Archive for the ‘Gadgets’ Category

MAX 2008 Tips and Tricks Demo Files

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Last week’s MAX conference was a blast – Alessandro did a great job of summarizing all of the exciting new developments in the mobile space for Flash developers, so I won’t rehash those here. Adobe did a fantastic job of putting together an excellent set of sessions on Flash Lite/mobile development, and the other organized events were equally, if not even more, worthwhile to attend. On a general note, it was great to meet a wide range of people who were either involved in or were exploring mobile development – beyond the usual Flash Lite suspects I met a bunch of people from companies all over the world that are seriously considering Flash Lite, and I think that speaks to the current and future health of the mobile part of the Flash ecosystem.

On a personal note, I had a great time presenting in the “Twenty Tips and Tricks” session – unfortunately I think that Monday’s session was not the best of my three cracks at it, but that’s the one that’ll get posted to Adobe TV eventually! As promised, I’m also posting the files that I used to demo/explain some of my tips and tricks. Feel free to use any of the code in your projects in any way you wish. No need to provide any kind of attribution, but if you find these code samples informative and/or actually do use them in one of your projects, please drop me an email to let me know! The files are all for the latest version of Flash, so you’ll need CS4 installed to use them.

Hope to see you at MAX 2009 in Los Angeles – don’t know if I’ll be presenting again (although I’d like to) but even if I’m not I’ll definitely be there!

Posted in Adobe, Flash Lite (general), Flash Lite 1.1, Gadgets, MAX | 3 Comments »

First PMP to support Flash Lite 3? Or not?

Friday, June 15th, 2007

More gadget/PMP news. Here’s a news release from Archos, announcing that their new line of “Generation 5″ PMPs will support Flash Video. At first I thought this would be via inclusion of Flash Lite 3, which will support FLV. The fact that the quote in the news release make specific reference to Flash Lite would support that conclusion.

But the technical specs page for the first Generation 5 PMP state that it will support Flash via an optional plug-in to the Opera browser. This could still mean Flash Lite, but it doesn’t say that specifically. So I’m not so sure. The PMPs are supposed to be available this summer, which is earlier than I thought Flash Lite 3-enabled devices would start to be available, but perhaps Archos is just ahead of the curve on that?

Posted in Gadgets | No Comments »

Another PMP, with a twist

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Samsung has announced the “T9+ The Third Story“, which is the third iteration of their “Yepp” PMP. Previous versions have included the Flash Lite player, and have come bundled with a couple of games (I noticed that Best Buy here in Canada is selling one model). The T9+ The Third Story has an interesting added feature: the ability to play games with other T9+ owners within a range of about 30 feet. It looks like this version also is Flash Lite-enabled; if these multiplayer games are Flash Lite games would be interesting to see how those connections are implemented.

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New Flash Lite PMP

Sunday, June 10th, 2007

Here’s another Personal Media Player with Flash Lite installed: The Venus JXD638. Not the most marketable name in the world, but a neat little device, with lots of features for US $91.

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New version of the Nokia 6682 available from Rogers…

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

…and if you’re a Flash Lite developer you’re probably asking yourself why you should even care. The 6682, after, is a few years old now. As a device that runs the S60 2nd Edition operating system, you could download and install the Flash Lite player from Adobe and the 6682 was a fine testing device. I think it can also run the 2.1 version of the player, so it definitely still has its value – if you’re just starting out in Flash Lite development and on a tight budget, you could probably do worse than pick up a 6682 from eBay..

But why should a new version of the 6682 be of interest to Flash Lite developers? Because it’s the Nokia 6682RVI, a handset designed specifically for customers who are visually impaired. The device features TALKS, a text-to-speech program that can read out screen text to the user. My bet, without doing one bit of Googling about this, is that TALKS does not read out the text in a Flash Lite document.

What this means is simple: developers who want to include Flash Lite content on their web pages designed for mobile users must address the same accessibility issues facing developers who use Flash on the ‘non-mobile’ web. Flash Lite allows for a much more immersive and rich multimedia web experience for mobile users than, say, a WAP site. But it’s important to remember that using Flash Lite on your mobile web site without providing a non-Flash alternative may make your site inaccessible to many mobile users out there.

And even if you feel that’s a trade-off worth making, remember this: Google likes plain text. Flash Lite content will be as invisible to the Googlebot as it will be to many people who use phoneslike the 6682RVI. So even the people you are targeting with your site could have a hard time finding it.

Posted in Flash Lite (general), Gadgets | 2 Comments »

Gadget lust

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

CNet has a small photo gallery of phones that have built-in accelerometers so that they detect tilting and other movement of the phone itself (and here’s the associated article). The iPhone looks like it will be pretty locked down from developers, and the other devices are available in Japan and/or Korea, so we’re probably a little while away from seeing this technology in mass-market devices in North America. But still, those would be fun devices to create content for!

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