How do you win? Easy! Take out your crystal ball and take a look in to the future of the Flash Platform. Where do you see the Flash Platform 5, 10 or 20 years from now? What would you add or change to the Flash Platform?
Be creative! You can use both the power of words and the power of pixels. If you want to create mockup of Flash CS10 or Flash Builder 10, then please do so. If you are better with words, feel free to type away. Leave a comment with a link to your image or just post your thoughts. Please enter your real name and email address.
Winners will be picked based on creativity, originality and/or interesting ideas. Winners will be announced on Monday, August 17th 2009 on this blog. Deadline: Sunday, August 16th, 2009 00:00GMT
Looking forward to hear your thoughts and ideas!
Flash would power the interface to the bionic human, either an attachable head set with HUD or an implant in your brain.
Functionality would include but not limited to:
• Augmented reality to enhance your vision
• Face recognition so you don’t have to remember the names of your bosses kids
• Gesture recognition so no need for an input device
• Natural speech recognition
• A camera or taped directly into you eye so it can see what you see
• Direct link to the internet for any information you need at any time
• Flash based games
• Communication links (wireless) to other devices for syncing and updates
• Controls to release endorphins and other chemicals to keep you happy
• Sensors on vital organs so it can worn of imminent or future failure
Basically we will be part robot and Flash will be an integral part of it.
Flash UI on multi-touch remote control.
Operating systems booting up to Flash(SWF) UI.
Operating systems built on top of Flash which will natively talk to the hardware.
Voice recognition and generation natively from the hardware through communicating to flash.(Flash API call)
Billboard signs with flash display,which can sense touch and voice.
Well,car and bike speedometer display with flash,which will get the data directly from hardware.
In the future there will be lumps of a shiny malleable metallic substance that will also be a computer. Instead of changing output to a screen, programming for this substance will change it’s actual form and function.
Flash will be the programming platform of choice for this substance. There will also be an API for the 4th dimension, for basic time travel capability.
Unfortunately the actual programmers will be machines themselves, bent on the destruction of the human race. They may however be lenient on human ActionScript developers. But ActionScript 3+ only.
Even further into the future, the machines will use humans for an endless energy source. To keep the humans happy, they will wire them into a virtual reality, by downloading flash player directly into their brains. In an ironic twist, some of the humans will have jobs as software developers in this virtual reality “matrix”, and they will help maintain the software which enslaves them. For example, some of this maintenance might entail blogging or posting ideas about the future of the flash platform.
5 yrs: The Flash player will be a multi-threaded powerhouse that is the standard platform for all 3D game development…
10 yrs: augmented reality will actually be “Flash holograms” that shoot out of devices in “true” 3D
15 yrs: the flash platform is the standard for communications, product development teams no longer have to work virtually because their holographic personas interact with each other and it feels like your teammates are sitting their at the conference table with you even though they may be halfway around the world
20 years: we now live in a virtual reality and Flash has become self-aware =)
cheers!!!
…by the way, I think Darren Walker should get first prize… either that is one REALLY creative dude or he’s been eating “magical brownies” =))
People will still be in control of the platform, Flash will continue its role of slave to mankind. Following human wishes it will increasingly integrate in the physical world. Flash player will run on your train ticket (showing directions in the station and reminding that your destination is approaching), miniature media device (letting you see the choice on a hologram and listening to your voice commands) and radiator (changing the relief of the surface to give you controls of temperature). But at the same time Flash will continuously support the migration of software to the cloud and will be on the screens to represent and allow manipulation of increasingly complicated data.
As code execution speeds will increase a lot of the new functionality (adobe or community initiated) will come as open frameworks of code. This is how the same Flash player will be capable to span all those different places. But programmers will also enjoy the reappearance of the temporarily lost simplicity. For example developers will once again have myBtn.onRollOut = doSmth by not loosing the listener model.
Too bad my crystal ball does not mention when exactly this will all be true, but I guess it does not know that yet itself – it still depends on the community.
In the future there will be only one IDE, no Flash Professional CS X or Flash Builder X. There can be only one the “Flash Award IDE” which is a fully featured IDE with only a single button labeled “Create FWA award winning website”.
But we will all have to beware of the rip-off from Microsoft called “Silverlight Prize IDE”, it will be developed upon in the future even though penetration rates are 1-3% and it works differently in every browser.
I believe flash is a powerful platform for creating web application and its really amazing with that.
But if I consider the AIR application which are kind of being talked about these days are really not that great although they inherit the excellent look and feel of the UI from flash/flex. But lets accept the fact that AIR is a desktop application and not a web application. We cannot build a great desktop application with a single threaded model which flash exposes.
I completely agree and accept the fact that the adoption of flash is more than any other technology in that space and the biggest reason for this is the ease of use it offers(does many of the difficult things on its own and offers a very simple and easy to use interface for the users (developers). The way it handles the UI with single threaded model is also an beauty of this platform.
But when it comes to desktop application you are really taking about a processor exhaustive execution and not thick web clients hence developing such kind of application with single threaded model is really not going to scale.
Another good reason for having a multi threaded execution model for the application is the multi core CPUs. If I have a quad core CPU and I write a AIR application in which I am doing hell lot of a calculation on my data or doing some sort of image processing in my application, I will have my one CPU do all the good work while rest two of them are sitting ideal eating up my energy and doing nothing. With multi threaded model I would be able to take much use of my multi core CPUs.
I think this is something that I would like to see very soon, even in less than 5 years, because I think its demand of time and I am sure people are really looking for it in one or other way.
Saurabh
In the future Flash will…
*run on every device, from mobile phones to dry cleaners and lawn mowers.. and interact with each other via coldfusion so you can steer your lawn mower with your phone.. from space
*support multi touch with dirty finger detection
*fully emulate Silverlight .. faster than native Silverlight
*support the HumanBrainEvent.WAKE_UP & HumanBrainEvent.THINK events
*render fonts the same way on Mac and PC
*timeline where you can go back in time, changing history as we know it
*the first GPS on the moon will be completely built in Flash
*Windows 10 will be coded in Flash
*Flash will be renamed Flex Builder
*run on the iPhone ?
Cyberdyne corporations has bought adobe company and started designing fully autonomic bionic military devices.
From then everything done with flash or adobe for that matter is classified. I think we all know the rest…
J. Connor
In the future, Flash will be everywhere we look, running on a little computer lodged in our brain, so we won’t need augmented reality apps on Android or iPhone as we’ll be looking at an augmented reality right through our eyes, with Flash being the UI.
No way I think my post got 86′d when I sent it.
@Collin: This does seem to be the only comment that came through…
less-than-5 Years: Adobe will introduce the Flone OS (pronounced ‘flown’), built on an improved AIR kernal (AIR-Popped?, Popcorn?), and will immediately have the largest pool of developers of mobile software. Within a year of it’s launch Palm and MS will give up.
24 Years from now: MS, Palm, & Blackberry will have gone under and, with the introduction of laser powered projection technology that can create any size screen in daylight, on any surface, “Phones” ( and Flones) will have replaced netbooks, laptops and most work stations. We’ll also all be programming in 10th+ level languages (AS8, 10? because AS9 would be… asinine), but because the world has run out of fresh water (lets be a little realistic here), any advantages in efficiency are countered by constant dehydration headaches.
ah-ha! the less-than symbol causes a silent failure when…
Serge,
As you seem to be a ginnie who is asking me for my wishes, I would like to make one more, please.
Currently when I have to apply an effect on a Flex component, I have to write the effect object then add that flex component to the target of that effect object and then configure the effect.
Why not have simple model for developer when ever he has to apply an effect on the component it apears as if its a proeprty of that component and by setting the propertis itself one can use the effect directly, obviously this property will have some subproperties like duration and stuff, but effect should be directly act as a proeprty of the flex component and not as a nother component in your application.
I am sure this will be very helpful for the users if its this way. :)
Just a wish.
-Saurabh.
@ Saurabh: You can actually already add an effect object directly to some events on a component. For instance, you can ‘attach’ it on the show or hide event.
@Serge: Yes thats true but if you really look at it I have to create seperate components and then attach these things to the respective controls.
I think it will be great if “A text box has a proeprty called as Effects and we specify the effect and its property right there it self and preferably from the UI and not the code. By this you can actually are able to make more sense out of it that your test box has a rotation effect property which you can specify. Again this is I think from my earlier experience of learning and traning peopel on FLex development and difficulties faced during that.
Or Something like a powerpoint where in you specify the effects from the list of effects and then can specify one after another where in you really need not worry about what is time line and other kind of things its pretty straight forward when you use these kind of representation for the users.
I am sure this is not a great execuse as to have things done one way or other, and obviously we can do all sorts of things on effects and control right now as well, I am trying to see possible ease of use with these things even for a newbie.
There are some nice, left-field ideas in here :lol: Well, some are nice, some are freaky ;-). Think they’ll need, well, quite a few more real world cash in hand voices to get the Adobe guys paying attention though…. over some tasty mushrooms.
So, 5 years out…
Obvious point #1: multi-threading. Has to happen.
Obvious point #2: the boundaries between products will move and blur, both to allow developers to better hit their markets, and to help Adobe (or whoever, if anyone ever, takes over Adobe) strengthen and simplify their developer base. As with #1, soon. And for ever more, as long as the products exist. So Flash and Air will become more unified to allow a more elegant development tree, cutting costs, hassles, and errors for developers. Both will get to borrow tagging from ColdFusion.
Not so obvious point #3: Adobe need to kick their partnership people in the butt and get them to do whatever they can to make the new Flash/Air (Flair?) truly ubiquitous. Build an ecosystem.Signing deals to get in on the ground floor with the hardware folks over in China/Taiwan before those guys get into discussions with the Western companies sub-contracting work on product out to the Far East. Really pushing end-user experiences so that these end-users demand Flash on all devices (really. When was the last time you saw Flash pushed as a must have in a ‘must take part in’ event or campaign?). And feed all of this back to the people creating the next Flash, so their view are wider.
Not so obvious point #4: Social media integration. Like everyone else Adobe need to go where the flow (of interest, of VC money etc) is. They need to break the boundary between Flash/Air and the social media space.
Other point #5: Adobe will need to blur the edges of what is Adobe, what is open source. Could be leveraged as a bug fixing community.
Other point #6: There will be several routes into app development, suited to different users. Goes back to the ecosystem. And the fact that Flash is of interest to lots of different groups in the way that a more arcane option is not. So a fun, simple route for Joe Bloggs who has no prior, something more techie but visual for the arty types, and then full on techie for computer people.
Other point #7: gotta lead on 3D. This could be the ‘must have’ from point #3.
10 years out…
Well, my crystal ball is looking cloudy here. Must be made of low grade plastic :lol:…
If Adobe manage to make Flash truly ubiquitous then in the 10 year frame Flash/Air/xxx/yyy will have the opp to challenge as the default UI (given that direct brain tech won’t be ready for at least 11 years :lol:). If they don’t, I’ve a feeling that something else will have managed to get enough traction and momentum to, in effect, be Flash’s killer. In that scenario, forget yr 20 for Flash.
So, back to v1. Flash has become ubiquitous. The capabilities of Flash, the demands of users, and the availability of new hardware interfaces will all feed off each other to point the way forward. Lots of changes (eg direct retinal display) are just different ways of doing the same thing. So no real news. Haptics is different though. Especially when combined with holography. With you on this Dan and Edgar. Just this past month Japanese researchers have demo’d holograms that provide tactile responses using steered sound beams to create pressure points. Combined with the appropriate sensors they allow someone to, for instance, bounce a holo ball in their hand, and feel each bounce. Flash will get its tentacles into all the right places to become the glue that binds all of this together.
Meanwhile, IT has largely disappeared as far as the average user is concerned. Mobile phones have been replaced with worn sensors (the mic, speaker, medical etc.) interfacing via a PAN with a variety of UIs. Some folks’ll wear specs for direct retinal projection all the time. Some will go with these some of the time, a display rolled in their pocket other times, a fixed display (these will be everywhere. On the sides of buildings, in mirrors, sprayed onto fabrics etc) when in urban environments, whatever. And the main network will be the 2nd coming of UWB, over a net where every person, every piece of street furniture etc. is a node, and the cables and 3G towers are largely sidelined. So Flash/Air must become much more network aware. In a sense, it may even become ‘the network’. To do this it will need to grow beyond its current fairly narrow focus. And it will succeed because Microsoft, Google et al will fail to spot it coming. It will be one of Christensen’s disruptive techs, just long after anyone thought this could happen.
20 years out…
Probably dead anyway, even if it is ubiquitous at 10. Just can’t see software originated for a mid-90s tech environment being worth anything a quarter of a century later, in a time when computing is quantum, embedded everywhere, invisible, autonomous, slightly intelligent, and connecting directly with our thoughts and emotions.
It might just live on though in Xmas presents for geeky kids, a sort of great-great-great-great-great-grandkid of those big box electronic kits of the 70s. Or as a tool for teaching in primary schools.
30 years out…
Starts to make a comeback after some sort of apocalypse destroys the shiny quantum, embedded IT world…..
Well, that was a bit long winded :lol:…
Over 10 years Flash will be the main creative application all webdevelopers will use.
Flash will feature the following functions over 10 years
- Photoshop (lite version) integrated in Flash so you can quickly edit images in your Flash
- A fully featured 3D engine. So we can also render (but then optimalized for web use). So we can make highly tweaked 3D models/worlds for animations or games. Tweaked so it doesn’t crash your system when you look at it and it will run smoothly on the web.
- Database integration in Flash. Where we can make our database models in the Flash GUI and connect it directly to our Flash movie with 1 click. As simple as a class import.
- Actionscript advanced, object oriented to the max. So we can just make a 3D object with one line of code or connect Flash to a database table with one line.
- Integrated video editor like imovie, so we can do simple video effects and export it to FLV.
But the real future of Flash will be a big animation movie made in Flash and beats Shrek in a heartbeat. Animations that pop off the screen and 3D that is so real that it feels like you are inside the movie.
Last but not least… Flash will be THE operating system on all the smartphones.
in 2030 every human will now Flash perfectly so the evengelist team have to teach our new friends from the universe ;)
http://skawianczyk.pl/ufko2.jpg
As I’m much, much better with images than with words – I’ll just show this as where I see Flash Platform in 10 years – http://blackmoondev.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/flashplatform.gif
The future for Flash is bright. It will be a wild ride into the future. In the near future Flash and Flex will assimilate and become almost indistinguishable. Flash will feature better database integration, a powerful 3D engine and a host of new action script classes to facilitate designers/programmers. A Flash based social networking site will emerge and will become the hottest new kid on the block. It will leverage the capabilities of Augmented Reality, to lead to an explosion of new games and ways to interact. This will also be ported to smartphones/cellphones. Flash will become “The Man”. Get as much Adobe stock as possible ….
Maybe i’m out of context but this is the only place where i can do it.
I just want to highlight that this is only my opinion base on my own experience.
The future of Flash might be bright if Adobe will open it’s eyes. Because the situation i’m seeing now is terrible.
Yes i’m talking about Flex mistake.
I do not know how the flex was born, but what i think is that Adobe after bought Macromedia could not think something new for the Script panel. So one “dumb” guy could not fight against his ( her, do not know ) EGO, and wanted to create something new something good ( to leave his/her step in the history ), but he failed. And in the end the politics did it’s job. To many resources were wasted and we need to “swim” forward. But until now the script panel in Flex is still not working normally.
More and more project manages is seeing these cool presentations how easy you can manipulate data in flex and how fast “it” could be done ( money, money, money ). Only thing they are seeing is a new cool toy. One of the main thing that Adobe hiding not giving away more information, and same thing these project manages is missing – the performance. ( I do care about performance and weight of swf. ) I’m talking about components. Because i think they made just to be there…. And they are to tight to do magic. I mean take any component which are included in the Flex ( in Flash also, but where they came to Flex from?! From Flash. ) library, then if you know what AS3 is about create your own. I think you know what i ‘m talking about. Your component will be faster and FLEXIBLE. ( of course this depending how you will do it ).
In my opinion how a developer can call him self a Flex Developer if he does not know what AS3 is about? He just knows what components is and that’s all… I’m not kidding… This is the problem, that young Flex Developers have no idea what is happening in the background of components. In the end when we having a big project which can be done by one single AS3 developer, you need a team of Flex Developers.
I think that they made to much universal tool for using. You think no? trace ( “Hello World” ) in Flex. By default you will get 276KB swf file. Why do i need all the stuff ( by the way what stuff is there? ), my application is not using?
So the situation at the moment is like this: there is a lack of Flex Developers, because lots of those who know AS3, do not need the components ( then they do not need Flex eventually ) , do not need the overweight swf files. They can code components them self. In the end Adobe decided that we need more Developers who will adore FLEX. So they are creating FLASH Catalyst, so more designers can do the job ( and later call them self FLEX DEVELOPERS ). Then the next step rename Flex Builder to Flash builder. So then more people can be confusing about what they are doing. ( i mean the managers especially ).
So in the end i think that the Flex / Flash Builder will not swim far. And in the end it will drawn Flash to.
( if Adobe will not change it’s strategy ).
Again, this is only my opinion base on my own experience.
( no comments needed, just wanted to speak ( write ) my self up ).
p.s. sorry for my English
p.s.s. ofc I can be wrong, I’m only a human.
All’s well with the chrystal ball but what i would like for the flash platform is a phpdeveloper toolkit(dreamweaver like) extension.
What about that? :)