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Adobe says Flash 10.2 coming to handsets soon, offers roundabout confirmation of Honeycomb for smartphones
Google's been notoriously tight-lipped about when Honeycomb will come to cellular handsets, but we may have gotten our answer at a recent Adobe event, as the company's Anup Murarka tells us Flash 10.2 will be coming to both tablets and smartphones "in the next few weeks." Come again? You see, Adobe Flash 10.2 uses fewer CPU cycles to play back web video, likely providing better battery life in Android devices (and BlackBerry tablets), but Adobe told us it can't support the function in earlier versions of the Android OS -- Google had to specifically add new capabilities in Honeycomb to let Flash 10.2 take full advantage of hardware. In short, if Flash 10.2 requires Android 3.0 and Flash 10.2 is headed to phones soon, the transitive property of equality suggests that Android 3.0 will soon appear on smartphones as well. Our algebra teacher would be so proud. In related news, both Flash and Adobe AIR seem to be doing quite well in the mobile arena thus far, as Adobe reports that that AIR is presently in over 84 million smartphones and tablets -- with over 200 million such devices ready for the cross-platform apps by the end of the year -- and Flash has shipped on 20 million devices across 35 different models (twelve percent of all smartphones, says Adobe) with 50 new Flash-ready tablets scheduled to appear in 2011. PR after the break.
Flash Player 10.2 now available, boosts video performance and drops PPC support
Adobe has officially released Flash Player 10.2 for Mac, and it's available for download now. However, Power PC Macs of old are not supported in this version. One of the main new features of Flash Player 10.2 is Stage Video. Building on the H.264 hardware-accelerated decoding found in Flash Player 10.1, Stage Video brings faster and smoother HD video playback while using dramatically less processing power. Adobe says that testing on supported systems (Mac OS X 10.6.4 and later with integrated graphics cards, such as the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M and GeForce GT 330M -- click here to find out if your Mac's got what you need), they've found 10.2 to be up to 34 percent more efficient.
Flash Player 10.2 sheds beta label, improves efficiency with Stage Video playback
Should you be one of those (sensible) people who don't use software until all the Greek letters are removed from its name, we've got some happy news for you. Adobe's Flash Player 10.2 has just exited beta testing and is now available for download to Windows, Mac and Linux computers. Its biggest new feature is the Stage Video API, which promises to drastically reduce the processor load of playing back high-res video. It'll need to be enabled by content-providing sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Brightcove -- all of whom are already on the job -- but once that's done, Adobe says 1080p playback will cost you no more than 15 percent of your CPU cycles. Other new additions include a single-monitor full screen option for multi-display rigs, allowing you to max out a Flash video on one panel while keeping the others free, IE9 hardware acceleration support, and some nifty sub-pixel text rendering enhancements to make our web lives marginally nicer to look at. Hit the source to get your download on. Update: Flash Player 10.2 also marks Adobe's discontinuation of support for PowerPC-based Macs and Microsoft's Windows 2000 OS. So if you're still rocking some finely aged gear, you'll have to just content yourself with the awesomeness of 10.1.
Adobe Flash Player 10.2 beta arrives, expands hardware acceleration
Adobe's ubiquitous Flash Player has a new beta version out today that promises to complete the move to hardware acceleration of video played back using the web software. You'll no doubt be aware that the current, non-beta Flash already does some offloading of video tasks to the GPU, but the new Stage Video API permits the entire workload to be shifted over, resulting in "just over 0 percent" CPU utilization when playing back 1080p clips. Should you doubt the veracity of Adobe's bold new claims, the company's set up some demo vids for you to test this out for yourself after downloading the beta -- hit the source link to find out more. Windows, Mac and Linux machines are supported right out of the gate, while Microsoft gets an extra bone thrown its way with Internet Explorer 9 hardware acceleration also being implemented in this latest iteration of Flash. Full PR after the break.
