NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

Freaking Choice!

Wow! What an amazing few weeks it has been. Just a little while ago, my company was all excited about developing for the iPad. We even purchased 3 for testing. Our tools of choice were going to be Unity3D and Flash. We even pre-ordered CS5. Just a little before, the release of CS5, Apple announces its new ToS which basically excludes Flash developed apps from the app store and possibly Unity Apps. Now we are left floundering for a new plan. Google comes along and essentially pulls a coupe by addressing so many issues that it is not even funny. A Google Chrome based tablet will make Apple rethink a lot of stuff.

Granted, all of the things announced at Google I/O have yet to be instated, but if all goes well their platform will empower a whole lot of people and make it so that you can develop with whatever you like, and for Pete’s sake even make money! That is truly awesome! There is a lot to think about, and a lot of change coming, and freaking choice! What a concept. As many have said, ‘it is a real good time to be a web developer’.

DCF

3-D functionality in Bing Maps

Here is a talk from Ted 2010 given by Blaise Aguera y Arcas about the 3-D functionality in Bing Maps. Simply amazing.

Max Day 2

Watching day 2 keynote of Adobe MAX today was pretty impressive. The big deal of the day I think, was having John Mayer show up and talk about how he is using Flash and Augmented Reality in one of his videos. Very cool to see a recording artist blending media to push the envelope of how we experience music.

While the video section telling all the great stuff that will be available in 10.1 was nice, the thing that impressed me most was the FedEx Flex application and how they are using it. Combining Flex, LCDS and RTMP they’ve made this awesome looking application that allows them to monitor their trucks locations, and a host of other things like truck cargo bay temperature, and put so much information into a well designed interface. Definitely, an impressive example of how companies are using Flex for enterprise applications.

The monetization and analytic additions were touched on, and even though the pay application hung during the demo, it was still good to see that this will eventually be one less thing to worry about. It was nice to see Electronic Arts there and to hear about their use of Flash in the casual game development. It was also nice to hear them get a dig in on the lack of ‘right click’ support. All in all, the keynote was pretty encouraging and it gives me hope that Flash development is still a pretty good thing to pursue.

DCF

Flash Everywhere

Well, I watched the Adobe MAX opener today and was marginally surprised. The big announcement was Flash for the iPhone. Kind of overshadowed everything else. I thought this announcement was kinda cool, but since I’m not an iPhone person, and my company has not targeted the iPhone I was only a little excited. What I did find interesting was the whole effort to bring Flash 10 to all the ‘rest’ of the phones out there, and to get it working well on netbooks, and TV. It was also noted that Adobe is moving to plug up those memory leaks and optimize the player so it runs well across the board, as well as beef up Air so that it is a more compelling development option. Now that is exciting.

There was mention of hardware acceleration, but I am not clear if it is just for the mobile piece or will it extend to the PC based player. In any event, it means that the player is getting beefed up a bit even if its only a dot upgrade and not a full version. It also means that Adobe is getting closer to having a player that runs everywhere. I’m sure there are a few orgs out there not liking the direction this all seems to be going. Write once run anywhere is sure getting closer, but who would have thought it might be Adobe and Flash to pull it off. Tomorrow we’ll hear more about the Flash platform upgrades and future directions. Hopefully we’ll get the low down on just how powerful the upgraded player will be.

DCF

Coming Soon: Flash Platform Services

I have been watching the Adobe news and recently read that Adobe is going to be releasing a platform to “Enhance, distribute, and monetize” Flash applications. At first glance it sounds outstanding. That and the soon acquisition of Omniture makes for some interesting movement on Adobe’s part.

If Adobe can make good on their inevitable player 11 10+ release (we’re close to the end of that 18 month release window they seem to be on) then they will solidify their position as leader in the web player arena. A more powerful player coupled with a means to distribute and make money from your application as well as a vehicle to show progress via Omniture analytics is real compelling for developers. This is a very exciting time for us die hard Flashers.

Check it out: Flash Platform services

DCF

MS patents XML document format

While on vacation this week, I saw this on Slashdot: Microsoft patents XML for word processing. Most people could care less. I’d probably be in the “could care less” crew if I was not into open source. I remember back in the day when Microsoft released a new version of Word, you had to upgrade or you could not read documents created by the newer version.

Years ago, I was introduced to Open Office, and its OpenDocument format, which is XML based. The specs for this format were originally created by Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft clearly was not using anything like it at the time. To this day, you can read documents created in a newer version of OpenOffice, with an older version of OpenOffice. Basically, it meant that you might not have all the latest features, but you could at least read the document without having to upgrade.

Now Microsoft is supporting an XML format in its latest versions of Office. Somehow, it just does not seem right that Microsoft would hold the patent for such a basic concept that at one time was open and freely distributed. Microsoft has said they would not sue anyone who is using their patented markup language concept for documents, but who’s to say that this position won’t change. I guess it is simply business. If no one else claimed a patent for the file format, then why not? Still, it just does not seem right, and makes one wonder if this will happen to other open source software and techniques.

Push Button Engine

Ya know? I really love(d) the GarageGames (GG) concept: Make game development accessible to the common person for a relatively low price. For the most part, it did work, and the company has done well with it’s “indie” offerings. Now Jeff Tunnel and Rick Overman, two of the original founders of GG are out to do it again with a new company and a similar concept.

Banking on the concept that the Flash environment is solid and online is the future, Push Button Labs (PBL) was started with these ideas in mind:

“Flash has huge momentum and we think there is a great opening to supply Flash developers with even easier and more modular methods of making their games. We envision thousands of free and premium components, starter kits, and content packs all rated, ranked, and easily distributed through our store bringing in great money for the developers creating them. “

- Jeff Tunnell (makeitbigingames.com)

With their open source Flash game development platform the Push Button Engine, PBL hopes to capitalize on the same ideas that made them successful at GG. There is no doubt that the ubiquity of Flash will continue, and Flash will continue to increase in power. With the right tools and support, the PBL engine could be a winner. I will definitely be watching this one.

Push Button Engine

DCF

Flash and Facebook

Recently, Adobe announced that they will support an API for Facebook. I totally understand the move. With millions of users on Facebook, and Adobe trying really hard to be the premiere RIA dev environment for the web, Facebook represents an awesome opportunity to test and disseminate Flash/Flex based content. Considering what has happened with iPhone apps, and the missed opportunity for Adobe there, this move makes a lot of sense.

Facebook is a phenomenal social networking environment. Flash is an incredible development environment for producing rich interactive experiences. Both are continually evolving in terms of how they address user experience. The Facebook environment is a catalyst that inspires developers to create apps for interaction that most likely would not be realized anywhere else. Flash is a great dev tool, but you have to have a compelling reason to create content, and an audience. Facebook offers that audience. Not a bad move at all, and could be a catalyst for other such unions.

Deliver rich, social experiences on the web

DCF

Another Particle Found

The scientist at Fermi Lab in Batavia Illinois, have found yet another particle. Dubbed Y(4140), in reference to its measured mass of 4140 Mega-electron volts. “Y” is interesting because they did not plan to find it. It is a completely untheorized particle and now challenges what physicists thought they knew about how quarks combine to form matter. Why is this interesting to me? After having spent about nine years of my life working in the high energy physics community, it is kind of hard not to keep up with it. That, and the discoveries are starting to look more and more like they can be related to computer science.

What does it mean to us? From a quantum physics perspective, we’re getting a whole lot closer to figuring out how all of this (reality) is put together. The physicist David Bohm made an analogy that all matter is simply “frozen light”. Kind of sounds like a reference to pixels in an off handed sort of way. It’s starting to look a whole lot like the universe is a massive simulation. Can you say, The Matrix? Not saying that we’re all batteries, but once we get to the truth of how our universe is constructed it may be a lot stranger than fiction. I want the source code. Just need to make a lotto hack

New Particle Throws Monkeywrench in Particle Physics

The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot

-DCF

Web 2.0 Government

Obama’s new CIO wants to web 2.0-ize government. What an incredible idea. No really, it’s a good idea, it just seems like something that should have been considered many moons ago. Actually it was, but no one was paying attention to the voices crying in the wilderness. Too much money was being siphoned for anyone to care at the time. Kundra, the new “tech czar” believes that using Web-based approaches will not only save the government money, but will probably foster new waves of economic development. Really? Go figure. Guess since the Internet had a significant impact on the election, now everyone is willing to listen.

Honestly, I am glad that they picked someone with a reasonable clue as to what is going on with open source and the web in general. Like it or not, there is a revolution going on and all things considered we are kind of behind from a government stand point. Whatever tools they chose to implement in the creation of web based apps, will obviously influence acceptance in other corporate arenas. I’m wondering exactly what will be the development platform of choice for their web apps? .NET, Flex, Ajax, Ruby, something yet unknown, or a mash up of all of them? Only time will tell, but it looks like RIA development just may pick up sooner than later.

Obama’s CIO wants more citizen activity on Web

-DCF