flKinect: Socket server + AS3 library for Microsoft Kinect
Well… Now I may just have to get myself a Microsoft Kinect! I saw on Saqoosha’s blog that he was playing around with this and thought I would post this here. Koji Kimura wrote a Cocoa application to allow communication between the Microsoft Kinect and Flash. It looks amazing and opens up a whole new world of possibilities and it looks like the AS3 API is also very easy to use!
More info and downloads on Koji’s site.
As you may have guessed it is Mac only. If you know of any similar projects for Windows or Linux don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!
Update: Here’s another AS3 library + socket server app for Mac.
Update 2: Also check out as3kinect.org.
Microsoft picks Flash Player for Vista campaign site
As reported by fellow evangelists Ben Forta and Ted Patrick, Microsoft picked the Adobe Flash Player for their new Vista campaign. First of all… I absolutely love the campaign! The idea was to invite a bunch of people to test a new version of the Windows operating system codenamed “Mojave”. Before they actually got to test the new OS, they were asked what they thought of Windows Vista. Obviously, they all said they didn’t like it for various reasons. After they tested the “new” OS, they were asked for their opinions. They all liked it, saying it was fast, looked great and was very handy. Then they were told they actually tested Windows Vista… and all their reactions were recorded.
A selection of all these videos are now the main feature of a new campaign site aimed to try and convince people to give Vista a try. One thing I really find strange, is that Microsoft continuously picks the Flash Player to deliver these highly visible campaign sites. These high-traffic sites would be a great vehicle to get Silverlight adoption up but obviously then the visitor would have to install the plug-in first to actually see the campaign. Then your best bet would be to pick a technology that everyone has… like Flash… And with 98.5% of all internet users running the Flash player, there really is no other alternative.
Go and check out the campaign site. It looks like they’ve even used Papervision 3D for this one. I really think it looks great.
The weekly blend
“Weekly roundup” didn’t really cover the load of this post so I renamed it to “The weekly blend”.
- Snackr: An RSS ticker on your desktop completely built with Flex on AIR [link]
- World Wide Telescope: Excellent use of Flash by Microsoft Research [link]
- Multitouch Mac OS X: Using Flash, Christian Moore enabled multitouch on a Mac [link]
- Google Maps API for Flash [link]
- Snippets in Flex Builder: Neil Webb wrote a guide on how to get snippets to work in Flex Builder [link]
- FlexExamples.com: If you don’t know about this site, bookmark it now. Fellow Adobean Peter deHaan posts new examples and code-snippets every week. [link]
- FastMac U-Charge: I’ve been looking for this for a while now. If you have an extra MacBook Pro battery, this is the only way to charge it without using your laptop. Immediately ordered mine! [link]
Flash on mobile: Apple: “Naah”, MS: “Yes!”
Let’s face it, Flash is a big part of today’s internet. In fact, more than 70% of all the video on the web is Flash video and then we’re not even talking about the massive amount of games and the numerous full blown applications out there. I’m sure you’ve all read or heard about Steve Jobs saying that the desktop version of the Flash player “performs too slow to be useful” and that Flash Lite “is not capable of being used with the Web” in response to questions raised at a shareholder meeting about Apple’s plans on supporting Flash on the iPhone.
And yet half a billion (500 million) mobile devices are already shipped with Flash Lite support enabling mobile browser support for Flash content on devices like the Nokia N-series and the Sony Ericsson K800. 18 of the top 20 OEM’s are currently shipping mobile devices with Flash Lite support and today we’re adding Microsoft to that list of OEM partners.
Microsoft sets a new record
Today, Microsoft got fined a record $1.3 billion by the European Union. They now offer to share more information hoping to make it easier for developers to make products for their platform. I don’t really care that much now that we have AIR…Adobe AIR already allows you to make applications that work on their operating system and as an added bonus, they also work on Mac OS and Linux straight out of the box. No need to port or anything like that. And yes… I know it’s about a lot more than just that. But anyway… Back to the story. They’ve delayed complying with the EU ruling for three years now and really didn’t do that much that suggests they are about to comply with it. Respect to Neelie Kroes for really being consistent about this. I think it’s safe to say you better not mess with Neelie ;-)
More in CNN.com
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