flash

For most people, shutting down or restarting their computer is as simple as going to the Windows Start menu and choosing the desired option. If you'd like to make these tasks even easier, though, try Flash Shutdown Free. This simple utility allows users to create hotkeys and desktop icons for specific shutdown tasks, making them even quicker to access.

The program's interface is basic and easy to navigate, with screens for Base, Hotkey, Shortcut, and Setting. The Base screen displays a set of nine buttons that represent Flash Shutdown Free's capabilities: normal shutdown, logoff, or reboot; force … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Adobe Systems, retooling as fast as it can for a future of Web publishing and Web apps, sees the technology as mostly caught up to the Flash technology that Adobe previously preferred.

"I think it's close to 80 percent," Arno Gourdol, Adobe's senior director of Web platform and authoring, said in an interview during the Google I/O show here.

Gourdol, who leads Adobe work to embrace Web standards, has a lot on the line as the company tries to make a difficult transition away from the widely used but fading Flash. He's eager … Read more

Friday's show may start off grim, but there's cake at the end. No lie!

It's a bad day for BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. The company's earnings call was three layers of ugly. BlackBerry 10 devices will be delayed until the first quarter of 2013. The company is cutting 5,000 jobs (that's a third of its employees). And it suffered a huge operating loss for the quarter. (Hence the job cuts.) RIM's stock dropped 19% when the markets closed Friday.

Apple has a new stand-alone podcast app. It's a new a way … Read more

The end is very, very near for Adobe's Flash Player on mobile devices.

Adobe Systems announced in a blog post yesterday that its Flash Player will not be "certified for use" with Google's upcoming update to its mobile operating system, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The company said that users might still be able to access the Flash Player on their Jelly Bean devices if they had previously run the service on Android 4.0, though it could "exhibit unpredictable behavior."

"Future updates to Flash Player will not work [on Jelly Bean]," … Read more

The other day, as part of a bonus deal, I wondered aloud how long it would be before 32GB flash drives dipped below $10.

Not long, apparently. While supplies last, TigerDirect has the Patriot PSF32GFXUSB Xporter Flex 32GB Flash Drive for $9.97 shipped. That's your post-rebate price (PDF); it'll cost you $19.97 to get out the door.

Assuming you don't have a deep-seated hatred of rebates (many people do), that's an incredibly low price. It was scarcely six months ago that I was crowing about piddly 8GB drives for under $10.

The PSF32GFXUSB -- … Read more

For the past year or so, Pogoplug has been steadily reinventing itself. After earning raves for its eponymous network-storage adapters, the company moved into consumer cloud storage, then introduced team-storage solution aimed at small and medium businesses.

Along the way, Pogoplug devices have been introduced and discontinued, and the aforementioned consumer storage service, Pogoplug Cloud, seems to have disappeared. As someone who's been following the company closely, I'll admit to being occasionally confused by Pogoplug's strategy and lineup.

But there's no confusion here: through Sunday, and while supplies last, you can get a free Pogoplug Classic device when you sign up for the new Pogoplug Family backup service.… Read more

Unity Technologies, maker of a widely used video-game engine, today announced that its fourth-generation product will introduce new animation technology and extend its support for Adobe Systems' Flash Player, Linux, and Microsoft's DirectX 11.

The game engine brings physics simulations and other tools to programmers -- especially those who want to reach multiple computing systems. Such "cross-platform" developer tools are a good fit for today's world: Unity games can be adapted for Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, Xbox, PS3, Wii, and the Web, though adjustments are necessary for performance and interface differences.

Unity 4 will be … Read more

Adobe has released version 11.3 of its Flash plug-in, which in addition to addressing a few security holes and offering improved input management and sound performance, includes a background-updating feature. This feature debuted for Windows systems in Flash 11.2, but this latest update has implemented it on the Mac.

Adobe Flash Player's popularity makes it a target for malware developers, who not only attempt to exploit its code, but also mask their distributions as fake Flash Player installations. As a result, many people have come to distrust update announcements and recommendations for Flash, even when they have … Read more

It appears that ditching Adobe System' Flash Player wasn't as easy as Microsoft thought earlier this year.

Because screenshots from WinUnleaked show the browser plug-in working even in the Metro version of IE10 where Microsoft had earlier said plug-ins would be barred.

Microsoft and Adobe declined to comment for this story. But a source familiar with the plans said IE10 will build in a version of Flash Player optimized for Windows 8 matters such as touch-screen interfaces, power consumption, and security.

The reason, the source said: browsers just aren't ready yet to ditch Flash, so Microsoft will give … Read more