programming

After enduring months of scorn from Apple, Adobe Systems is set to begin a major effort to claim some of the mobile computing initiative for itself starting Monday night.

That's when the company plans to issue an all-but-finished beta of Flash Player 10.1, moving from demos and rhetoric to a more concrete answer to those who question the technology's relevance. Flash for Android phones will become final with Google's imminent release of Android 2.2, aka Froyo, and over coming months Flash 10.1 will spread to many other mobile operating systems.

"We're expecting … Read more

The Internet is a bit of a free-for-all in terms digital media; most people have no qualms about saving--and using--other people's images without permission. This can be prevented to some extent with the use of watermarks. Image Watermarks is a basic program that allows users to apply watermarks to batches of images, discouraging their appropriation by unscrupulous Internet users.

The program's interface is simple and not particularly attractive, but it's easy enough to figure out. Users simply select the image or folder of images that they want to use, design their watermark (or load a previously designed … Read more

Pop quiz: which company introduced a browser last September that Google now considers "antiquated"?

Answer: Google itself.

Version 3 of the Chrome browser is one of the browsers for which, starting June 1, Google is phasing out support on its Reader site. The site is used for reading Web pages whose updates are broadcast to subscribers through RSS or Atom feed technology.

"Reader is a cutting-edge Web application, and this will allow us to spend our time improving Reader instead of fixing issues with antiquated browsers," Mihai Parparita, a technical leader for Google Reader, said in … Read more

Even as opposition mounts against Adobe Systems' Flash technology, the company is showing Wednesday it's working hard to ensure it's not the only arrow in its Web programming quiver.

At the Google I/O conference, Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch is expected to announce the release of an HTML5 update to Adobe's Dreamweaver tool for creating Web sites. HTML5, a still-developing revision to the Web page standard, is a key part of the threat to Flash, but Adobe is indicating it's willing to embrace the alternative.

Adobe has been telegraphing its interest in HTML5 and … Read more

Adobe Systems may not have a chief executive with Steve Jobs' high profile, but it does have money. And on Thursday it began spending some of it on an effort to rebut the Apple CEO's criticisms of Adobe's Flash technology.

The campaign includes a Web site promoting choice, an accompanying "truth about Flash" page rebutting some Apple criticisms, and a letter from Adobe co-founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock that brings a personal answer to Jobs. They don't mention Jobs or or Apple by name, but there's no mistaking the target.

"The genius … Read more

Google has released a programming tool to help move its Native Client project--and more broadly, its cloud-computing ambitions--from abstract idea to practical reality.

The new Native Client software developer kit, though only a developer preview version, is designed to make it easier for programmers to use the Net giant's browser-boosting Native Client technology.

"The Native Client SDK preview...includes just the basics you need to get started writing an app in minutes," Google programmer David Springer said Wednesday in a blog post announcing the SDK, a week before the developer-oriented Google I/O conference. "We'll … Read more

New restrictions that Apple added to its iPhone software developer kit have led an independent programmer to cancel a conference devoted to Mac programming and computer science.

Jonathan "Wolf" Rentzsch announced Wednesday he canceled the C4 conference after four years organizing it because of new wording in a section of the iPhone OS 4.0 software developer kit.

"With resistance to Section 3.3.1 so scattershot and meek, it's become clear that I haven't made the impact I wanted with C4. It's also clear my interests and the Apple programming community's interests … Read more

In one of the clearest examples so far of just how much Flash is threatened by next-generation Web technologies, Scribd, a service for hosting and sharing documents online, is moving to a future that doesn't require Adobe Systems' plug-in.

"After three years of building on Flash, Scribd is starting over and moving everything to HTML5," said Scribd co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Jared Friedman in prepared remarks for a speech at the Web 2.0 Expo. "I think it's the largest deployment of HTML5 to date, and it's a bet-the-company decision for us." … Read more

We remember when checking the television listings was a matter of looking in the newspaper or picking up the latest issue of TV Guide with the week's groceries. Times have changed, and now people turn to their computers to see what's on TV. TV-Browser is one such option for this information, at least in theory; the program promises to provide up-to-date TV listings, but we found it to be severely lacking, especially for U.S. users.

TV-Browser starts with a setup wizard, allowing users to select their country and then choose the channels they want to include. There … Read more