Thursday, March 29, 2007
Flash Cast is kicking butt and taking names
Via Bill. Seems there's been an explosion of activity in the Flash Cast world. The announcements from CTIA Wireless are coming thick and fast, and they're great news for the expanding Flash Lite ecosystem. DoCoMo have surpassed 10 million subscribers to their i-Channel service (which is Flash Cast rebranded) in just 18 months, which is a staggering number. Verizon have also broadened their Flash Lite involvement with the announcement to bring Flash Cast to North America. And finally, Chunghwa Telecom is going to bring Flash Cast to around 8 million subscribers in Taiwan.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Hutchison triggers 3G price war
I blogged about this a little while ago, but the reality is finally coming to our shores - capped mobile data plans. Thanks to Hutchison, the telco market here is going to go into a spin trying to compete with mobile data rates ... when someone's paying $15/Mb on Telstra, how will they feel when their mate is only paying $30/month for 1Gb on Hutshison?
Thank God!
The new 3 service, called X-Series, has three levels of flat-rate pricing
starting at $20 monthly for 500MB of data, followed by a $30 monthly 1GB plan
and finishing with a 2GB plan for $40 monthly.
Thank God!
C++ and Flash Lite
The Mobile and Devices User Group in Italy is holding the following face to face seminar. Speakers are Vassilis Legakis and Giorgio Natili.
- April 25th in Athens, Greece
- "C++ and Flash Lite" - http://www.makingwireless.it/?page_id=3
Outline of the seminar:
- Introduction to Symbian C++
- Major differences to classic C++ development
- Brief introduction to FlashLite
- FlashLite and the network
- FlashLite and external applications
- Integration between Flashlite and C++
If you're in the area, this would be well worth getting along to!
Flash Lite 2.1 Roadshow for the US
Adobe has organized a road show in several US cities to show Flash Lite 2.1 for Brew and the new mobile features of Adobe CS3. You can catch the guys from Adobe, Verizon, Qualcomm, Smashing Ideas and Atom Shockwave here:
- Wednesday, April 25th New York, NY
- Thursday, April 26th Boston, MA
- Tuesday, May 1st Chicago, IL
- Thursday, May 3rd Atlanta, GA
- Tuesday, May 8th Austin, TX
- Thursday, May 10th Seattle, WA
- Tuesday, May 15th San Francisco, CA
- Wednesday, May 16th San Diego, CA
- Thursday, May 17th Los Angeles, CA
The one-day seminar will highlights such as:
- How to monetize your Flash Lite 2.1 for BREW content
- Share best practices for developing Flash Lite for BREW content for Verizon Wireless
- Learn the ins and outs of Qualcomm’s BREW platform
- Learn to develop and test mobile content with Adobe Creative Suite 3 and Adobe Device Central CS3
View the agenda here and register here.
Release the CS3 Beast!
The Adobe CS3 software packages have been released with much fanfare and anticipation. It'll be in store starting from April, but today /tonight there gave been videocasts being broadcast all over the place to see the launch event first hand.
One of the cooler aspects for me is of course Device Central CS3 which forms a central piece of many of the new CS3 packages. See your content developed in Flash, Dreamweaver or Photoshop displayed and tested in context of over 200 devices (list updated quarterly as per current "Device Updates"). Flash Lite takes a big spotlight here and that's only a good thing.
And so begins what is the biggest software release undertaken by Adobe!
One of the cooler aspects for me is of course Device Central CS3 which forms a central piece of many of the new CS3 packages. See your content developed in Flash, Dreamweaver or Photoshop displayed and tested in context of over 200 devices (list updated quarterly as per current "Device Updates"). Flash Lite takes a big spotlight here and that's only a good thing.
And so begins what is the biggest software release undertaken by Adobe!
Friday, March 23, 2007
New Flash Lite Friday Digest #16
Darren over at Ludicrous Software has posted the latest Flash Lite Friday Digest of what's been happening around the Flash Lite community lately.
webDU Day Two and all done
So webDU is done for another year, and I can say that it was again a very successful conference. Geoff, Julie, Vanessa and the rest of the Daemon team should be very proud and their efforts are very much appreciated by all attendees, speakers and sponsors.
So Day Two started off not as dusty as previous years ... the previous evening was the annual conference banquet with it's regular highlights of great food, casual conversation amongst everyone and some fun entertainment. This year saw the Kath and Kim show come to webDU, and the two foxy ladies from Fountain Lakes did their level best to embarress as many of the visiting US Adobe folks as possible. Only problem was that when Kim tried to throw herself at who she thought was Tim Buntel, she instead had Andrew Spaulding (and don't tell me you didn't enjoy it Andrew!). They also thought that Ted Patrick was the Adobe guy with the dog who went everywhere ... James Talbot was beside me saying "Don't tell them it's me ... don't you say a word!".
The Microsoft party this year was handled by none other than our own Scott Barnes, who cut quite the dashing figure in his new MS Expression jacket. Free jackets and copies of Expression Web also sweetened the deal for many party goers ... but I think we all knew most were there for the drinks :)
But everyone pulled up very well I thought the next day, and the scond day keynote with Tim Buntel (ColdFusion Scorpio preview) and Ted Patrick (Flex). Sessions were also well attended, with Jesse showing off his awesome work on Flash Lite 2.x component framework called Shuriken. The day ended with a roundtable with all attendees and the Adobe guys doing their best to answer questions, but as always most of the answers involved a healthy dose of "no comment" :)
So, just the speaker party to go tonight before I head home on Sunday. It's been a great time this year and I was pleased to find so much positive energy for Moket and what we're trying to achieve. Most believe that Flash Lite WILL evetually fulfill the promises we've had over the past 2-3 years, and hopefully Moket is still well placed when it does.
So from webDU 2007 ... good night!
So Day Two started off not as dusty as previous years ... the previous evening was the annual conference banquet with it's regular highlights of great food, casual conversation amongst everyone and some fun entertainment. This year saw the Kath and Kim show come to webDU, and the two foxy ladies from Fountain Lakes did their level best to embarress as many of the visiting US Adobe folks as possible. Only problem was that when Kim tried to throw herself at who she thought was Tim Buntel, she instead had Andrew Spaulding (and don't tell me you didn't enjoy it Andrew!). They also thought that Ted Patrick was the Adobe guy with the dog who went everywhere ... James Talbot was beside me saying "Don't tell them it's me ... don't you say a word!".
The Microsoft party this year was handled by none other than our own Scott Barnes, who cut quite the dashing figure in his new MS Expression jacket. Free jackets and copies of Expression Web also sweetened the deal for many party goers ... but I think we all knew most were there for the drinks :)
But everyone pulled up very well I thought the next day, and the scond day keynote with Tim Buntel (ColdFusion Scorpio preview) and Ted Patrick (Flex). Sessions were also well attended, with Jesse showing off his awesome work on Flash Lite 2.x component framework called Shuriken. The day ended with a roundtable with all attendees and the Adobe guys doing their best to answer questions, but as always most of the answers involved a healthy dose of "no comment" :)
So, just the speaker party to go tonight before I head home on Sunday. It's been a great time this year and I was pleased to find so much positive energy for Moket and what we're trying to achieve. Most believe that Flash Lite WILL evetually fulfill the promises we've had over the past 2-3 years, and hopefully Moket is still well placed when it does.
So from webDU 2007 ... good night!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Well I'm just gettign back to my hotel room from Day One at webDU, and man, am I beat! I don't think I had fully recovered from full-day training on Day Zero, and this morning was full tilt back into it.
To start with, the keynote address was by Mike2 - sirs Downey and Chambers. Mike Downey was showing some of the cool things about Flash Player 9 and the new VM it has for running ActionScript3 at some insane speeds. He also showed some cool sites being based around Flash Video, and a sneek peek of Flash CS3, and then passed on to Mike Chambers who gave a 30 minute rundown and demo of Apollo. All good stuff especially since it's still in alpha!
My session on Flash Lite 2.1 was straight after the keynote, and for the first time at webDU I had practically a full room! That's what happens when you speak early on Day One! The session was ok, but I have vowed never to try and write code in a lives sesison like that again! It was all okay in the end, but I fluffed my way through some ActionScript for a small chat XML Socket client, and I think the audience was happy to see it all working at the end.
The rest of the day was spent catching up with colleagues and playing in the Wii room! Apparently I am naturally gifted with a killer serve in Wii Tennis :) Before the conference banquet kicked off for the evening, we had a WebJam event where people (myself included) got up and had 3 mins to demo or talk about something cool they had done. I showed our latest game called Dizzy Zub Zub, plus the new flight sim we're working on, which drew some nice applause from the crowd :)
I went to the annual Microsoft "can we buy your love" free drinks party after the banquet but had to bail early cause I was just fading very fast ... must get some sleep tonight to make it thorugh the next couple of days.
More notes tomorrow!
UPDATE: I kicked Jesse Warden's butt in Wii Tennis today, but it was payback time for Jester in Wii Boxing ... Moket bit the dust!
To start with, the keynote address was by Mike2 - sirs Downey and Chambers. Mike Downey was showing some of the cool things about Flash Player 9 and the new VM it has for running ActionScript3 at some insane speeds. He also showed some cool sites being based around Flash Video, and a sneek peek of Flash CS3, and then passed on to Mike Chambers who gave a 30 minute rundown and demo of Apollo. All good stuff especially since it's still in alpha!
My session on Flash Lite 2.1 was straight after the keynote, and for the first time at webDU I had practically a full room! That's what happens when you speak early on Day One! The session was ok, but I have vowed never to try and write code in a lives sesison like that again! It was all okay in the end, but I fluffed my way through some ActionScript for a small chat XML Socket client, and I think the audience was happy to see it all working at the end.
The rest of the day was spent catching up with colleagues and playing in the Wii room! Apparently I am naturally gifted with a killer serve in Wii Tennis :) Before the conference banquet kicked off for the evening, we had a WebJam event where people (myself included) got up and had 3 mins to demo or talk about something cool they had done. I showed our latest game called Dizzy Zub Zub, plus the new flight sim we're working on, which drew some nice applause from the crowd :)
I went to the annual Microsoft "can we buy your love" free drinks party after the banquet but had to bail early cause I was just fading very fast ... must get some sleep tonight to make it thorugh the next couple of days.
More notes tomorrow!
UPDATE: I kicked Jesse Warden's butt in Wii Tennis today, but it was payback time for Jester in Wii Boxing ... Moket bit the dust!
webDU Day One
Well I'm just gettign back to my hotel room from Day One at webDU, and man, am I beat! I don't think I had fully recovered from full-day training on Day Zero, and this morning was full tilt back into it.
To start with, the keynote address was by Mike2 - sirs Downey and Chambers. Mike Downey was showing some of the cool things about Flash Player 9 and the new VM it has for running ActionScript3 at some insane speeds. He also showed some cool sites being based around Flash Video, and a sneek peek of Flash CS3, and then passed on to Mike Chambers who gave a 30 minute rundown and demo of Apollo. All good stuff especially since it's still in alpha!
My session on Flash Lite 2.1 was straight after the keynote, and for the first time at webDU I had practically a full room! That's what happens when you speak early on Day One! The session was ok, but I have vowed never to try and write code in a lives sesison like that again! It was all okay in the end, but I fluffed my way through some ActionScript for a small chat XML Socket client, and I think the audience was happy to see it all working at the end.
The rest of the day was spent catching up with colleagues and playing in the Wii room! Apparently I am naturally gifted with a killer serve in Wii Tennis :) Before the conference banquet kicked off for the evening, we had a WebJam event where people (myself included) got up and had 3 mins to demo or talk about something cool they had done. I showed our latest game called Dizzy Zub Zub, plus the new flight sim we're working on, which drew some nice applause from the crowd :)
I went to the annual Microsoft "can we buy your love" free drinks party after the banquet but had to bail early cause I was just fading very fast ... must get some sleep tonight to make it thorugh the next couple of days.
More notes tomorrow!
UPDATE: I kicked Jesse Warden's butt in Wii Tennis today, but it was payback time for Jester in Wii Boxing ... Moket bit the dust!
To start with, the keynote address was by Mike2 - sirs Downey and Chambers. Mike Downey was showing some of the cool things about Flash Player 9 and the new VM it has for running ActionScript3 at some insane speeds. He also showed some cool sites being based around Flash Video, and a sneek peek of Flash CS3, and then passed on to Mike Chambers who gave a 30 minute rundown and demo of Apollo. All good stuff especially since it's still in alpha!
My session on Flash Lite 2.1 was straight after the keynote, and for the first time at webDU I had practically a full room! That's what happens when you speak early on Day One! The session was ok, but I have vowed never to try and write code in a lives sesison like that again! It was all okay in the end, but I fluffed my way through some ActionScript for a small chat XML Socket client, and I think the audience was happy to see it all working at the end.
The rest of the day was spent catching up with colleagues and playing in the Wii room! Apparently I am naturally gifted with a killer serve in Wii Tennis :) Before the conference banquet kicked off for the evening, we had a WebJam event where people (myself included) got up and had 3 mins to demo or talk about something cool they had done. I showed our latest game called Dizzy Zub Zub, plus the new flight sim we're working on, which drew some nice applause from the crowd :)
I went to the annual Microsoft "can we buy your love" free drinks party after the banquet but had to bail early cause I was just fading very fast ... must get some sleep tonight to make it thorugh the next couple of days.
More notes tomorrow!
UPDATE: I kicked Jesse Warden's butt in Wii Tennis today, but it was payback time for Jester in Wii Boxing ... Moket bit the dust!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Touchdown at webDU
webDU is officially underway for me. I got the red-eye out of Brisbane this morning at 5.30am to get down to Sydney in time for the Day Zero training course I was running for Flash Lite. Got to meet up with James and Kai again which was cool, and gave 6 or so guys a total deep-end experience in Flash Lite 2,x development :) I think they're heads are still spinning, and I'm just catching up to the fact as to how little sleep I got last night! Off to the annual ANZ User Group Managers meeting tonight to catch up some more ... keynote tomorrow is Apolllo with Mike Chambers and Mie Downey (always a hoot), then my FL session first up. Rock on!
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
New CS3 Icons
Via John Nack. This little carousel has been produced by Lee at The Flash Blog, showing all the newly designed icons for Adobe CS3 and related products. John also has the "icon colour wheel" that shows the whole suite. Personally, I actually liked the old circular ones that Macromedia had for Studio 8 better. These don't jump out at me like something from a creative company should. I don't know ... what do you think?
Monday, March 5, 2007
Total Training Flash Lite DVD Excerpts on Adobe.com
Adobe.com have posted some excerpts from my recently released training DVD - Total Training for Adobe Flash Lite 2.1 : Creating Mobile Applications. You can find the tutorials in the Flash Lite Dev Centre.You can watch video samples from the "Handling Device Keypress Events" section, featuring topics like:
- Adding ActionScript 2.0 to control soft keys
- Creating a global key listener
- Defining key functions
- Changing visual content on key events
Enjoy!
Friday, March 2, 2007
Article on Wharton - Steve Jobs' Most Recent Vision for the Future: A World without DRM
An interesting article over at Wharton on the debate that Steve Jobs has brought attention to - to DRM or not to DRM. While related mainly to music, I think it's relevant for Flash Lite / mobile content developers who encounter this in their business. Is it the shadow of the "free for all" web being cast over an industry (mobile /.electronic content) that has pretty much been locked down and user-pays from the start? Time will tell ...
FlexBox is Open
FlexBox is a new set of Flex components and place where other community-generated components can be added. You can search through the list of components and in most cases see a sample of the component in action on someone's site (ususally the author of the component). Pretty cool resource for the Flex community.
ActionScript.IT Mobile Game Comp Winners
The winners from the Mobile Game Contest are in, and we seem some familiar faces in the Flash Lite category:
1st. - Evan Green for "Ping 520"
2nd. - Luciano Ayres for "Bone Smashers"
3rd. - Evan Green for "Flow Panic"
For the J2ME category, the winners were:
1st. - Eric Feng for "SuperKake"
2nd. - Pasi Kainiemi for "Climberman"
3rd. - Romeo Kollar for "Block Fusion"
1st. - Evan Green for "Ping 520"
2nd. - Luciano Ayres for "Bone Smashers"
3rd. - Evan Green for "Flow Panic"
For the J2ME category, the winners were:
1st. - Eric Feng for "SuperKake"
2nd. - Pasi Kainiemi for "Climberman"
3rd. - Romeo Kollar for "Block Fusion"
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Flash Lite Competition Now Closed
The Flash Lite Application contest is now closed and the winners will be announced the second week of March. Good luck to all those who entered - there was certainly a rush of entries at the last minute so us judges have a lot of work ahead of us!
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