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Flash 11 and AIR 3 landing tonight and delivering 7.1 surround sound to connected home theaters
Later tonight Adobe Flash 11 and AIR 3 will hit the tubes delivering with it a host of new features, including hardware acceleration for 2D and 3D graphics -- at least for desktops. Stage 3D support will be added to the mobile variants for Android, iOS and BlackBerry at a later date. AIR 3 will also be sprucing up connected entertainment devices, like Samsung SmartTVs, with the ability to deliver Flash-based games and content to your home theater system. What's more, Adobe has baked in support for both Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound. That means both 5.1 and 7.1 sound can be built into an AIR app, whether it be a game or streaming video, and pumped out at up to 512Kbps though your Blu-ray player or other connected theater component. For more, including a demo of a Flash app on a phone and a TV communicating, check out the trio of press releases and video after the break.
Adobe promises console quality games on iOS with new Air 3
Adobe has announced version 3 of its Air cross-platform development runtime is out now, and the company says it will allow developers to use Flash, Actionscript, JavaScript, and other technologies to create what are essentially console-quality 2D and 3D games for the web, and even iOS. While Flash doesn't yet work on iOS, Adobe Air works on iOS, Mac, Windows, and a few other compatible platforms. The new version of the development kit, in addition with Flash 11, will be able to build out some pretty good-looking games, and run rather powerful applications. I use TweetDeck on my Mac, which is built with Adobe Air, and even the popular iPad game Machinarium was created with the Air technology. Traditionalists may scoff (and, of course, the reason Flash isn't on the iPad or iPhone is because performance still isn't where it needs to be), but truthfully, the more options developers have for making great apps on Apple's platform, the better for us users.
