES for the better part of the decade debuting the iPod, iPod Video, macbook air and the iPhone while controlling a good majority of the media attention. This weekend at CES, however, crowns a new king for the worldwide generation (coined!), Adobe!
Adobe is poised to announce this weekend that Intel, in association with the companies just mentioned, is making a big play to support AIR 1.5 and Flash 10 in consumer electronics and TV’s by the end of the year. Drop dead Bradgelina, this is a match made in heaven! The Flash Platform, which already holds the crown for online video, is the ideal genius to bridge gap between the web and TV to deliver digital experiences to the worldwide generation. YouTube, Hulu, Sling & Joost already use Flash to deliver their own version of online TV and my guess is by the time I’m done writing this post another twenty or so startups will launch their own interactive online TV experience. I haven’t even begun to explore what this means for Justin.tv and UStream!
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According to CrunchBase TokBox launched Oct 15th, 2007 and has since been inundated with media attention from tech savvy blogs such as TechCrunch to the mainstream minded New York Times. TokBox at it’s core is the easiest to use and most well-put-together video chat setup anywhere. SnapYap, Yugma, and MeetCast aren’t even in the same playground as TokBox and after being fortunate enough to spend 20 minutes with TokBox Founder Ron Hose I can tell you why.
Very much like a company poised for success TokBox has big ideas but doesn’t disappoint with the details. Their site can be misleading to developers because the technology powering the site is actually their implementation of their own TokBox API. Ron says “Everything you see on their site can be accomplished through the API.” This includes otherwise challenging feats such as creating a video guestbook and video chat. Their big technological achievement comes through the streaming technology that they’ve confirmed can scale to millions of users in capacity.
To compare, Google released an extension to Gmail a couple months back that comes as a plugin download that will connect two parties with video chat. TokBox currently can handle six simultaneous conversations and to get started each person simply needs to have a camera/mic and visit a web page.
How do they accomplish this minor miracle? Flash, of course. Ron says “We use Flash because it’s dynamic…We want to focus on the user and do whatever will lead to the best user experience.” It also gives them a “rapid development cycle” and enables mashups such as combining your chat window with a YouTube video.
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Adobe has unveiled a lot of new programs so far this year. Hyder had a great article on Flash Catalyst last week that pointed to the ability to create Flash apps without code. I did something on CoCoMo a couple weeks ago enabling the quick and easy creation of social apps. This is why is doesn’t surpise me that with rapid influx of fairly dissimilar technologies, including new projects such as Gumbo and Stratus, PatchPanel has flown under the radar until now.
PatchPanel is a Flex extension that allows you to use your Actionscript skills to design extensions for other Adobe products. You could for example use it to draw a grid in Photoshop, or you could create concentric circles in Illustrator, or you could apply PixelBender filters to an image embedded in InDesign. How far can it go? Adobe’s not saying exactly but I would love to be able use Actionscript with comps in AfterEffects.
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Aviary is sweet. Underneath it’s wonderful and engaging site design there’s a suite of products that show the power of Flash as a platform, pretty much exactly what Adobe’s been saying since MAX a couple months ago.
Toucan isn’t just the bird that hides on the back of your fruit loops box anymore, he’s your color guide if you need a little more versatility than Kuler provides. Phoenix didn’t just die at the end of X-Men 3 either, she’s back in all her glory as a bitmap editor that allows you to “create insane effects” as stated on the products homepage.
I really like their marketing by the way. Isn’t it cool how they name all their programs after birds? Once you sign up they even give you an egg that identifies how far you’ve grown as an Aviary creator (I’m still fledgling so if anyone at Aviary reads this please bump me up).
These products alone, however, don’t really do Aviary justice. When you hear someone in sports talk about taking your game to the next level they’re talking about what Aviary has accomplished with Peacock.
More after the jump.
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Sales people like to say someone gets closed every call, either you close the client on your idea or they close you on theirs. I’ve heard every excuse from internet marketers to high-level CEO’s why they don’t want to use Flash as their platform and up until recently I let myself believe they had a legitimate reason to hack together a site with CSS rather than Flash it out. There were always two specific objections I couldn’t overcome: SEO and deep-linking.
Today I broke open Gaia for the first time and it’s literally changed my world and the world of every client who from this day will have to deal with my maniacal zealotry. Gaia should put a stop to all the whining and complaining done by those who would choose another platform for “SEO compatibality”. But don’t expect by just using the framework the game is over, you’ve got to explain you’re reasons and if I’m going to roll I want to be armed to the teeth with loads of quality information.
Under the hood Gaia gives you is a simple system for Deep-Linking and SEO via “tight integration” with SWF Address. Two things I routinely pass over because of the time they take to implement properly. With Gaia I was able to build out a complete site framework in about 6 hours with an animated nav that supports deep-linking. It’s just sweet!
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Even though MAX was two weeks ago stories are still being picked up across the nation. eWeek just ran a story detailing the Qualcomm’s new Brew MP SDK aimed to allow flash developers a seamless mobile delivery platform for their content. Adrian Bridgewater over at ZDNet finally put his notes together to deliver an enlightened article on the future of the platform.
I was able to watch an entire episode of Heroes on Hulu fully “powered by” Adobe Flash with no commercials, it was amazing. I then read an article in my personalized “adobe flash” version of Google News telling me Flash had found it’s way to the PS3. Full screen no less, and on a platform that will have no problem powering even the heaviest flash apps. Possibly even Heavy.com (just playing Heavy, I love you guys and you’ve been serving up some of the best interactive Flash goodness since the days of Napster)
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Adobe MAX was last week and there’s some sweet stuff in the pipeline. Ted on Flash mentioned that Adobe is working to make all the sessions (4TB worth) available on Adobe TV come the first week of December. Right now on Adobe TV is a sweet series of CS4 videos worth checking out.
CoCoMo is the coolest thing out of Max this year. Instant real-time communities with 5 – 10 lines of Flex Code. Anyone should be able to drop in a chat, whiteboard or even a cam-chat pod into their site no problem and developers can take advantage of the Shared Model class to create custom real-time applications. It’s available now on adobe labs with generous beta privileges. (25 concurrent users)
Flash is coming to Android! Andy Rubin who’s Google’s director of mobile development was running around with Flash on his T1 making everyone including myself (even though I wasn’t there) insanely jealous.
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There are people doing the same thing you’re doing and you don’t know them and you can’t see them, but they’re out there. When you’re on a roll, they’re on a roll. When you get stuck, they get stuck. And of the million or so flash developers in the world one or two have been stuck in the mud, same as you.
How does one account for such an occurance? What I mean is, how do you realize you’re in someone else’s shoes while wearing them? How can you tell if you’re in the presence of a million ghosts?
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