The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet
April 7, 2005 1:32 PM PDT
Big changes ahead for Flash
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Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch addressed a nearly full Herbst Theater to describe the bells and whistles in store for Flash authors in the company's upcoming release of the Flash 8 player, code-named Maelstrom, and authoring tool, code-named 8Ball. Lynch also outlined plans for FlashCast, a new system in development to help mobile phone carriers run a variety of Flash-based applications.
"This is the biggest Flash update ever," said Lynch following his Flashforward address. "We've dramatically improved the performance of the player as well as adding more graphical expression than has been possible in the history of Flash. We've included radical new video and text-rendering quality. This is a larger number of improvements than in any previous update to the player."
What's new:
Macromedia said it will soup up its Flash animation software and introduce a product for mobile phone companies that want to offer Flash-based applications.
Bottom line:
The changes could advance Flash in both the hotly contested streaming-video and mobile-computing markets.
Updates due this year in Flash 8 include both interface changes, to make things easier for designers familiar with other Macromedia applications, such as the Dreamweaver Web-authoring tool, and eye candy for end users, which Macromedia hopes will lure video publishers as well as designers to the Flash format.
Macromedia's new emphasis on Flash video signals the company's desire to go toe-to-toe with streaming video technology providers Microsoft, Apple Computer and RealNetworks. Macromedia displayed a presentation mocking the process by which end users have to choose their bandwidth rates and player before watching a video clip on the Web, and hawked Flash as a way to bypass those steps.
"This is a real opportunity for video to become a first-class citizen on the Web," said Mike Downey, Macromedia's technical product manager for Flash authoring.
Flash 8 will include new filters and special effects for text and images, and an improvement in rendering performance, designed to solve what Lynch termed "a slowdown problem in Flash 7."
14 comments
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If you do not use it,disable it.But that does not mean it is not good.Please don't give such kind of comments which does not make sense.
Why don't you check out websites with Macromedia Flash content and see how nice it is and also try to learn how to create stuff in Flash.
I think you will start loving Flash.
regards.
Anil Alias.
Besides a time is rapidly coming where pop-up blockers will be able to block Flash pop-ups as well. So these crap designers and people will have to find someone else to annoy or at least another way of doing it.
Robert
If you do not use it,disable it.But that does not mean it is not good.Please don't give such kind of comments which does not make sense.
Why don't you check out websites with Macromedia Flash content and see how nice it is and also try to learn how to create stuff in Flash.
I think you will start loving Flash.
regards.
Anil Alias.
Besides a time is rapidly coming where pop-up blockers will be able to block Flash pop-ups as well. So these crap designers and people will have to find someone else to annoy or at least another way of doing it.
Robert
I love Macromedia Flash!
regards,
Anil Alias.
I love Macromedia Flash!
regards,
Anil Alias.
Because it's at the level of '80s.
Who believes developers will ignore 25 years of improvements in exchange to being able to build pretty animations?
To credit, flash is a great 2d vector/raster engine which is suitable for running annoying ads.
Because it's at the level of '80s.
Who believes developers will ignore 25 years of improvements in exchange to being able to build pretty animations?
To credit, flash is a great 2d vector/raster engine which is suitable for running annoying ads.