RIA Journal

No doubt, Adobe System's Flash is popular: it's installed on 99 percent of all PCs, according to the company.

But when it comes to mobile devices and other non-PC platforms, Flash is an also-ran. One reason for that situation, according to Adobe, is the lack of good development tools and the company's own restrictive licensing.

A new program, announced by Adobe on Thursday, is intended to remedy that problem. The program, called the Open Screen Project, is an industry alliance, of sorts, initiated by Adobe that includes prominent device manufacturers, content developers, and telecommunications carriers.

Open Screen is being spearheaded by Adobe. But the company is working with Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Qualcomm, Chunghwa Telecom, Samsung, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Toshiba, Verizon Wireless, ARM, Intel, Marvell, NBC, MTV, and the BBC. It's "a who's who in the industry," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe.

"It's time for the industry to provide a consistent platform for development across PCs, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and other platforms," said Wadhwani. "There are five times the number of connected devices than PCs in the world. The consumer market is demanding video and rich content across all of these screens," he said.

"There are five times the number of connected devices than PCs in the world. The consumer market is demanding video and rich content across all of these screens."

--David Wadhwani, VP of Adobe's Platform Business Unit

Adobe's answer to the problem--no surprise--is Flash, and later Adobe's AIR software. The company's goal is to establish Flash as the common runtime software on a variety of devices and to rapidly gain market share. What about Java, Sun Microsystems' "write once, run anywhere" software, you ask? Wadhwani dismisses Java's viability. "Java does happen to be running on these devices. But not necessarily write once, run anywhere."

Sun was not immediately available for comment.

Wadhwani said the Open Screen project has five basic elements. Adobe will remove license restriction on the .swf file format. "It is published already, but in order to view it you have to say you will not create a competing player," said Wadhwani. "We're lifting that restriction. People have been worried about vendor lock-in. This will remove that obstacle, and concern."

Adobe will also remove licensing fees for embedding Flash Player on devices. The software has always been a free download for PC users. But Adobe has charged for embedding on devices. Those charges will disappear with the next release of the software.

Adobe will also publish a variety of APIs and protocols related to Flash.

Clearly, some big names will likely not be participating in Adobe's plans. Sun and Microsoft, for starters. Sun has Java; Microsoft has a variety of Windows technology for mobile devices and has developed its own Flash-like software called Silverlight.

Apple and Google are also not involved in the project. Wadhwani said that Adobe will be actively recruiting additional partners, however.

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Two months after Adobe Systems patched a serious flaw in its Flash development software, there are still hundreds of thousands of Web pages serving up buggy Shockwave Flash (.swf) files that could be exploited by hackers, according to a Google researcher.

Google Security Engineer Rich Cannings discovered the widespread vulnerability in his spare time while researching a book on Web security. It turned out that many Flash development tools created files that could be used by hackers in what's known as a cross-site scripting attack. This attack can be used in phishing, but it also gives the bad guys a nearly undetectable route into a victim's bank account or almost any type of Web service.

Read More: http://www.pcworld.in/india/news/Spyware_&_Security/ Google_Websites_Slow_to_Fix_Serious_Flash_Flaws/4260372/9

I, like many of you, have been developing RIAs since before they were called that, yet only in the past few years, have I stopped to try to understand computers. I do not have a degree in Compsci, but I have realized recently why it is in my best interestes to pursue one. Everything I know about programming I have taught myself.

As programmers, we often forget-or don't know yet know-about the way computers interpret our commands, instead focusing on the tasks we need to accomplish. Indeed, our day is filled with adding more and more code to fix bugs or create new content in a program already bulging at the seams.

I suggest that as programmers it is really our duty to make the program as efficient as possible; a lean, mean fighting machine! As I being to attend classes, I intend to log and comment on my experiences, and how it is affecting the way I program. My first classes begin this fall-Precalculus and Java I-so expect to see more from me soon!

Let's imagine a world where visual designers used Windows PCs instead of Macs.

Presumably they would do this because there would be a set of high-quality, powerful web design tools that ran better on Windows than on the Mac. If this were the case, it would make the most sense for these hypothetical design tools, regardless of who makes them, to work closely with Microsoft technologies like Silverlight when it comes to RIA development. No other company would be able to develop an RIA framework that beat out Silverlight because Microsoft would have the home field advantage of building their framework on top of their own operating system.

This is a thought experiment, and not reality, only because there is no set of good design tools that run on a Windows PC. Enter Photoshop Express, Splashup, and Picnik. They run in a browser, so by definition they run the same on both a Windows PC and a Mac.

Interesting.