The future of Flash brighter than ever

Posted by on Feb 28, 2011 in Flash | 3 comments

Yesterday at the Flash Gaming Summit in San Francisco Adobe launched the Adobe AIR and Flash Player Incubator program. The Incubator is a technology preview program for more adventurous developers who are willing to experiment with Flash Platform runtime features that are in early development stages.

One of those features is the Molehill API for 3D. Molehill is a new set of low-level, GPU-accelerated 3D APIs that enable advanced 3D experiences across devices through the Flash Platform runtimes. Adobe worked closely with the most popular ActionScript 3D frameworks so that not only advanced 3D developers can take advantage of these new APIs. These 3D frameworks already have Molehill enabled versions available today:

But Molehill does not just offer high performance 3D APIs but can also be used for 2D graphics! Flash Player Product Manager Thibault Imbert has more information and an example on his blog.

Unity added the cherry on top of yesterday’s news. They announced that an upcoming version of Unity (the very popular game development tool) will allow developers to target Flash Player. I can’t wait to play around with it!

These are very exciting times for Flash developers! Check out Tinic Uro’s blog to see how you can start playing with Molehill today!

Flash on!

New Molehill demo video by Flare3D

Posted by on Feb 23, 2011 in Cool stuff, Flash Player | Comments Off

Flash is great for social gaming. We all know that. But Flare3D is showing off the “next generation of social gaming” using the upcoming Molehill APIs. Molehill is going to bring Flash (and the web) to a whole new level!

Flash on!

(Hat tip @JosephLabrecque)

YouTube’s Life in a Day and Vacationer powered by Flash

Posted by on Sep 9, 2010 in Cool stuff, Video | Comments Off

Life in a Day
A few weeks ago YouTube and Ridley Scott announced a new project called Life in a Day. They asked everyone to record one day: July 24th. 80.000 videos were submitted to the project and YouTube just launched the official gallery which is viewable as a 3D sphere or a simple tiled list.

Vacationer
YouTube also launched a new branded travel channel. The new YouTube Vacationer travel channel includes videos with travel tips and advice from experts from National Geographic, Travel Channel, Howcast, and more. It features videos from Caribbean, European, U.S. and Canada, and “exotic” destinations. The interactive “Vacation You” feature allows you to create your own video for your dream vacation… Oh man… Watching these videos made me realize how much I’m in need of some vacation time… Until then I guess YouTube’s Vacationer will have to do… ;-)

Flash on!

Create your own online AR 3D storybooks

Posted by on Jul 7, 2010 in Cool stuff, Flash Platform | Comments Off

Thanks to Flash augmented reality has become accesible to anyone with a browser and a webcam without the need to download anything extra. There are some pretty amazing examples and apps out there but this one is pretty unique.

ZooBurst is a new service where kids can write their own stories and create their own pop-up books. The 3D book builder is built on top of the Flash Platform and lets you add images, animations, speech balloons, and more in an easy to use interface. When you’re done creating your book you can share it on your blog or social network pages. The coolest part of ZooBurst is the reading mode. When you click on a book it shows you the 3D world you created. The real fun starts when you enable the webcam mode. In webcam mode you control the 3D view with an AR marker. It also allows you to use gestures to flip pages. Just wave your hand from right to left to flip the page.

Check out the videos below. Flash on!

5 Flash applications that will blow your mind

Posted by on Jun 8, 2010 in Flash Platform | 5 comments

Yell.com Maps
“A 3D map? We’ve seen that before!” Trust me… This is 3D mapping like you’ve never seen before! It’s hard to explain when you look at this static image so just check it out yourself! Hat tip to Jerome who posted this in a comment on my blog.

UJam
I already blogged about UJam earlier but they’ve added a bunch of new videos to their YouTube channel. The video below completely blew me away. There’s no doubt in my mind that UJam is going to democratize has a good chance at democratizing music making. It’s made in Europe (Germany to be precise) and would not be possible without the Flash Platform!

The Land of Me
This is a pretty amazing AIR application built for children. It’s an interactive storybook like no other. The graphics look stunning and I’m sure kids will love this. The main characters take you on an adventure where kids are encouraged to be creative and playfully learn new words and skills. The video below is a demo of the first chapter in the app/book. A demo version is available on madeinme.com. It runs in AIR and thus runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

IS Parade
Ok… Maybe this won’t immediately blow you away but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. This is probably the sexiest Twitter visualization I’ve seen so far. You just enter a keyword and the app will create your own personal parade with cute looking characters that are based on the people tweeting about that keyword. The server may be a little bit slow (located in Japan) but it’s well worth the wait. Check it out!

FreeYourDance.com
Video on the web is no longer just about playing a video. It’s also about personalized and interactive video. FreeYourDance.com (created for Jabra) is a lot of fun. It uses your webcam to track your movements as you try to follow the dance moves shown by the dance instructor. It’s a lot of fun… especially the unexpected surprise at the end! (Hat tip to FWA)

Liked these? Then go check out http://swfhead.com/flash for more cool Flash stuff!