Last week Adobe developers pushed out  release candidate versions of the new AIR SDK and Flash Player 11. 
These two major developments contain an unsurprisingly exhaustive list of new enhanced features and performance improvements, across mobile, desktop and TV; but here I’ll focus on what I consider to be the most exciting developments.

One of the key features of AIR 3 is the Native Extensions (for mobile), which now allows developers to extend runtime with ActionScript libraries and native code, taking advantage of the built-in features of each platform and device specific capabilities. Whilst it’s a big step in terms of the previous limitations, one code won’t fit them all, and the native portions of an extension are written with the corresponding development tool.”

The mobile part of the SDK also includes the Stage Video Hardware Acceleration, which improves the high definition video playback experience - something which I thought was pretty poor on iOS with AIR2.7. Security has also been improved, with Encrypted Local Storage now available when storing sensitive data on the phone. In regards to iOS support, Background Audio Playback has been added, and we also have at last the Front-facing Camera Support on Android!

Adobe didn’t forget about desktops and T.V., with Stage 3D offering a brand new architecture for 2D/3D accelerated graphics rendering – this exciting new feature is also a part of the Flash Player 11 release note.

Others key benefits of the 11th version of Flash Player are the Native 64-bit support (Windows, Mac & Linux), a new JPEG-XR compression format and support for the efficient H.264 video standard.

The release notes containing the full list of new features can be viewed here. 

If you would like to give AIR3 a try, it can be downloaded from Adobe Labs, whereas Flash Player 11 can be found here.

Programming without code? Well…

Five months after releasing Wallaby, an experimental tool designed to convert Flash animations to HTML5, Adobe has once again established it’s position as a major player in Web technologies with Edge.

Adobe Edge allows you to create rich animation directly in HTML5 (using CSS and Javascript) without a line of code.  

It reminds me of Flash in the late 90′s, but can be run on mobile devices which do not currently support Adobe’s Flash player.
 

Basically it’s pretty much the same; creating a new project will open a blank “stage” in which you can import image files (JPG, GIF, PNG or SVG) and add basic shapes and texts. The properties of each type of asset can be modified (transparency, size, position, colour etc.) and animated using “keyframes” within the timeline. The animation preview is rendered using Webkit, and Adobe claim the animations have been tested on Android, iOS, and other Webkit-based browers along with Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer 9. 

Publishing your animation will result in a bundle of files: HTML, CSS and Javascript; and it appears that it can be easily integrated into an existing HTML file without change. Its currently a preview version and is far from being perfect, but what we are seeing at will release another preview or (fingers-crossed!) a final release.

With the technology only in the preview stage, industry voices are expressing mixed opinions about Edge. According to netmagazine.com, there are concerns regarding the absence of SVG and canvas, which many would expect from a HMTL5 tool. Adobe have responded by reassuring developers that this is by no means a complete product, and that Edge will be evolving rapidly. We will have to wait and see what happens; in the meantime, this discussion can be followed over at the Edge forum.

Adobe offers an overview of Edge in the video they released in late June (below), however you can now also download the preview version from Adobe Labs and give it a try – let us know your thoughts!

Whilst currently working on their next major release, Adobe Flash Player 11 (which will include the next generation of “Molehill” GPU-accelerated 3D APIs), Adobe Labs has made the first Release Candidate of the new version of Flash Player available for Windows, Mac and Linux (and mobile devices in the near future).
The main goal of the previous version (10.2) was video improvement and hardware acceleration, so it seems logical that Adobe has focused on audio - and by extension, video-conferencing  - in this latest version, concentrating on areas in which HTML5 cannot fulfil.

This update features enhanced user privacy protection and several Audio and Control Panel improvements:

• Control Panel: in previous versions the panel was a remote SWF hosted by macromedia.com. Now, it is native, and can be accessed directly from the system preferences or the control panel.
• Privacy Control: thanks to better integration with browsers, users will easily be able to clear the local flash storage. (Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 8+ and future versions of Safari and Chrome)
• Microphone Enhanced Options: to provide a better online experience (in-game voice chat, conferencing, telephony etc.), Adobe has added several new functions to the Microphone API – noise suppression, automatic gain control and voice activity detection.
• Video Analytics: 10.3 makes the implementation of Adobe SiteCatalyst easier. Providing media measurement for Flash, it allows companies to obtain real-time, aggregated reporting of how their video content is distributed, what the audience reach is, and how much video is played; with two lines of code.

You can download Flash Player 10.3 RC from Adobe Labs website if you feel like testing it before the official release.

On the contrary to what you might think, Flash and Flex can be fully accessible.
Since Version 6.0 of Flash Player in 2006, Macromedia has thought about accessibility by implementing a screen reader that is compatible with Microsoft Active Accessibility to support playbacks of flash websites.

In 2009, Adobe released version 9.0, the first player to allow rich media to be accessible to people with disabilities. In doing so, they tried to perfect their support for people with any disability (visually impaired, mobility impaired, hearing impaired etc.) and provided numerous accessibility specific components and a guide of best practice.

In the past year, the Adobe team has worked hard with Freedom Scientific in order to make Flex fully compatible with their famous reading software, JAWS. They have also worked with The Paciello Group and SSB BART Group (two consulting companies specializing on web accessibility) to ensure that the new Flex 4 will provide accessible standard controls. Today, the new Flash Builder contains a large selection of accessible components to provide support for users with disabilities.

Making Flash and Flex accessible has not been about a matter of technology, but of wise preliminary planning. Accessibility needs to be a developer’s concern during the early stages of a project, and should be focused on throughout the whole development process rather than postponing it until the end. If you’re interested in finding out more about Adobe and Accessibility, their blog follows their efforts to making rich media more accessible to all.
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/