silverlight

Moonlight 1.0, the first open-source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight rich media technology, has gone live.

Moonlight forms part of the Novell-led Mono project, the lead developer of which is Miguel de Icaza. De Icaza announced the full release of Moonlight 1.0, which went into public beta at the start of December, in a blog post on Wednesday.

However, according to a Twitter post, or "tweet," made by de Icaza on Wednesday: "Moonlight 1.0 actually shipped on 20 January for the Obama inauguration [but Novell's] PR/marketing [employees] were just not notified." … Read more

Updated Friday at 11:16 a.m., with Microsoft comment on Silverlight adoption rate.

Adobe Integrated Runtime and Flash Player 10 have latched onto a tailwind, capturing record adoption rates within a year after their release, Adobe Systems said Thursday.

AIR, software designed for running Web applications on PCs, has received more than 100 million installations, the company said. That figure comes at a time when Adobe is facing new competitors in the market. One such rival said he believes the growing popularity of open-source software will steal AIR's thunder.

Adobe's Flash Player 10, meanwhile, has been installed … Read more

Just as President-elect Barack Obama has been busy assembling his Cabinet, the Presidential Inaugural Committee has been busy selecting providers of tech services for this week's inaugural festivities.

The PIC has already made arrangements with YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr. The latest appointee? Microsoft's Silverlight Media Player, which has been tapped to enable live and on-demand video streaming of Tuesday's ceremony on the PIC Web site.

The PIC will also stream video of a Baltimore event on the Whistle Stop Tour that will take the President-elect and Vice President-elect Joe Biden to Washington, D.C., from Philadelphia.

This … Read more

Rumors have abounded over the years about a Google operating system, perhaps based on the Ubuntu version of Linux widely used within the company, but on Monday the company revealed an open-source project that provides a different answer to the same problem: Native Client.

The reason I've been skeptical about Google releasing an operating system of its own is that the company has such a Web-based view of the world. But Web apps have limits, impressive gains of Google Docs notwithstanding, and Native Client is geared to address those.

"At Google we're always trying to make the … Read more

With a back-to-the-future technology called JavaFX to be launched Thursday, Sun Microsystems hopes to attract a new class of developer while building a much-needed new revenue source.

JavaFX 1.0 returns to the sales pitch that Sun used during Java's launch more than 13 years ago: a foundation for software on a wide variety of computing "clients" such as desktop computers or mobile phones. JavaFX builds on current Java technology but adds two major pieces.

First is a new software foundation designed to run so-called rich Internet applications--network-enabled programs with lush user interfaces. Second is a new … Read more

Microsoft is losing MLB.com, Major League Baseball's online unit and one of the Web's most successful subscription services, as a Silverlight customer.

MLB Advanced Media said Monday it will use Adobe's Flash Platform to deliver all live and on-demand video starting next year.

The deal, announced at the Adobe Max conference running in San Francisco this week, hands Adobe one of the largest and likely most profitable video services out there. MLB.com has signed up more than 1.5 million subscribers since 2003 and streams more than 2,500 regular and postseason games annually. Moreover, … Read more

Adobe Systems wants to have it both ways.

Microsoft's power with programmers is tethered to desktops and laptops, the vast majority of which run Windows. Google is trying to dominate what it believes is the new frontier, cloud computing, where applications run on the Web. Adobe, though, is trying to run down the middle with a strategy that touches on both domains.

"It's a balance of the client and cloud together that makes for the most effective applications and the best development," said Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch, who's planning to speak on the subject in a keynote speech Monday at the company's Max conference in San Francisco.

Since Adobe's $3.4 billion Macromedia acquisition in 2005, programming technology has been rising in importance within a company that got its start with publishing software such as Photoshop. The technology that brought the two companies together, Flash, will hog the spotlight at the conference.

Flash got its start as a way to give Web pages animations and basic applications such as games, but it's grown up since then. The Flex technology has given developers a more mature programming model, and the addition of video-streaming abilities to the Flash Player that's plugged into the vast majority of Web browsers has given Adobe's technology incumbent status. Who can live online without YouTube?

Adobe is still working on Flash, releasing Flash Player 10, aka Astro, in October. At Max, though, a Flash cousin called AIR--the Adobe Integrated Runtime--will share the stage with the release of version 1.5.

Flash and AIR are key to bridging the cloud-PC gap. For example, Adobe has launched an online Photoshop.com service, where members can upload, edit, and share photos. The site uses Flash to run the processing-intensive editing software on people's own computers, not Adobe's servers, Lynch said.

"Our operational costs for hosting that application are much lower than if we had server-side processing," and users get better performance, Lynch said.

But Flash still lives largely within the browser. Adobe hopes to uproot it with AIR, a "runtime" foundation for housing applications. AIR runs Flash programs but also has a built-in engine for showing Web pages and for running programs written in JavaScript, which is widely used for Web-based applications. And AIR is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and programmers who write AIR applications don't have to worry about what operating system is on a person's computer. … Read more

If you're a Netflix customer and you use its Watch Instantly streaming service, well, you're probably used to not having a lot choices as far as which movies you can watch. And if you're a Mac user, you're used to not being able to use the service at all. Netflix is seeking to change this.

On Monday the company announced that it will be using Microsoft's Silverlight software to deliver streaming movies not only to PCs, but to Intel-based Macs as well. The new Netflix player takes advantage of Play Ready DRM, which is built … Read more

What? What's wrong with you people? We're talking about Netbooks. Dell has a new "Mini" Note, but it's a 12-inch laptop. So, the question is: what is going on in the Netbook world these days? Also, the Internet makes you both smarter AND dumber, Google Earth shows up for iPhone, and Oprah gives out a Kindle discount. And Natali and Molly love Oprah. Deal with it.

Sling.com launch http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/26/slingcom-to-launch-on-november-10/

Google Earth for iPhone/Touch http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10075543-37.html … Read more