Adobe is calling on developers to build
compelling Adobe AIR apps, as well as to take part in the beat programs for
Adobe AIR 3 and Flash Player 11.
In a July 13 post, Adobe and Sony announced the Adobe AIR App
Challenge, a competition sponsored by Sony.
“We’re looking to get some great AIR
apps on Android
Market optimized for the two 'Sony Tablet' models coming out this
fall,” said Craig Corica, social media director at Adobe.
The contest will give developers
selected as finalists prerelease access to “Sony Tablet” prototypes along with
the latest version of Adobe tools and AIR. The categories for the App Challenge
include Entertainment, Lifestyle & Community, Games, Business &
Productivity, and Innovation. Only 80 finalist slots are available. Developers
can submit apps starting now until Oct. 10 for the first round of the
competition. Final app submissions are due and must be available on Android
Market by Nov. 11.
Corica also said Sony will be a
platinum sponsor for Adobe
MAX, Adobe’s annual conference kicking off in Los Angeles on Oct. 1.
Visit the Adobe
AIR App Challenge site for details and deadlines. Due to the need
for early access to prerelease prototypes, the contest is only open to
submissions from the United States, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the U.K.
Adobe also announced the availability
of the Adobe AIR 3 beta and the Adobe Flash Player 11 beta for desktop
platforms on Adobe Labs. AIR and Flash Player continue to
drive innovation for rich, engaging digital experiences with new features for
cross-device stand-alone application development and expressive rich Internet
applications, games and videos in the browser, Adobe officials said. And
some of the features from the Flash Player Incubator, such as Stage 3D and
64-bit support, have been moved into this beta release. Developers can
test and provide feedback on the new features, and should also focus on testing
existing content for compatibility and stability.
According to a July 13 blog post by Emmy Huang, senior product
manager for Adobe Flash Player, key features and performance enhancements in
the Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 betas include:
- Captive
Runtime for AIR: This popular feature from AIR for iOS will now be
available on AIR for desktop. You can simplify the app installation
process, and reduce testing and certification cost by encapsulating the
AIR runtime in your Windows, Mac and Android apps.
- Native
64-bit support for Flash Player: Take advantage of new 64-bit operating
systems and 64-bit Web browsers on Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
- Stage 3D
graphics rendering: Stage 3D (“Molehill”) is a new method of 2D and
3D rendering and is supported with a new Stage 3D API. The Stage 3D API
is a set of low-level GPU-accelerated APIs enabling advanced 2D and 3D
capabilities across multiple screens and devices (desktop, mobile and
TV). These new low-level APIs will provide 2D and 3D engine developers with
the flexibility to leverage GPU hardware acceleration for significant
performance gains. Examples can be viewed on the Stage 3D page.
- H.264/AVC SW
Encode for camera encoding: Higher compression efficiency and industry-wide
support for real-time communications and non-real-time broadcast
scenarios, like Webcasting, livecasting, etc.
- Native JSON
(JavaScript Object Notation) support: Enables ActionScript programmers to
take advantage of fast parsing and generation of JSON-formatted data. Existing
data can be taken and integrated with minimal or no modification into an ActionScript
project.
Adobe also announced a new public bugbase
system where developers can file bugs and feature requests for
both Flash Player and AIR. The new bugbase is a public front end to Adobe’s
internal bugbase, which will improve tracking, communication and responsiveness
for issues and feature requests. The former bugbase will remain as read-only, and
Adobe is in the process of transferring over all relevant issues and feature
requests to the new system, the company said.
Moreover, Adobe is bringing 3D to the
Web in Flash Player and apps through AIR, Huang said.
“Because two of our primary design
goals were to ensure Stage 3D will run great on mobile devices without
compromising security, the Stage 3D implementation exposes a specific set of
GPU features, resulting in a small API surface, making it easier to secure,"
Huang said in her post. “We also added restrictions that help mitigate many of
the security concerns around accessing OpenGL. For instance, we limit the
number of calls per frame, minimizing the risk of denial-of-service attacks. We
also designed a simple shader language (AGAL – Adobe Graphics Assembly
Language) with restrictions such as prohibiting loops or functions inside
shaders. The simplicity of AGAL makes it also easy to verify and validate
compared to the GLSL [OpenGL Shading Language] dialect that is used by other
solutions like WebGL.”
This first beta is a desktop release,
and Adobe is hard at work on mobile, which will be coming soon, Huang said.
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