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Handhelds Graphics Software Hardware

Flash Makes Splash in Gadgets 316

Posted by CowboyNeal from the mini-movies-and-more dept.
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!"
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Flash Makes Splash in Gadgets More

Flash Makes Splash in Gadgets

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  • Flash (Score:2, Funny)

    by trabisnikof ( 694721 )
    Talk about a news Flash.
    • This comment needs a +0 Corny moderation.

      but I like the play on words. (but i'm tired so it's probably just me)
  • I hope someone comes up with a way to block these flash animations on these devices. The last thing I need is a cash register showing cartoons at me.

  • can't wait (Score:5, Insightful)

    by anotherone ( 132088 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @08:58PM (#11048145)
    I can't wait until embedded device designers take a cue from web designers and start using Flash for navigation and suddenly a simple thing like "adjusting the contrast on my monitor" takes 10 minutes.

    • Re:can't wait (Score:3, Informative)

      by Infonaut ( 96956 )
      I can't wait until embedded device designers take a cue from web designers and start using Flash for navigation

      How many web sites do you visit on a regular basis that make use of Flash for navigation? From what I've seen, the majority majority of web development professionals have learned the uses and limitations of Flash. Most of the superfluous Flash I see these days is relegated to entertainment-oriented sites that are trying really hard to impress 18-25 year olds.

      • Clueless you are ! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bushboy ( 112290 ) <lttc@lefthandedmonkeys.org> on Friday December 10, 2004 @02:33AM (#11049441) Homepage
        I can't believe how damn clueless some people are regarding technology like Flash.

        Everyone judges the damn content on freakin' banner adverts, instead of having a deeper look into how incredibly powerful it is.

        Pffft.

        • Re:Clueless you are ! (Score:3, Informative)

          by iwan-nl ( 832236 )

          I've been payed to do actionscripting for a flash site in the past. I have to agree that flash is powerfull. There is really no limit in what you can do with it. On the other hand i agree with most other slashdotters that flash is mis/overused on MANY occations. Too much animations can slow older machines to a crawl and are often unnecessary. This can easily be avoided though, if you have a designer that knows what he/she's doing.

          Flash does however offer one really important feature that html/js does not:

        • Exactly. I've created an entire website in Flash that makes use of a MySQL dbase, sends mail using a small php script. Point is, everything is possible with Flash. Okay, not *everything*, but alot more than just banners. If you care to read up on the docs, you'll find that Flash does more than you think. And some other things are just far more easier in Flash than with HTML/ASP/PHP/Javascript.

          I'm really confused why so many people seem to hate Flash. The arguments that these people use are also completely
          • I like to be able to open my sites in Lynx.

            Good enough argument?
            • Yes and no.

              Yes, because it's your choice of browser. You're totally free in that and i'll be the last person to say what you _should_ use.

              however ...

              No, because you know the limitations of lynx. Lynx doesn't support frames, flash, java applets etc. Certain sites are made to show a certain type of content. If you go to a site of a photo-editing company (for example), you'll know that you'll face graphical content. In this case the argument is not realistic.
          • *looks at Linux/ppc box* *looks at Macromedia site* So, yeah, I *can't* use your site, which is a pretty good argument against it, right?

            Plus .. can I open links on your website in a new tab? Can I customise it with a stylesheet to make it easier to read? etc.
      • How many web sites do you visit on a regular basis that make use of Flash for navigation?
        None. I go once and I never return.

        No, wait, one. Homestar Runner. Though I usually go straight to the new pages from Fark.

      • How many web sites do you visit on a regular basis that make use of Flash for navigation?

        That question assumes that Flash isn't a consideration in choosing which sites I go to. If a site uses Flash for navigation, then that's a big reason for me to avoid it unless I have no other choice.

        There are of course exceptions; sites like Homestar Runner [homestarunner.com] can use Flash in a way that dovetails with their content. However, there are still sites that persist in trying to use Flash to present things like text and raste

    • The funny thing is that I have a friend who does some web design...me being the terminal person I am, I open up his site in Lynx. Turns out it's all done in flash.

      The next time I see him, I just pick up my web development book (big one, about 15cm thick), and just throw it at him ;)

      He's gone back to straight HTML since then. I might even be able to get him to do perl :)

  • On the billboards... (Score:4, Funny)

    by kjones692 ( 805101 ) <the.cyborganizer@NOsPAm.gmail.com> on Thursday December 09, 2004 @09:01PM (#11048157)
    "PUNCH ME and WIN AN iPOD!"

    *smash*

  • Leapster etc., this is Java's missed opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YetAnotherName ( 168064 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @09:01PM (#11048158) Homepage
    As much as I like Java, the more and more I see Flash-based applications for vertical markets, the more I see that as Java's missed opportunity. This was Java's golden path, and it floundered with poor download times, incompatible security policies, and prejudice as "nothing more than animated icons."

    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.
    • Agreed, expecially because Macromedia is creating Flex. Flex is a Flash front end with Java servlets running it. Check out the demo of the online store in Flex at the Macromedia site. It really is the future of web applications.
      • Great! Now, a poorly designed server-side technology (Java) meets a poorly designed client GUI technology (Flash).

        Thanks, but no thanks. For "rich internet applications", PHP and DHTML-based toolkits are a better choice right now: easier to train developers, faster development times, better user interfaces. With SVG, XUL, PHP-XUL, and similar technologies, that's only getting better.
        • Apparently you prefer open source. Your preference doesn't make Java poorly designed nor does it make Flash poorly designed.

          Care to expand on the following statements:
          "Now, a poorly designed server-side technology (Java) meets a poorly designed client GUI technology (Flash)."

          and

          "For "rich internet applications", PHP and DHTML-based toolkits are a better choice right now: easier to train developers, faster development times, better user interfaces. "

          Please start quoting proper sources because otherwise

    • Re:Leapster etc., this is Java's missed opportunit (Score:4, Insightful)

      by m00nun1t ( 588082 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @10:00PM (#11048429) Homepage
      I think the problem is much broader than that. It's about the authoring experience. It's relatively easy to create some funky animations in flash, and relatively difficult to do so in java. I remember there were a few programs kicking around years ago which allowed non-programmers to produce animated java applets, but none of the ones I used even remotely touched flash for easy of use and power, much less performance.
    • prejudice as "nothing more than animated icons."

      Anyone using Java (or Flash!) for "nothing more than animated icons" on a website ought to be shot.

    • It's true, in some ways client-side Java was ahead of its time in terms of technology. I think the biggest problem was the botched job that the browsers did in implementing Java support. Like how Netscape supported Java 1.1 except for the new AWT classes. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Sun would have been better off developing the Java Plug-in right from the start instead of relying on Netscape and Microsoft.

      Eric
      Deploying Java applets [ericgiguere.com] (old set of tips)

    • Wait till Flash creeps into your server room! Enterprise Flash Beans (with full antialiasing) - woo-hoo!

  • right, Macromedia Flash. ok... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @09:04PM (#11048178) Journal
    Now can we get back to work on SVG, so we at least have the possibility of an open format.
    • I think I'm right in saying that .SWF *is* an open file format. Lots of developers have created .SWF files that play in Flash Player and authoring packages for creating SWF files. I've even seen a web app that takes plaintext descriptive files as input and spits out valid SWF

      I think it's only .FLA which Macromedia keeps under lock and key. But then that is their 'source document' format for their own Flash authoring application. Other developers have their own formats for 'project' files.
      • It's a documented format, but it's not open in the sense of being standardized or controlled by an industry group. On the other hand the same can be said of PDF, and nobody seems to mind about that.
    • your sig:
      Unless you go into a coma for TWO WHOLE DAYS and emerge as an 8 year old crime-fighting psychic detective.

  • Well... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by qw0ntum ( 831414 )
    At least these POS machines will be able to start using something besides Windows CE, in all its glory.
    Flash-based POS's seem like they could be much more focused, as they wouldn't need much fancy stuff to run simple, colorful apps on. It should probably lead to smaller, more focused POS things. Think mini-billboards, interactive and all that good stuff.

    • The POS at my current place of work is a shitty piece of Windows software running on Win2k. The machine is way overkill for a POS. Did I mention that the POS software sucks?

      I have another job and we use a cool little POS system that runs on a GNU/Linux server and we use an ssh terminal to log into it (it's all automated). It's all text based but it's easy to use and works extremely well (the company has it all on central server because they are a giant chain and they need an easy way to keep track of inv

      • Oh and it has nothing to do with Windows, a poorly designed App is a poorly designed app. At my workplace they took the POS applications for the cashiers from ssh based to X-11 Based... windows based might actually be a relief compared to that fugly thing.
  • http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

    A must have for firefox. I can't stand flash. I don't know why poeple put this crap on their pages.

    Now it is a a good thing that they are cramming this into other devices?
    • A must have for firefox. I can't stand flash. I don't know why poeple put this crap on their pages.

      As I just posted up above, just because some people suck at using Flash does not mean Flash is inherently bad. In the hands of someone that knows what they're doing, it can be amazing.

      Judging from your attitude and your other posts, I have to wonder if the real problem is that you just hate graphical elements and animations in general, for some unknown reason. Sorry, but you're not in the majority.

    • Mod this moron down (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bushboy ( 112290 )
      What the hell is informative about this parent post ?
      I'd love to know - the person who wrote it is a clueless moron.
      • Obviously you still don't understand how flashblock works, so I have made a more informative post that better explains why everyone should have flashblock:

        http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=132241&cid=1 10 50515

        I trust you will find this one more informative.
  • Here's a Q.. In the last few years Flash has added stuff like networking, DB access, dynamic generation of content, etc.. How much of this is actually in SVG?

    AFAICR SVG was just a vector content format. Do SVG viewers implement stuff along the lines of Flash or do they just display SVG content?

    Can you program a network-capable video game in SVG according to a single standard?

    The way I see it lately, Flash is eating applet Java lunch and is quickly approaching full-blown Swing app territory... And wha
  • When I decide where to shop, I consider things such as products, prices, location, convenience, and customer service. I don't care about their checkout counters.

    So why should a store care about spending money on fancy POS points? I worked in a store during high school that used a DOS POS/inventory program and it worked fine. This is a case where the simplest way to get the job done is usually the best.
  • Now I'll have to install FlashBlock on my personal organizer.

  • Rich noise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by liangzai ( 837960 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @09:49PM (#11048371) Homepage
    "The simplicity and richness of a Flash interface makes devices more user-friendly and enhances the customer's experience with rich content."

    Theoretically, it could, although in actuality it will only add to the already prevalent information noise, since most "rich content" will be ads (or just meaningless graphics) disturbing the user process. When withdrawing money, you will have a number of presentations and offers from the bank, and perhaps from third parties (porn ads, contact ads, whore-o-scopes, dick/boob enlargement ads, ...).

    Also, current installations of very simple text- and/or video based devices intermittently display the typical Screen o' Death, since these devices typically rely on Windoze systems. This kind of failure will only increase with the more complex Flash, unless implementers start deploying Linux, OS X or other more robust systems (and this will probably not happen, since most implementers are clueless). Flash itself, being rather complicated, also has a large array of bugs.

  • It's too bad that the same word is used for a graphics display system and a type of data storage. I read the other day about rumors about an Apple MP3 player that was "flash based" but didn't have a display and I thought, how the heck could that work? Then I realized which "flash" they meant.
  • You're driving down the highway one day, and all of a sudden you see, "Ram the monkey with your car and win $20!"
  • But does it run NetBSD?

  • The one thing I hate -most- on the entire Internet is Macromedia Flash. People make whole websites using a proprietary plugin that doesn't even work on a goodish number of OS's! Animated SVG can't come soon enough! Or, better yet, people understanding good old XHTML. Here's a good example:

    At my local high school, I happen to know the "web team". The webmaster doesn't know any HTML. Not a bit. He couldn't even make the equivalent of a hello world. But he's the webmaster. Why? Because he knows Flash and Drea

  • Flash Rant (Score:5, Informative)

    by g00z ( 81380 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @10:34PM (#11048567) Homepage
    I'm cutting and pasting a journal entry I made a while back because I see a lot of the same crap that people like tcomplain about when it comes tflash on slashdot whenever there is a story about flash. I'm a flash developer and it does keep food on the table; however, just because it's a good deal of what I dfor a living doesn't mean I think it's perfect.

    Just tvent a little bit, I really hate flash sometimes. There are smany things that make it a pain tdeal with, it's not funny. Yesterday it was the sandbox issue where flash can't access data outside it's own domain, and today it was the realization that flash is just todamn slow tuse for fast paced action games. Here is my top 10 reasons I love and hate flash:

    Top 10 Reasons I Hate Flash:

    10. Poor buffering of streaming mp3's

    9. Inability for projectors tlaunch files outside of the root directory of the Flash movie

    8. Lack of "onload" feature for Loadvariables()

    7. Lack of videsupport

    6. Separation of Movieclip and Button class objects

    5. Unexpandable work area

    4. Usage of flash in advertisements

    3. Even after you set line tnone, it goes back tblack once you click something

    2. New "sandbox" security protocol in Flash MX that is retroactive

    1. Extremely slow screen re-draw

    Top 10 Reasons I Love Flash:

    10. Easy tunderstand

    9. Built in sound mixer

    8. Scalable vector graphics that can be drawn on the fly

    7. Ability tstream mp3's and pull JPG's in on the fly

    6. Ability tpull/push data from server based applications

    5. Ability texport as a stand alone executable

    4. XML Socket support

    3. Support for PNG's and TRUE alpha channels

    2. Most cross platform multimedia development tool there is

    1. Actionscript, Actionscript, Actionscript

    On this whole note, here is an open letter I wrote about a year agon the adoption of flash for front ends tnew web technologies. It's fairly venomous, but it was sinta hostile email I had gotten from a company I was freelanceing for at the time.

    Flash Findings:
    Debunking the Myths

    What follows is a slightly modfied rant that I sent as an email ta client concerned about using flash for a front end interface ttheir flasgship product as opposed tDHTML. Hopefully this can provide some insight tpeople that don't fully understand the potental uses for Flash and are currently believing some common myths as truths:

    Most of the things that concern clients and other developers about the prospect of using Flash for a project are either untrue or not of concern. Please excuse the rant/angry tone of this -- but there are alot of misconceptions about Flash that make me angry. I've been hearing them a while from people on slashdot. There is alot of ignorance surrounding Flash and I'm here tdebunk this.

    1. Closed source

    Not entirely true. The Flash file structure is actually quite open and the specifications are available freely from Macromedia. Anyone can write a program that creates flash files or a flash player. As example, there is Adobe Livemotion (www.adobe.com) that creates flash content. If flash is closed source in a traditional Microsoft sense, why does Macromedia's biggest competitor, Adobe, have a flash authoring tool? There are alsother open source flash authoring environments available, just poke around freshmeat.net and you can see for yourself. It may not be full on GPL/BSD open source, but the specifications are available -- unlike almost every other closed source format/application out there today. This is a non-issue anyway. Is your project itself open source? Didn't think so.

    2. Breaks Browser paradigm

    Back/Forward buttons

    You shouldn't even have a need thit back in a browser any more. The web has seriously advanced since the days of HTML 1.0 and Mosaic. If a site is laid out correctly, all desired information should be availble tthe user with one mouse click, removing the need for a back b

    • Re:Flash Rant (Score:3, Funny)

      by Gleenie ( 412916 ) *
      Dude, is there something wrong with your "o"?
      • Yah, I did a search and replace on "o " to remove the bullets out of the rant since the slashdot crap filter was bitching. So if any word ended with "o" and had a space after it, both the o and the space got ditched. I'm a dumbass. I guess I need to use the preview button more often.

    • Re:Flash Rant (Score:4, Informative)

      by 3) profit!!! ( 773340 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @01:34AM (#11049274) Homepage

      Cut and paste

      Once again, a good programmer knows how tcode his own routines.

      on (key press)
      if (key.down="X" and key.down=CONTROL) {
      mdm.clipboard = this.selection;
      this.selection = "";
      telltarget ("alertbox")
      gotand play ("selectedtextcut");
      end telltaget
      }
      end on

      Easy as proverbial pie. What I'm saying here is, yah. You can cut and paste in flash.


      What if you're using X Windows, and you select text to copy, and middle mouse button to paste? Usually the browser is able to modify the presentation and interface to meet the user's needs. When using flash, the user's options are ignored for the sake of animations, vector graphics, etc. Also:


      Number two, if the flash site does not follow the old model of third-generation www sites (See above) and uses a new convention - AKA dynamic content as generated by user input (See Application) then, bookmarks and the lot become irrelevant. Can you hit the back button in Quake III Arena when somebody shoots you? (Oops! I didn't want tdie. Take it back please. Im a baby) Can you "bookmark" a spot in a Q3 map because you think it looks neat?


      A web browser is NOT an FPS. An FPS is a game designed to be fun and fair; a web browser is an application designed to present HTML to a user. What would be bad in a game is fine in a web browser ('view source' for example). I'm not sure exactly what your point is here.
      • As far as selecting text and using a middle mouse button to paste such as in X Windows, you can obviously write a actionscript function to handle that as well. I was simply demonstrating that any functionality can exist if it's written.

        Don't take the FPS analogy to literally. What I'm really saying is that if the way you present the information isn't tied to the way a browser works and more like the way an application works, then you don't need a back button. It's all about context.

        • Re:Flash Rant (Score:3, Insightful)

          by maxwell demon ( 590494 )
          Of course you can program every single method in flash. But the flash app does not adapt to the environment.

          What if someone with viewing problems has special settings to display web pages differently (f.ex. with extra big font and increased contrast)? The flash animation will simply ignore his settings. Of yourse, you can make a flash animation with extra big fonts and increased contrast. But the fact is that your flash app will not adapt. It will be those big fonts and high contrast only if you had the id

    • At last! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Friday December 10, 2004 @02:45AM (#11049466)
      Finally a Flash rant that doesn't come from a total dickhead.

      But you've got some serious wrongs in your rant. Haven't got much time so I'll speed through a few (my refererenc is Flash MX 2004 Pro, btw):

      10. Poor buffering of streaming mp3's

      Completely wrong. Works perfectly if you write your own AS 2-liners that control delayed playback dependent on bandwidth. Which is what you should do in the first place anyway.

      8. Lack of "onload" feature for Loadvariables()

      Bad example. Loadvariables() is an ancient artifact thats only left in for compatability reasons. Load an XML document with your stuff (loadvariables() sucks anyway. I remember hacking a dynamic flash app with that in Flash 5. Creepy.) and you can check loadstatus and totalload anytime you want.

      7. Lack of videsupport

      Incorrect. Importing into swf doesnt bloat Quicktimes and FLV is the best streaming format out there. Or do you want the plugin to be a full range video player? Isn't that a bit much for a VM with so much features allready? I'd rather keep VM size down then support all video formats in existance. We get new ones every odd week anyway. No use trying to keep up with that.

      6. Separation of Movieclip and Button class objects

      Yeah, shure. Stop the nitpick allready. Heavens crickey, that button thing is a built-in for those who are used to clicking together their apps by hand since Flash 3 using the old style paradigms of keeping your brain switched off. AS is a full range PL with a set of libs. Don't like them? Ignore them and build your own.

      THat's for a quick comment of mine. Aside from that: Congrats to a rather educated remark on flash in a long time. Rare thing here on /. .
      • 8. Lack of "onload" feature for Loadvariables()

        I guess I should have tempered that with a statement that I wrote this rant before flash MX (back in 2001), so using XML was sort of out of the question.. not so much that it was impossible but that the parsing engine was so screwed up and slow it wasn't worth it. I pretty much use XML for everything now so I don't use loadvariables anymore either (unless it NEEDS to deal with somebody else's data that is in query string style).

        6. Separation of Movieclip

    • Re:Flash Rant (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So how do you make google index flash, and have it link to the relevant part in the flash file?
    • A ll right, that was a nice, insightful comment, but what the hell is worng with the way you write? I know your 'O' and SPACE keys work, so what's with the idiotic tthis and tthat. It doesn't look cool, if that's what you think. It makes you look unsuitable for anyplace on the net other than AIM or IRC chatrooms.

  • Happy to see this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @10:45PM (#11048627) Homepage Journal
    Some people hate those cheesy Flash animations on badly designed web sites, but Flash is soooooo much more than that. And it's a good thing that they've got so much inertia going for Flash, because Macromedia will be a lot more platform-agnostic than, say, Microsoft or Sun.

    This is a big deal, people.
  • ... in volume that is. The PXA270's are out now, but I predict that in Q1 and Q2 of 2005 we're going to see some pretty wild PDA's, embedded devices, etc.

    The PXA270 has enough horsepower in a small enough form factor to deliver flash to cellphones, etc. easily.

    2005 is going to be an interesting year in the embedded realm. We're going to see some very cool new toys... ;)

  • SVG Phones (Score:3, Informative)

    by wombatmobile ( 623057 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @11:37PM (#11048838)
    There's a lot more happening with SVG for embedded devices. Like all these phones [svg.org].

  • Observations From Macromedia MAX (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aldheorte ( 162967 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @11:57PM (#11048909)
    I attended the Macromedia MAX Conference in New Orleans in early November. Please note that I do not work for Macromedia, I abhor Flash on Web sites except for very limited uses, and will have nothing to do with Cold Fusion, so to say I felt out of place at a Macromedia conference comes as sort of an understatement. :) My observations regarding Flash on mobile devices:

    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
  • Where's my Flash development IDE that doesn't cost $400? ActionScript is supposedly (an ECMA) standard, and I've got a legit Flash VM installed in my Windows and Linux computers. Where's the gcc preprocessor? Where's a simple Windows or Linux compiler that compiles the script into a Flash movie? Then I can study some apps' open source, and make light little mobile clients that run on my phone, in sync with my desktop.
  • In another 4 years, Americans will have flash advertisements on their Diebold voting machines...
  • http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

    Flashblock is great because it puts control back in the hands of us, the users. No longer will flash start running automatically, instead all the flash content is replaced with a play button, one click and you see the flash YOU want to see and are free from the the flash that someone ELSE want to force you to see.

    Now who could possibly complain about a plugin that gives you this choice?

    If you are an IE user, this may be the final reason to switch to firefox, to use this great
  • Since year 2000 Dynamic RAM has stayed around $100-$200 a gigabyte, while flash has fallen from nearly a $1000 to $70 a gigabyte. If you dont need RAM's greater speed, you might as well go wiht the slower and less power-hungry flash.
    I dont know whats slowing down the release of next generation RAM. Typically they release a new four-times-larger chip every 3-4 years. Some RAM manufacturers have been fined recently [infoprosjoint.net] for memory price collusion.

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