Adobe and Intel are hosting an event later today in San Francisco around AIR development and distribution. Obviously not all of you live close to the bay area, but the event will be broadcasted live via Connect. You can follow it on http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/applab.

I heard through the grapevine that we may even launch a few new things on Adobe Labs after the event… So join the Connect session and keep an eye on Labs ;-)

I know this event is in the middle of the night for us here in Europe but it will be worth it.

Agenda: ( Time in PST. Check this link for the time in your location. )
5:30 PM – Flash Platform Services Overview (Adobe)
6:00 PM – Intel AppUp Center Business Model and Opportunity (Intel)
7:00 PM – Technical Deep Dive (Adobe)
8:30 PM – Staffed Open Lab (Adobe and Intel)

Last year I had the pleasure of speaking at Adobe’s Dev Summit in Bangalore, India. Over 1000 people attended the event and it was an amazing experience that I won’t soon forget. This year the event is going to be even bigger and better.

The Flash Platform Summit is now a 2 day event with over 40 sessions from local and internationally renowned industry leaders and Adobe experts. Sadly I won’t be able to be attend the event this year but I got a sneak peek at the speaker list and it’s already pretty impressive. Trust me… You won’t be disappointed! If you would like to be on stage at the Adobe Flash Platform Summit you can also still enter your session proposals.

If you register before June 25th you even get 60% off! If you’re in the region and are interested in the Flash Platform, you can’t afford to miss this event! Register today!

People have asked me which apps I use on my Nexus One quite a few times already so I thought I’d do a blog post on it.

Adobe AIR & Flash Player 10.1
I don’t think this needs too much explanation ;-) Having Flash Player 10.1 in the browser really is a blessing. When breaking news happens I can just open up the browser, browse to my favorite news site, and watch the news videos. When I’d like to play a game, I can just browse to Miniclip, Kongregate or any other casual gaming site and play the game in the browser. If I like the game I can later get the game as a standalone app built on top of the AIR runtime. With AIR on my Nexus One I can use the skills that I already know to build my own apps with ActionScript 3 and use the tools that I’m used to. Love it! If you have an Android device that runs on Eclair or Froyo you can get AIR on your device today! If you have Froyo on your device you can just get Flash Player 10.1 Beta in the Android Market!

Astro File Manager
I love that I have complete control over my file system. Astro helps you manage your files on your SD card, can make backups on the device, shows you which files and folders use the most storage space, and much much more.

Beautiful Widgets
One thing I really like about HTC’s Sense UI is the home screen weather/clock widget. The Nexus One doesn’t have the Sense UI but with Beautiful Widgets I can still have that weather/clock widget. As a frequent traveller I also like that it automatically updates the time and weather to wherever I am based on my GPS coordinates. With just one click on the home widget it shows me a 5-day forecast. It also comes with a bunch of other widgets. Those allow you to quickly change a setting with one click on the widget. I have the “silent”, “plane”, “wifi” and “bluetooth” widget on my second homescreen so I can quickly switch those on or off.

Chroma Circuit
Chroma Circuit is one of the first Flash-based games that was compiled as an AIR for Android application. It is very addictive ;-) Since it is a Flash-based app you can also play this in your browser today. On the Nexus One it takes full advantage of the new multi-touch API available in AIR 2.0 and Flash Player 10.1. (This application is currently only available in private pre-release.)

Photoshop.com Mobile
Want to change the exposure, saturation or contrast on a photo? Maybe add a quick effect or a border around it? Photoshop.com Mobile does exactly that. You simply pick an image from you camera roll, edit it and share it with your friends on Photoshop.com, Twitter or Facebook.

doubleTwist
doubleTwist just released a media player application a few days ago. It looks absolutely gorgeous and is very easy to use. I like it so much that I think it should be the default media player app on every Android device. As an added bonus, it integrates seamlessly with the doubleTwist desktop making syncing my media library as easy as it was on my iPhone.

NewsRob
As a regular reader of my blog you know that I am a news junkie. Google Reader is one of the first sites I open up in the morning. When I am on the road I use NewsRob. It syncs all my unread articles from Google Reader and allows me to read them on my phone even when I’m not connected.

Dropbox
I absolutely love Dropbox! I have all my Flash/Flex projects files on it as well as all my presentations, AS3 libs I regularly use, documents, … I use it a lot! The mobile app allows me to quickly send a link to a file to a colleague and allows me to review my slides on the go.

Evernote
Another app I use a lot. I use Evernote for various things. For instance when I park my car at the airport, I take a quick picture of where I actually parked it and store that in Evernote. When I use Twitter on my Nexus One and see a link to a site I want to check out, I just click the “share” button and add that tweet to Evernote. By the way… I really love how different apps are connected on Android. That share menu is available in a lot of apps and it just lists all the applications that can accept stuff to share. So with that same menu I can send that tweet via email, to Facebook, in an SMS message, … Love it!

Finance
I keep a close eye on the stock market. I use Google Finance in the browser on the desktop and in this app on my Nexus One. The app also comes with home screen widgets and I have a couple of those installed. These home screen widgets are really one of the major advantages of the Android platform. They update automatically and so you always have the latest info on your home screen.

Foursquare
Besides being a news junkie, I think I am also a social networking junkie… I joined FourSquare a few months ago but never really got in to it. I’m giving it another shot now. I love the tips people can leave about a certain venue/location.

Gridshock
Gridshock was also originally a browser based game built with Flash. I’m running it on the Nexus One as a standalone application on the AIR runtime. Very addictive! ;-) (This application is currently only available in private pre-release.)

Hello Proximus
This app is pretty simple but very useful. The app monitors my data usage. It tells me how many MB I have left in my overpriced data plan. It shows you exactly how much you have left on your national and roaming plan.

Let’s Golf
I used to play this game on my iPhone and wanted to see how well it performed on my Nexus One. It rocks! I bought it in Gameloft’s online shop which circumvents the need to get access to the Android Market. (Officially you still can’t get access to the Market in Belgium! Google needs to fix this ASAP!)

Qrossfire
Another AIR based game that originally started out as a browser based Flash game… I currently play this one the most. (This application is currently only available in private pre-release.)

RunKeeper
A few months ago I started running again. There are a lot of apps on the Android Market that keep track of your exercises but I like the UI on this one. Writing this reminds me that I should get back in to gear. It’s been a few weeks since I was last out running…

Tripit
I said this many times before but will repeat it again: If you are a frequent traveller, you have to use Tripit! I don’t think I could do this job without it. I really like the UI on their Android version much better than their iPhone version. It’s easier to read and just feels nicer.

Vignette
Vignette is one of those special effect camera type apps. It has 55 different LOMO, toy camera, tilt-shift and Polaroid style effects and 17 different frames.

WordPress
This also doesn’t need much explaining. I love how their Android version even allows me to get notifications of new comments.

These are just a couple of apps I use regularly. Besides these I also use the stock email and calendar app which now (in Froyo) works with our Exchange setup. I also use tethering quite a bit. Being able to share your 3G connection as a wifi access point is just amazing and it works very well. I also use the Twitter for Android and Facebook for Android app a lot and I really love how this data is also linked with your contacts. The navigation feature in Froyo is also a big plus although it is not available in Belgium (Please fix this Google!). I used it in London a few weeks ago and was really impressed. I have a Tom Tom with US maps on it for when I travel to the US but that’s going up for sale now.

So far there hasn’t been a single day that I missed my iPhone or any of the apps I used on it… Oh… wait… I’m lying. I miss the iPass app! As a frequent traveller I have access to iPass, a roaming service for wifi hotspots. I have it on my laptop but also used to have it on my iPhone. And I could also use an Android version of Concur, the system we use for expenses.

A few years ago I used to work for Belgium’s biggest commercial broadcaster. In my last year there (now 7 years ago) I investigated interactive TV. I was pretty disappointed to see what was available at that time. Almost 5 years ago my local cable operator (Telenet) launched interactive digital TV in Belgium and I was still disappointed. While their set-top box is connected to the web, it only uses it to “call home” when you order VOD content. Ooh… and you can read your email on it…

A few weeks ago, Telenet updated their set-top box UI… And I was still disappointed. Telenet is in a unique position. They are already in my house with an Internet connected STB that is connected to my big screen TV. This is where I want to see my web content. When I search for my favorite TV show, I want to see when it plays on my favorite TV channels but I also want it to show me related web content from YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, … When I browse their VOD content, I want to read other people’s reviews from IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Twitter, … That is what I want from my digital tv… And Google just launched it at Google I/O. Google TV is exactly what I want to see on my TV… It’s 2010 for God’s sake! Unfortunately I live in Belgium and I probably will not see Google TV any time soon…

Here’s a demo of Google TV recorded by the Adobe TV team. Oh… And before I forget: Google TV runs Flash Player 10.1 and AIR!

How’s that for a controversial title? But… It’s true… Hear me out!

First of all let me say that I have absolutely nothing against HTML5! Innovation and competition is always good and keeps everyone on their toes. UPDATE: I also want to emphasize that this is not a fight. HTML5 and Flash can live together just fine and can even complement each other!

One of the first blog posts I read this morning was one on AppleInsider. An Apple spokeswoman claimed that Adobe’s Mike Chambers got it all backwards when he blogged about Apple’s closed system. That’s not the part that made me cringe though. She said that “it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary“.

Ok… So… Let’s analyze that a little bit… Let’s begin with the biggest claim here: H.264. Last time I checked, H.264 was far from open. It is owned by a private organization known as MPEG LA who said earlier this year that “Internet Video that is free to end users would continue to be exempt from royalty fees until at least December 31, 2015“. Nobody knows what is going to happen after 2015. The patents awarded to MPEG LA don’t expire until 2028. So… to make this clear… H.264 is not open.

So what about HTML5, CSS and JavaScript… Those are open, right? Well yeah. The specs are open meaning that everyone can download those specs and build an application around it to display that language. Hey… Wait a minute… That sounds a lot like Flash! The specs for FLV (Flash video), SWF (the file format for Flash Player), AMF (the binary format for exchanging data) and RTMP (the protocol used for transmission of audio, video, and data) are all published and can be downloaded by anyone.

The specs for HTML5 are decided by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). The WHATWG was founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004, after a W3C workshop. Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. Anyone can participate as a Contributor by joining the WHATWG mailing list. The same goes for Flash. Our bugbase is open to anyone and anyone can view bugs and add feature requests.

But the Flash runtime is closed! Ok… Sure… Flash Player is not open source although some parts are. That said… Ask yourself this: Is your browser open source? The only browser that is completely open source is Firefox. Safari is only partly open source (only the WebKit engine). The same can be said about Chrome (in the Chromium project). However, the biggest HTML runtime out there –Internet Explorer (still used by over 50% of all internet users)– is as closed as Flash Player. And so is Opera (even though they are part of the WHATWG).

And with that, I come back to the title of this post: Flash is as open as HTML5 = HTML5 is as open as Flash.

UPDATE: You should also read “HTML5 canvas proprietary Apple technology?” by Leo Bergman and “I’d rather be a Woz” by nothingGrinder. Hat tip to Philippe and Aaron who posted this in the comments.

Note: I’m sure many of you will have some comments on this topic and I have no problem with your comments as long as you keep them constructive and on topic.

Note 2: For those who saw a drop in the comment count: I just disabled and deleted Topsy trackbacks. These are not comments but automatic pingbacks from RTs on Twitter.

(Image credit: Justin Marty)

I could not believe my ears when our team started talking about MAX 2010 a few weeks. Just now when I was writing this I realized that MAX is only a little over 6 months away!

Only 6 months away… That’s the perfect time to start looking for speakers. So… If you want to speak at MAX2010, submit your topic and your details today!

If you want to keep up with the latest news on MAX2010, you may also want to sign up for the MAX mailing list!

See in you in Los Angeles from October 23rd to 27!

Wow… I can’t believe it’s Thursday already… and that today was the last day of Mobile World Congress. The news of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR coming to mobile devices really resonated across the exhibition floor. It was amazing to see how many device manufacturers are supporting Flash Player and AIR. Just about all of them even showcased it on their booth. I saw numerous Flash Player/AIR logos all over the exhibition floor. I actually recorded a video this afternoon where I try and find as many Flash enabled devices as I possibly could… I think you’ll like the outcome of this video. It will be available on Adobe TV soon. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed of the “Adobe at Mobile World Congress” page on Adobe TV? There are already a ton of really cool videos on it and we have more to come very soon.

The highlight of the week was definitely Eric Schmidt’s (Google’s CEO) keynote presentation with Eric Tseng (Senior Product Manager for Android) demoing Flash Player 10.1. If you haven’t seen the video yet, make sure you check it out!

We’ve also posted a little over 200 photos on our Photoshop.com page. They were taken by the Adobe MWC team throughout the week so there may be a few duplicates. If you didn’t make it to Barcelona this year, this will give you a little taste of MWC 2010.

Muchos gracias por su hospitalidad, Barcelona! See you next year!

Earlier this week (can you believe I really have no idea what day it is today? :)) I joined Adobe’s David Wadhwani and RIM’s Chris Smith on stage at the BlackBerry Developer Day Keynote. Afterwards I asked a couple of BlackBerry community members and application developers about how they feel about the Flash Platform coming to BlackBerry devices. The video is now available on Adobe TV.

For me, day two of Mobile World Congress started with a demo on how to build Flash based applications for BlackBerry devices. Since RIM is one of our Open Screen Partners you will soon see Flash Player 10.1 and AIR on BlackBerry devices. As a Flash developer I am obviously very excited about that. BlackBerry has traditionally been an enterprise platform, one that uses Java as its core developer platform. Bringing Flash Player 10.1 and AIR to these devices opens up a whole new world for Flash Developers but also for BlackBerry users.

At today’s BlackBerry Developer Day we showed some of the new workflows between Adobe’s creative tools and both RIM’s and Adobe’s development environments. With the upcoming BlackBerry plugin for Illustrator, it’s incredibly easy to create assets for different screen sizes. It also simplifies communicating with the developer as he only needs to import one file in to the BlackBerry development environment he’s comfortable with. We’ve also demoed how you can soon build Flash based applications for BlackBerry phones and how Device Central makes it easy to test those applications as if you were using it on the actual device. Developers can use Device Central to test and tweak different screen resolutions and test the application as if it was running on the phone. The next version of Device Central will even allow you to test features like the accelerometer and multi-touch.

I talked to a number of BlackBerry application developers (video will be available on Adobe TV soon) who were at the keynote this morning and it was great to see their enthusiasm. Not only are they very excited about the improvements both RIM and Adobe are trying to make to streamline the communication between designers and developers but I could definitely feel the excitement about Flash Player and AIR coming to these devices as well.

I really like how RIM and the BlackBerry community are embracing the idea of being able to include Flash content in their mobile sites and applications. I can’t wait to see which types of “super apps” the BlackBerry community is going to build once they have Flash Player and AIR on the devices and to see what types of apps the Flash community is going to build for BlackBerry devices.

Make sure you keep an eye on the BlackBerry developer blog. A video of the keynote will be posted there as well as a bunch of information on how to build apps for BlackBerry devices.

Flash on!

Believe me when I say that Adobe is going to rock at Mobile World Congress next week! I wish I could tell you about all of our announcements today but you’re gonna have to wait a little longer…

If you are in Barcelona for MWC, please come and say hi! The Adobe booth is located in hall 1 (stand 1D45). We’ve teamed up with lots of content and device partners and we will be showing lots of cool stuff at the booth!

Keep an eye on my blog and the Flash Platform blog for more info throughout the week!

Hope to see you there!