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The first public beta of the Flash Player 10 code-named “Astro” is on Adobe Labs. Be sure to check out Pixel Bender (formerly known as Hydra) to create custom filters and effects. When you have installed the beta visit the demo site to get some impressions.
Ryan Stewart and InsideRIA posted nice summaries so far.
Adobe and Industry Leaders Establish Open Screen Project. Have a look at the new OSP website and listen to CTO Kevin Lynch.
“The Open Screen Project is dedicated to driving consistent rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. The Open Screen Project is supported by technology leaders, including Adobe, ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics Inc., Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless, and leading content providers, including BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC Universal, who want to deliver rich Web and video experiences, live and on-demand across a variety of devices.”
Since today the formats SWF 9, FLV and AMF Specs are open and free from license restrictions.
It is all about leveraging Flash and AIR to provide a consistent runtime environment cross-platform and across devices and consumer electronics.
Now is this cool news? I am sure all Flash/Flex/AIR developers open up a beer! I will do now 
Some more links:
Andé Michelle anounced that you can now try out the Hobnox Audiotool withouth a beta invitation or registration.
“Here it is, it’ll supply you with an emulator of some famous little machines, used by DJs, producers and bands all over the planet. Right now, we can equip you with a rebuilt Roland TR-808, TR-909, TB-303 and some floorboards. Interested? Give it a try!”
I tried it out during the beta and really liked the app which works very intuitively as you can simple link the boards and effects by drag-n-drop the cable between them.
You must have heard that Yahoo rejects the Microsoft offer due to undervalue and Microsoft renews bit.
Besides that Yahoo released nice things this week: The first was the long expected Yahoo! Maps AS3 Components and second a very nice 3D Flex appliation called Yahoo! NewsGlobe (btw: I like camelcase brands).
It’s nice to see Yahoo’s involvement in the Flash Platform. Check more on there Flash Developer Center.
The MAX in Barcelona is great and today is already the last day.
Grant Skinner’s Session “50 reasons why ActionScript 3 kicks ass” was really cool so be sure to check his talk online.
“Customizing the Flex Framework” was presented by Ely Greenfield who made the talk for Deepa who could not come to Barcelona. Check Deepa’s blog were the slides and code is posted.
Another great talk was “Local Database Access with AIR and Data Synchroization Strategies” by Christophe Coenraets. He showed the different approaches how to synchronize data like SQL statements in the MXML, using the Data Access Object Pattern and the Object-Relational mapping (ORM) approach using annotations (custom metadata) and the Reflexion API (describeType). Christophe has posted some code regarding the ORM approach on this blog. Now this is opens real new possibilities. Now let’s wait when Hibernate or ActiveRecord is adapted for Flex Now the talk of Peter Elst starts (AS3 Best Practice) so more to come soon.
The MAX in Chicago is just over and many awesome new things came up.
There are new betas for Flex 3 and AIR and the prerelease of the new Adobe Media Player.
Other new betas, tools and plugins are on Adobe Labs so check it out.
If you want to view the sneak peeks check Aral Balkan’s blog for Flash Player 10 and Thermo and Peter Elst’s blog for the rest ;).
Just to name a view new things Flash Player 10 (Astro) with new text rendering engine, 3D support and AIF rocks. Thermo is a dream for Flex designer developer workflow.
The sneak peek of “Flash “Next” showed cool new timeline features and inverse kinematics!
Flash on C/C++ offers new ways and the Quake demo was really great. With Flash Home it is possible to build rich and intelligente mobile user interfaces and Photoshop Express impressed with wonderfull image effects.
Not featured in the videos but very powerfull too are the Flex Skin Design Extensions. There are plugins for Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash to build really custom designed components! So in the future you have to look twice to recognize a Flex app
I will be at MAX in Barcelona and I am sure I will explore more cool stuff.
Boom! Flash Video will go to a new level.
Today Adobe anounced “the latest update for Adobe® Flash® Player 9 software, code-named Moviestar, which includes H.264 standard video support - the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray® and HD-DVD® high definition video players - and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, as well as hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback.”
For a detailed introduction check Tinic’s blog!
The Flash Player Update 3 Beta 2 will be available on labs today.
Josh Tynjala wrote an article about “How to make your hot new RIA friendly to search engines“.
[via onflex.org/ted]
There are two new Extensions on Adobe Labs which are very interesting.
If you want to design and animate in Flash and you want to use this in Flex the Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3 is the thing you are looking for.
The AIR Extension for Dreamweaver will allow you to package and preview .air application files directly within Adobe Dreamweaver CS3–leveraging your existing web development skills to build desktop-enabled distributed applications and experiences with the Adobe AIR framework.
Modules are a very important concept to separate different aspects in your application and for later re usage in other applications. Last but not least Modules will save compilation time as only the Module and not the complete project is being compiled.
Modules were introduce in Flex 2.01 Hotfix 2 and Moxie (Flex Builder 3 beta) also supports creating and controlling Modules within Flex Builder.
Learn more about Modules in Alex 360 Flex presentation and check the livedocs. About the new Moxie features also check BK Flex blog entry.
