I am sure several of you saw a notice pop-up on your PC in the morning about the latest Flash update from Adobe ….. Yes, that’s right- Flash player 10.1 is now officially available. Adobe Flash player team’s blog lists all the enhancements in fairly detail. A look at comments also gives you a glimpse into joy and grievances of public. The thing about Flash is that it is so powerful that no matter how many enhancements you make to it, there will always be something else to do. Adobe’s team does deserve a big round of applause for releasing FP10.1 on schedule. ......continue reading

Adobe does a great job of maintaining a list of Flash enabled mobile/wireless devices, but there isn’t any such list for consumer devices. Originally I started keeping track of CE devices with Flash for my other blog flashliteonline.com where I was hoping to write about Flash Lite applications. But the CE market has been slow to evolve so there has been little to report on Flash Lite applications on such devices. With the addition of Flash Lite for Digital Home, I am hopeful that new devices will start emerging soon and I think this blog is a good place to maintain such list. The list is available on ‘Flash Enabled CE devices‘ page. If you know of any other devices that should be on the list, please comment or drop me a line at anand at joshimail dot net. I will update the list from time to time. ......continue reading

Lightblueoptics, a start-up company that makes a interactive display that converts any surface into touch screen is using Flash Lite for UI. Take a look at press releases from Elecronics Weekly and Geeksmack. They show pictures of of keyboard being projected onto any surface. The display works as any other keyboard and responds to touch as needed. The keyboard is projected using Flash Lite, an IR sensor senses the movement of your finger and the projection technology is based on holograph. The gadget is being demonstrated at CES. ......continue reading

Microsoft’s new device called Zune HD will have multi touchscreen and a web browser.The device will also have HD receiver.If the device is based on Windows Mobile, even Flash Lite may be there. ......continue reading

Calsoft Labs, an Adobe Flash Lite distributor has ported Flash Lite 3.1 to Analog Devices’s Blackfin processor. The Blackfin processor is a DSP chip targette towards the consumer and mobile market. The port is available for the BF 548 chip and runs on uCLinux OS. The port supports all the standard Flash Lite features, and runs on the reference board provided by Analog Devices. ......continue reading

Apple is saying goodbye to the MacWorld conference. The conference is taking place in January in San Francisco’s Mascone Center. The conference apparently ‘no longer met its need’ according to Apple. Apple has traditionally announced its new products in MacWorld conference, but lately has been using other methods for that purpose. Steve Jobs will also not be presenting at the conference. The reason is not known, but some people suspect his health as a possible reason. Others are speculating that there is nothing new at Apple, and therefore Steve Job’s keynote won’t do any good to the company. ......continue reading

 You must have seen the latest model from Nokia- 5800 Xpress. The new model will be available in Q4/08 and is supposed to compete with iPhone. The phone has touchscreen, 8G of RAM, users can download music from Nokia store just like Apple store, has a powerful 3.2MP camera, GPS, 3G, Wifi, full browser and is supposed to run video at 30 fps . It was not clear to me if the phone will run Symbian OS, but I am fairly sure it is going to be Symbian. It was also not clear to me if the phone has accelerometer like iPhone. ......continue reading

Sandisk alongwith four major record labels announced a new physical format for music delivery- ‘Slotmusic’. Slotmusic is essentially a microSD card that can hold entire album (or more perhaps), and will also come with USB connector. Buyers will be able to shop for their ‘Slotmusic’ just the way the shop for their CDs. ......continue reading

Intel has made several announcements at IDF that promise to take X86 architecture into a host of new markets. We all know that Intel has already announced (and is shipping) UMPCs based on Atom processor. Atom is a low end X86 processor that is lot cheaper than Celeron, and of course consumes lot less power. So it is ideal for a Nokia N800 class devices and other MIDs. ......continue reading

According to the data collected by Consumer Electronics Association, the CE revenue will grow by 10% this year to $700 billion. Some of the segments such as TV are expected to show 20% growth. I don’t see any reason why this will market will ever stop to grow till no more CE devices can be invented. CE devices have become toys and we are slowly being brainwashed into having a new device every few years. In fact they are not even designed to last more than a few years. Do you think your iPod is rugged enough to last 10-15 years? How many of you have used your cell phone last for 5 years? ......continue reading

Microsoft thinks that iPhone has an advantage because it offers a better interface for music experience on iphone. Duh…….. isn’t that obvious? I use TMobile Dash- a windows mobile phone, and everytime I have to open a file and add something new to playlist, I go through so much of nonsensical steps!! I have not purchased iPod or any other mp3 player, simply because I wanted to have one device capable of doing everything. Well, WM powered Dash almost makes the cut, but the interface is definitely crummy for music experience. Hopefully next WM version will provide a better experience. ......continue reading