Adobe Pushes Flash Video on Mobile Devices
Adobe's goal is to get Flash Player 10.1 accelerated directly on the chips in smartphones, Netbooks, and small laptops based on the ARM chip architecture, called smartbooks.
Adobe Systems has garnered the support of mobile heavy hitters such as Google, Motorola, Nvidia, Palm, RIM, and Qualcomm for its new Flash Player 10.1 software for smartphones, Netbooks, and other mobile devices.
Adobe's goal is to get Flash Player 10.1 accelerated directly on the chips in smartphones, Netbooks, and small laptops based on the ARM chip architecture, called smartbooks. To date, Flash video acceleration has not been available widely on mobile devices.
Toward the end of getting Flash to run directly on small mobile devices, Adobe created the Open Screen Project. The Open Screen project is about making more of those devices open. In particular, providing flash player for free in an open manner with the requirement that (device suppliers) make it open for developers.
Adobe also announced that Google has joined the Open Screen Project initiative. Handset manufacturers such as Motorola will ship Google Android based devices with Flash Player support "early next year," according to a Motorola statement. Companies such as Nvidia, Broadcom, Nokia, RIM, and ARM chip suppliers such as Qualcomm, are all participants in the Open Screen Project.
Conspicuous by its absence was Apple. "Flash is not available on the iPhone at this point," said Adrian Ludwig, group manager, flash platforms at Adobe. "So far, we haven't received the support that we need from Apple."
Apple aside, this is all part of an aggressive push by Adobe to get acceleration on mobile devices. More than 75 percent of video on the Web is delivered through the Flash Player, according to Ludwig. "Having the Flash player on your device means you're able to access all the content out there on the Web," Ludwig said, referring to referring to such sites as YouTube, the video inside MySpace, and Facebook, as well as Fox News and CNN.
A public developer beta of Flash 10.1 is expected to be available for Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS, and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux later this year, Lugwig said. Public betas for Google Android and Symbian operating systems are expected to be available in early 2010. Version 10.1 includes more comprehensive Flash player support for accelerometer-based screen orientation, in which the screen can be reoriented between landscape and portrait modes, and multitouch.
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