Now that Adobe's Engage event has run its course for yet another year, it's a good time to pull in the types of items that slipped through the cracks of our coverage.
- Yahoo didn't show off anything new. I can't really blame them, since the company has released a surprising amount of products and services in the past month. The biggest additions today were two widgets. One, called News Minibar, combines weather, finance, news headlines, photos, and search, while the other can be seen on Yahoo's politics site and is covering the U.S. elections. The company also demoed Music Blog Remixer, and the recently released Yahoo Live.
- The AIR version Adobe's Web based version of Photoshop isn't happening at the same time as the browser version. Users will have to wait to get an AIR version.
- The elephant in the room for today was Microsoft's Silverlight. The only time it came up was in a Q&A session with Salesforce.com, whose CEO noted that nothing is in the works but that if the demand is there they'll build it. Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch also noted that many people seem to be confusing AIR with Silverlight instead of Flash.
- Nick.com has a new AIR app that lets you drag and drop various bits and pieces from its site into a local AIR app. In this case the pieces are for a puzzle that users can splice together to access secret videos and Web content. This reminds me of those QR codes they have all over Japan that people are supposed to scan with their phones to access secret Web sites--it'll never work.
- Neopets showed off its AIR app PetPetPet Habitats, which looks addictively fun (even though it's aimed at kids). Imagine if you will something between Sid Meyer's Civilization and Viva Pinata. The draw of the AIR app is you can play it while offline. The only reason you need to go visit the site is to get more supplies for your virtual world and sell items in the marketplace. The AIR app is launching in the last half of April or early May.
We lost Wi-Fi for an hour or so during the conference, which was actually a blessing in disguise. I got to try out all the new AIR apps I had downloaded and got to see which ones managed to perform while away from their umbilical tether to the Internet. My pick for best performer? A two-way tie between BuzzWord and Shifd, the latter of which has a wonderfully scary error message (pictured below) but managed to sync up perfectly when I had connectivity back. This is what makes AIR downright useful.
While the platform is at 1.0, some apps might not be there yet.
In the future, Yahoo's working on an AIR app for Yahoo Live, but it's not done yet. Features will include persistent connection and more camera control tweaks. Also, in case you were wondering how much time people are spending on Yahoo Live, Yahoo's not disclosing any numbers, but noted that there's a large group of DJs who use the service to play one to two hour sets.
AIR will work with games too. In this case it's Neopets' upcoming RTS sim. (click to make larger)
(Credit: CNET Networks)To read other posts about the Engage event, click here or check out the coverage on Charlie Cooper's blog.
FedEx's new Adobe AIR package tracker.
(Credit: CNET Networks)FedEx was on hand today to show off its new Adobe AIR application for tracking packages.
Similar to tracking widgets you may have seen on tools such as Apple's Dashboard and Yahoo's Widget engine, you can keep small widgets on your desktop that update and let you know when that digital camera you ordered online mistakenly got delivered somewhere three states over. But that's not the sole use. The application doubles as command center for business users and frequent shippers to keep track of what's going on with several of their packages at once.
The company hopes small business users will take advantage of the application to help them manage shipped packages and make certain they get to their destination. Likewise, anyone who wants to keep tabs on purchased items can simply use the application as a more powerful tracking tool. Eventually, FedEx intends to upgrade the AIR application to support things such as shipping labels and integrating business contacts--things its software applicaiton takes care of.
The application is set to release in beta within the next month and will be limited to U.S. shipments, although there are plans to expand to International shipments.
Here at Adobe's Engage event in South San Francisco, one of the services getting some buzz is The New York Times' social-bookmarking tool Shifd. It's a neat idea--give users a place to write and share little notes between their PCs and mobile phones, while providing a way to publish those notes to social services people are already using.
This morning the company has released the Adobe Air version of the app, allowing anyone to create and manage notes they've made while offline, and without having to fire up a browser.
The notes you can make are fairly simple in nature. Each note is color-coded and a lot like a Post-It, along with locations and Web links. What makes the app useful is that each link has links to various popular sharing and reference tools. For example, if you save a URL from your clipboard, you can then go back later and access it on your phone or home machine, then push it out to del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, et al.
Another benefit of using the AIR app is that it functions similar to a widget engine of its own, meaning you can manipulate and keep notes on your desktop as you would with sticky notes.
There are several other companies showing off updated and new AIR apps throughout the day here at Engage, including some we've already written about. To keep track of them, bookmark this link and check back throughout the day.
Leave small Post-It notes and access them on your phone too.
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