Flash Makes Splash in Gadgets 316
An anonymous reader writes "Flash is winding its way into a growing number of gadgets and devices, according to an article at DeviceForge. Although Macromedia normally requires licensees to sign up for massive quantities of licenses before they can build its 'Embedded Macromedia Flash Player' into devices, the company as authorized NEC subsidiary Vibren to supply embedded Flash licenses in lower volumes to makers of POS (point-of-sales/service) terminals, personal organizers, PC replacements, small-screen airline entertainment devices, real-time securities trading terminals, digital signs, and more. Brace yourself for some juiced-up electronic billboards!"
flash is evil!! (Score:1, Interesting)
Just my $0.02...
Leapster etc., this is Java's missed opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, Flash became more than just scaled vector text, taking on greater amounts of application capability. Even my daughter's Leapster, the so-called "learning game pad" that displays Dora and SpongeBob in a variety of educational situations, is based on Flash, not Java.
So much for a language originally intended for embedded applications. Java is strongest now in the server room, tier 2 (Oracle & Sybase hold tier 1). Flash is strongest in tier 3: the user interface.
Re:right, Macromedia Flash. ok... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's only
open-source Flash? (Score:1, Interesting)
Are there currently any open-source attempts at implementing a Flash engine?
Happy to see this (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a big deal, people.
Observations From Macromedia MAX (Score:3, Interesting)
Flash for mobile devices has the moniker Flash Lite. Two versions exist: 1.0 and 1.1. As I understand it, Flash Lite came about when DoCoMo in japan approached Macromedia with an interest in coming up with an animation engine to spruce up the user interfaces of DoCoMo's phones. Macromedia cobbled something together by stripping down Flash 5 to a footprint suitable for small devices. Note that, as a result, Flash Lite uses ActionScript 1.0 instead of the current 2.0 in the latest PC Flash implementations, which ruffled the feathers of some of the Flash developers at the conference.
As of the conference, Macromedia had essentially zero penetration in the U.S. They recently got a little bit of penetration in Europe with T-Mobile, but Flash Lite at this stage exists almost solely in Japan with DoCoMo, though they mentioned they might have something going with KDDI, the, as I understand it, second largest carrier in Japan behind DoCoMo. Some of the DoCoMo phones in Japan actually use Flash Lite to render the user interface replete with 'cute' animations and such, some models using Flash Lite 1.0 and others 1.1.
The latest version of Flash MX Studio 2004 (right name?) has a profile for Flash Lite 1.1, so you can develop Flash Lite applications with it. However, Flash Lite Flash applications have extreme limitations - no bigger than 100K distributable and small runtime memory allowances. Ironically, they advised developers to use bitmaps rather than high-complexity vectors because the player on these limited phones cannot handle vectors very well.
The examples of applications and code I saw demonstrated a high level of 'hack' factor to get around these limitations and Flash Lite development in Flash MX Studio 2004 looks absolutely agonizing, though that may stem from my lack of experience with Flash development in general. Let me just say when you have to draw 'off stage' *visual* elements and click on them to input your 'script', which differs from frame to frame in a 'movie track', I want none of it. When you get layered inappropriate paradigms, you have trouble.
Macromedia did a good job of providing information about Flash Lite, but they face an uphill battle because they appeared to have an almost singular focus on pleasing carriers, not developers. This does not surprise me in the mobile world, which presents a generally toxic environment for independent developers, but suffice to say that they really want to make money off licensing the player to carriers in large volume. They need developers to create some compelling apps to encourage such licensing, but with no penetration in the U.S. and very rudimentary support for developers, this does not seem likely or wise for anyone except those targeting the Japanese market.
One important point that demonstrates this: Even if you came up with a fantastic app such that you could actually convince mobile users to download Flash Lite, there currently exists no way for them to do so or for you to bundle the Flash Lite player with your app because Macromedia wants license fees from carriers for the installation of the player on the mobile device and therefore does not provide free and ubiquitous downloads as it does with the Flash browser plugin.
If you want to start development and test on the phone, you need an advanced phone for which they have a beta client, such as a Sony P900 or recent Nokia Series 60. You also need to email them at a special email address to get added to their 'Flash Lite beta program' and may have to sign an NDA to get a version of the Flash Lite player to run on your phone, which I declined. I think, to test
Re:Flash Rant (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:right, Macromedia Flash. ok... (Score:2, Interesting)