Video: Schematic shows multi-touch wall. Runs on Flash. Built with Flex.
Microsoft has (rightfully) gotten a lot of attention with their Surface multi-touch table. Schematic has now raised the bar. In Cannes at the Cannes Lions festival, they were showing a 3.5m (12ft) x 1.5m (5ft) multi-touch/multi-user intelligent wall which puts the Surface to shame.
The massive display gives attendees instant access to the complete festival program, 3D maps of the event and surrounding area, and information on local restaurants and bars. The Touchwall also helps delegates schedule meetings with each other and trade contact information via email. The presentation layer is built with the Flex 4 framework and runs on Flash Player 10.
I interviewed John Barton, Senior Solutions Architect at Schematic and asked him about the wall’s features, how it was built and where they are taking this next.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get something like this at MAX?
Behind the scenes of the New York Times Reader application
XD Senior Experience Design Manager Jeremy Clark and Senior Experience Developer Daniel Wabyick discuss their collaboration with The New York Times on the AIR-based Times Reader.
For even more background information on how the application was built, check out the Experience Design Team site.
if you haven’t tried the Times Reader application yet, go and grab it on http://timesreader.nytimes.com/.
1 student + a camera + After Effects + 3DS Max = Hollywood interest
This morning, I was watching the latest YouTube hit “What’s In The Box” and was absolutely amazed by the quality of this “test movie”.
Tim Smit is a Dutch student who did most of this work on his own… He recorded the footage in his hometown and edited it in his bedroom… He used After Effects and 3DS MAX for the special effects. Total budget spent: €150.
He puts the video on YouTube. When the video hit 500k views (already over 1 million views now), he starts getting calls from all the big Hollywood studios. They are baffled when he tells them how it’s made and how “big” the budget was… So far none of the Hollywood studios have made him an offer but he is now talking to a couple of them about actually producing his movie.
Make sure you watch it in high quality! Amazing work!
Video tutorial: Use Flex for your ActionScript coding for Flash CS4
There are a couple of ways you can use Flex and Flash together. I’ve already showed you a couple of those in previous tutorials. In this video, I’ll show you how to use the SWC files created by a Flex library project in Flash CS4. That way, you can have an ActionScript developer work in Flex who can then hand off compiled SWC files to a Flash designer.
Video tutorial: Use the Flex webservice component in Flash CS4 projects
In this video, I’ll show you how you can use the webservice component from the Flex framework in your Flash CS4 projects. If you’re missing the webservice component in Flash, just use the one in the Flex framework.
UPDATE: My sincere apologies. There is an error in my code which I did not explain in the video.
Line 10 should not read myWebService.load but myWebService.loadWSDL.
I do remember we recorded this one twice and I fear that that’s where the mixup happened. Please download the working FLA below.
Download the FLA file.
Video tutorial: Introduction to Adobe’s mobile platform
Adobe’s mobile platform has become a lot more interesting for Flash developers this week. Instead of having to open up the Flash Player on your device to watch the Flash content you created, you can now package your application using the Mobile Packager and distribute your application as an SIS-file for Symbian S60 or CAB-file for Window Mobile phones. Your users can now download and install your Flash based application on their mobile device just like any other application they install. What’s even cooler is that we also package a Flash Version Checker together with your application. As soon as the user launches the application, the Flash Version Checker is going to check if the Flash Player is installed and if it is the correct version. If not, it’s going to download and install the Flash Lite runtime seamlessly. Exactly like you would do on a PC and exactly as it should be. Check out Andrew Shorten’s blog post on the installation process.
I’ve recorded a little video that walks you through the process and will be doing more videos on how to build mobile applications soon.
Feel free to follow me on: 
