Tag Archives: Flash Platform

Adobe/Intel App Lab: Join us online

by Serge Jespers on 21. Jul, 2010 in Events

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)

Read full story • Comments { 5 }

Adobe Flash Platform Summit 2010 – Bangalore, India

by Serge Jespers on 10. Jun, 2010 in Events

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!

Read full story • Comments { 1 }

Video: One web. Any screen.

by Serge Jespers on 02. Apr, 2010 in Flash Platform

The video speaks for itself…

Flash brings the web to life!

Read full story • Comments { 18 }

The power of the Flash Platform: Audiotool

by Serge Jespers on 24. Mar, 2010 in Flash Platform, Flash Player

Andre Michelle and Joa Ebert have inspired and amazed me many times. The things they do with Flash are unbelievable. The new version (completely rewritten from the ground up) of their Audiotool is absolutely amazing and a must see. They built an entire electronic music studio with the Flash Platform. I cannot think of a better way to demonstrate the power of the Flash Platform than to point you to http://www.audiotool.com

Aah man… This is going to keep me busy for hours and hours and hours!

Visit audiotool.com

Read full story • Comments { 13 }

The power of the Flash Platform part 4: Online gaming

by Serge Jespers on 11. Dec, 2009 in Cool stuff, Flash Platform

farmville

There’s a good chance you immediately recognized the game in this screenshot. Over 28 million people played Farmville yesterday. Another 10 million played Cafe World. 6 million for FishVille Mafia Wars (Mafia Wars is not a Flash Game. Thanks Robert for pointing that out!). In fact, Zynga alone (maker of these games) serves 60 million players every single day… And all these games are built with the Flash Platform. I might as well stop this blog post right here because that’s a very impressive number.

There are also a ton of Flash games available on the web that are used to launch or promote a new product. Check out these games by Red Bull, Coca-Cola, and Cheetos.

Red Bull Soapbox RacerCoca-Cola Happiness FactoryOffice Pinata

There are many many many games like these out there. Know a cool one? Feel free to share the link in the comment section!

Other posts in this series:
The power of the Flash Platform Part 1
The power of the Flash Platform Part 2 – Augmented reality
The power of the Flash Platform Part 3 – Video

Read full story • Comments { 16 }

Why I love the Flash Platform…

by Serge Jespers on 16. Jul, 2009 in Flash Platform

flash-platform.jpgBefore we start and just so we get this out of the way… For 2 years now, Adobe pays my paycheck. That said, I “saw the light” of Flash more than 13 years ago. Because of my long history with Flash, I feel I can say that this is an unbiased post.

Everywhere
First of all, Flash is everywhere. I’m not just talking about its ubiquity but also about the variety of devices it is available on. It’s not just a browser plugin anymore. The Flash Platform now extends from desktop to mobile to consumer electronics. There are already more than 1 billion devices in the market today that support Flash content. While this is a “lighter” version of the Flash Player, it already has a lot of its bigger brother’s features and is already used for lots of mobile applications, games and promotional content. Together with the Open Screen Project partners, Adobe aims to bring the same consistent runtime that you’re used to in your browser to a broad variety of devices. In the not too distant future, you’ll be able to repurpose the code base across multiple devices. I’m actually doing a workshop about that very topic at MAX this year!

Consistent
With Flash, you never needed to worry about how your application will look in browser X or on operating system Z. And you still don’t have to worry about that. If Flash Player is installed, the application works and behaves consistently across all browsers and operating systems. Even applications/sites built with Flash 1 still work as designed. If you want to use any of the new features that are available with a new release of Flash Player, you (as the developer) can use express install to transparently upgrade the Flash Player. The same thing goes for desktop development with AIR. A single AIR application installer runs on Mac, Windows and Linux machines without having to worry about operating specific settings or features.

Community
Even back in the early days of Flash, the community around it grew every day. Just about all of the early community sites around Flash are still alive and kicking. Ultrashock and FlashKit, for instance, are still going strong. If you get stuck somewhere, there’s always someone around to help out. If you’re looking for a particular ActionScript library, chances are that someone has already created one. Some of these ActionScript libraries have even caused some amazing innovations on their own. Papervision 3D and FLARToolkit are just a couple examples. Many sites and applications like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter even have dedicated ActionScript 3.0 libraries.

Open
Yes… Open! Not only is Adobe very open about what it’s doing and future roadmaps, the file formats used by Flash Player are also open. The specs for the SWF and FLV file formats are open as well as the specs for AMF (the binary format for exchanging data used by the Flash Player) and RTMP. Adobe also uses and supports many open source projects like Eclipse and WebKit and also contributes to the open source community.

But the most important reason is actually pretty simple. The Flash Platform is just a lot of fun to develop for and it’s very clear that the future is looking very bright for Flash Platform developers. Flash on!

Read full story • Comments { 9 }

The power of the Flash Platform part 3: Video

by Serge Jespers on 11. Jun, 2009 in Flash Platform, flash video

flash_player_10_appicon_no_shadow.jpgRemember the “old” days where you had to struggle with bandwidth selectors, video player choices and codec nightmares before you could watch a video online? I know it’s kind of a bold statement, but Flash really did change all that and the continuously increasing Flash Video market share proves that. I also often hear people complain about the quality of Flash Video. Most of the time, these people don’t know that Flash Player can actually play high definition video up to 1080p using the H.264 industry standard video codec.

But Flash Video is about more than just video. With Flash, you can easily make your video interactive. A piece of video in a Flash project is just like any other visual object. You can animate it, change it’s dimensions, layer it with other videos, make it interactive, … Heck… You can even personalize it. No other web technology currently available on 99% of all Internet-connected PCs is able to do this. And bloggers who claim otherwise should get their facts straight. (Are you reading this TechCrunch?)

Flash Video is everywhere and sites like YouTube, Vimeo and many other like it would not be as popular today without Flash Video! Traditional media companies like the New York Times, CNN, ABC, MSNBC also use Flash for the delivery of their video content. Hollywood studios use it on Hulu and the recently announced Epix site.

But like I said, Flash Video isn’t just about playing on demand video. Lots of people also use it for live video every day. Sites like UStream, Justin.tv, Qik and FlixWagon allow users to quickly setup a live video stream and stream it to hundreds of viewers. Ever sent a recorded video message to someone on FaceBook or Tokbox?

So how about interactive video? There are tons of amazing examples out there! Remember the immensely popular Elf Yourself campaign? Or what about those really cool augmented reality cases? Augmented reality is actually another great example of how Flash changes the web. AR has been around for years now but it wasn’t until the recent availability of the FLARToolkit that the technology was used online and even in campaigns for big brands like Doritos, Jack Link’s and Microsoft.

Flash on!

Read full story • Comments { 2 }

Starship Enterprise runs on the Flash Platform

by Serge Jespers on 19. May, 2009 in AIR, Cool stuff, Flash Platform

“Space… The final frontier.”

Have you ever wondered how all those cool graphics and animations on TV-shows and in movies are built? Well… I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they actually use Flash to create those.

Lee Brimelow just published an interview with OOOii, a visual effects company based in Hollywood who actually created all the visuals used on the new Star Trek movie. By the way, if you haven’t seen the new Star Trek movie, I can really recommend it. The effects are great and the movie is action packed. Aaaaaand… to top it off: The Starship Enterprise runs on the Flash Platform! ;-)

Flash on!

The Flash Blog.jpg

Update May 28th: Updated with the link to the full interview

Read full story • Comments { 12 }

Next version of Flex Builder will be named Flash Builder 4!

by Serge Jespers on 16. May, 2009 in Flash Builder, Flash Platform

fb.jpgWhen we named project “Thermo” Flash Catalyst, everyone started speculating about where we were going with this. Soon after, rumours about renaming Flex Builder started to float around in the community and today is that day… The next version of Flex Builder will be named Flash Builder 4. And I think it makes total sense. This change will provide better naming consistency for the Flash family of tools and position Flash Builder as the development tool for the Flash Platform. Not convinced? Let me try to persuade you.

When you build applications in Flex Builder, you’re building them with the open source Flex Framework and/or ActionScript. The applications then get compiled in to a SWF-file that runs in the Flash Player. When talking to customers, I regularly got asked if you needed “Flex Player” installed to run an application and that is exactly the type of confusion that we want to solve. By renaming Flex Builder to Flash Builder, there is no doubt what you are going to build using this product. You’re going to build an application that will run on the ubiquitous and trusted Flash Player.

While we are renaming the next version of Flex Builder to Flash Builder 4, it will still be the same Eclipse-based IDE with lots of exciting new features. We are not renaming the open source Flex Framework or the free Flex SDK. Also, if you’ve been calling yourself a Flex developer, there’s no need to go and print new business cards. You will still be building applications with the Flex Framework, so no change there. We will also continue to promote the use of the Flex Framework and Flex development in general.

I know all of you are really excited about the upcoming releases of Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst and while we haven’t announced any release dates yet, I can tell you that we will be releasing public beta versions of both products this summer. So if you haven’t planned your summer vacation yet, you may want to hold off on that and plan on playing with Flash Catalyst beta and Flash Builder 4 beta during the summer. That’s what I’m going to do ;-)

Also, you may want to check with your local Adobe User Group. We are doing a pre-release tour through 119 different locations in June. So if you want to find out more about what we are doing with the upcoming beta releases of Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder, this would be a great place to start.

If you have any questions or comments about this upcoming name change, feel free to leave a note below.

Update: Lee Brimelow just published an FAQ about the rebranding.

Flash on!

Read full story • Comments { 76 }

The power of the Flash Platform part 2: Augmented reality

by Serge Jespers on 29. Apr, 2009 in Cool stuff, Flash Platform, Flash Player

Augmented reality has been around for quite some time but now that it is available for the Flash Platform (and thus available to just about everyone) it is really booming. I was recently looking for some AR examples and came across some really cool applications. I hope these will give you a bit of an idea of the immense possibilities this technology has. It’s not even that difficult to build. Check out Lee Brimelow’s tutorial video and you’ll be building applications like this in no time.

LIVING SASQUATCH

This one really blows people away. You can completely animate the sasquatch while still being able to control it in 3D space. You really need to play with it yourself to believe it. Check it out on http://www.livingsasquatch.com/

RONALD CHEVALIER

This one is very funny to demo. You stick the black and white pattern on your forehead and when you launch the application, your face is replaced with the one from Ronald Chevalier. Good fun! ;-) Check it out on http://ronaldchevalier.com/mindportal/

GE SMARTGRID

This was the first augmented reality Flash application that I saw and you’ve probably seen it as well. But if you haven’t, go check it out on http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality

MICROSOFT SQL SERVER
I think this is the first augmented reality campaign in Belgium. Obviously the agency and the client chose the best platform to do this. The Flash Platform is also the only cross OS and cross browser platform that allows you to bring AR to the widest possible audience. Check it out on http://sqlug.be/augmentedreality/activate/activate/

I’m sure you’ll agree that augmented reality is pretty cool but what do you do with it? In Brazil, Doritos actually put the black and white pattern on the Doritos bag. When you go to their site and show the bag, you get access to exclusive content. (via http://kiss-the-future.blogspot.com/2009/04/augmented-reality-in-doritos-sweet.html)


Lego even created an in-store display with augmented reality. Just hold up the box to the camera and the display shows you what the finished project looks like. See http://www.notcot.com/archives/2009/01/legos_digital_b.php for more.

I’m sure there are more AR cases out there. If you know of any or are building one yourself, please leave a comment.

Read full story • Comments { 24 }
Page 1 of 212