Keep an eye on http://muscle-jump.com/

New toys goooood ;-)
If you’re anything like me you’ve probably already downloaded the new Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 betas from Labs. If not… Do so now! I know I’ve said this many times before but I’ll repeat it again: We release these betas so that you can test your existing content and start playing around with the new features early. If you encounter anything weird or out of the ordinary then do let us know!

Right… My favorite new features…

For Flash Player 11 it has to be Stage3D (the API previously know as Molehill). 3D on the web is nothing new but when all of a sudden (just about) every web user has 3D capabilities it becomes a whole different ball game. I’m really looking forward to see what you guys build with it. Some of the early demos are absolutely mind-blowing. Another great feature in Flash Player 11 (and an easy one to miss) is native JSON support! (Both features are also available in AIR 3. Stage3D currently only available for desktop. Stage3D for mobile will be enabled in a future release.)

AIR 3 beta 2 is also a really exciting beta release! My favorite feature for AIR 3 is definitely the ability to add the AIR runtime to your installer package. So with AIR 3 you can control exactly which version of the runtime an app executes against and make the installation process a lot easier as well. Hardware accelerated video (aka StageVideo) on mobile is also a big one. And let’s not forget the addition of the encrypted local storage feature on mobile.

Both betas are available on Labs. Flash on!

The runtime teams are on a roll! Flash Player 10.2 was only released to the general public just last month and the first beta of Flash Player 10.3 was already on Adobe Labs just a few weeks after that. Today the second beta of Flash Player 10.3 is available on Labs.

Flash Player 10.3 introduces new developer features and enhanced user privacy protection, such as:

• Media measurement
• Acoustic echo cancellation
• Integration with browser privacy control for local storage
• Native control panel
• Auto-update notification for Mac OS

We’ve also just released AIR 2.7 on Labs. AIR 2.7 also has the media measurement and acoustic echo cancellation features from Flash Player 10.3 as well as an enhanced HTMLLoader API.

These new beta runtimes are available so that you can test your existing content and start playing around with the new APIs. If you find an issue make sure you tell us about it!

Another fantastic example demonstrating the power of Molehill. In this video Eugene Zatepyakin produced a special shader to control the light in an AR 3D scene using a real world lightmap from his ASFEAT 3D engine.

Molehill can also be used for 2D projects. Terry Paton recorded his findings in this video:

Flash on!

As a Flash developer you always want to have the latest (beta) Flash Player (like the Flash Player Incubator preview) installed to make sure your current applications still work and to play around with the new APIs. But it’s also important to know how your application behaves in the most current public version. You may also want to switch between the debug and release version of the most current public version. There are a few ways of doing this but Google Chrome makes it very easy for you.

As you know Google Chrome comes with Flash Player baked in and also automatically updates itself to the latest available release version. Next to this baked-in version you can also install a debug or beta version. By simply going to the about:plugins URL you can switch between those two versions.

The only caveat is that you can only switch between two versions and that one version will always be the most current release version. But hey… It doesn’t get much easier than this… Just disable the one you don’t need and enable the one you want to use. You don’t even have to restart your browser.

Another great reason to use Google Chrome ;-)