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Adobe promises Flash Player 10.2 for Honeycomb tablets 'in a few weeks,' Xoom gets namechecked
We found out yesterday that Motorola's Xoom would be shipping sans Flash support on Verizon Wireless, and while Big Red claimed that an update would be doled out this spring, the folks at Adobe are pointing to a far more specific time frame. In a new post over at the Flash Platform Blog, Adobe has confirmed that "Flash Player 10.2 [will be] pre-installed on some tablets and as an OTA download on others within a few weeks of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) devices becoming available, the first of which is expected to be the Motorola Xoom." We're guessing that the company's going public with a statement like this to fend off fears that the Xoom may be waiting an eternity for Flash, in essence removing a bit of fear from hesitant early adopters. Either way, it's excellent news for those eying a Honeycomb tablet of any flavor, and we're going to take the liberty of taking "a few weeks" to mean "a fortnight." Cool, Adobe?
Motorola Xoom will ship without Flash support on February 24th, expects it in 'Spring 2011' (updated)
Verizon's webpage dedicated to the Xoom has just gone up and one of our eagle-eyed readers has already spotted a disquieting bit of small print: "Adobe Flash expected Spring 2011." You don't sit around expecting what you already have, so that leads us to conclude that the Xoom, the mighty iPad-slaying, Honeycomb-bringing, world-changing tablet... won't have Flash at launch. The version of Adobe's rich media player it's waiting for is most probably 10.2 for mobile devices, scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks, which should mean first-day buyers this Thursday will get a limited-time premium feature on their tablets: no Flash ads. [Thanks, Chris] Update: Motorola has confirmed this, in a very roundabout fashion. The company's statement in full: "Motorola XOOM will include full support for Adobe® Flash® Player® for accessing the rich video and animations of the web, to be available after launch."
Advent Vega finally gets its Flash Player
The Advent Vega tablet shipped late last year but quickly had its Flash Player pulled due to a little spat with Adobe about certifications. Now that's been fixed and this 10.1-inch, Android 2.2 and Tegra 2-powered slab can finally take off its mask and show us what it can do. If you're an owner, get yourself the 1.09 software update on the other end of the source link below.
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.
NVIDIA talks up the beginning of a new era, Tegra 2 'super phones'
NVIDIA's press conference at CES has just concluded and we were on site to hear what Jen-Hsun Huang and company had to say to the world. The Green Team's CEO wasn't timid in talking up the revolutionary nature of this year's CES, describing it as the harbinger of a change on a par with what we experienced way back in 1995 with the introduction of Windows 95. Unsurprisingly, Huang's vision of how we're going to leap into our ultra-modern new era involves NVIDIA's Tegra 2 hardware, a chip which is "less than the size of a dime and can leap tall buildings." Jen-Hsun sees the future of mobile computing in devices that move beyond phones with enhanced capabilities, or smartphones, to an entirely new category: "a computer first and a phone second." Tegra 2 announcements will be "sprinkled throughout the week," but the LG Optimus 2X did get a proper announcement and demo, including a quick game of Angry Birds with the phone hooked up to a HDTV via HDMI and the feed also being played on the giant projector screen alongside that. Biggest game of Angry Birds ever? Probably. %Gallery-112766% NVIDIA's calling these new machines super phones, not an entirely new or innovative name, but it conveys the point rather well. A highlight quote was also provided from LG's VP who joined Jen-Hsun on stage -- he described the motivation for putting the Optimus 2X and its internals together as "beauty outside, but monster inside." Adobe's Shantanu Narayen also hit the stage, to talk Flash. Just to thwart any misguided expectations of the rich web media format's oncoming demise, Shantanu told us that Flash Player 10.1 had the fastest adoption rate of any version in the software's history. A cool 120 petabytes of video was streamed last month, says the Adobe President and CEO, with the implication being that the vast majority of that came through Adobe's pervasive format. The Unreal Engine 3-based Dungeon Defenders also got a demo, neatly illustrating Jen-Hsun's point about Tegra 2 offering "console-like gaming." The game was shown playing on a PC, a PS3, and an Optimus 2X. All three had smooth frame rates, shockingly enough, but the a significant quote from the developer was that his team "didn't have to scale anything back" when porting the code to Android. NVIDIA closed the event on the bombshell that it's working on Project Denver, a high performance ARM CPU intended to challenge Intel and AMD in the personal computer and supercomputer realms. Somebody's playing for keeps! %Gallery-112765%
Advent Vega's Flash Player yanked due to missing Adobe certification
The Advent Vega was never the most polished Android tablet in the world -- after all, we had to rely on a custom ROM just to get native Android Market access -- but a reasonable price tag and NVIDIA's Tegra 2 has still made it hard to resist. For those who've managed to snag one already, you may have noticed that the Flash playback isn't exactly... awesome. That's probably because the version loaded onto already-shipped versions isn't certified by Adobe, and in order to fend off future complaints, the company's yanking Flash Player entirely from newly-shipping models for the time being. The certification process is apparently underway, and the outfit expects Vega tablets shipped "in the early part of 2011" to have a green-lit build pre-installed; as for everyone else, they'll be provided a gratis update as soon as it can be pushed out onto the interwebs. Head on past the break for the full statement.
Chrome sandboxes Flash Player in latest Dev channel release for Windows
Hey, Adobe's finally figured out how to make Flash secure -- have Google do it! The guys behind your favorite search engine have updated their latest Dev channel release of Chrome to include a new sandboxing facility for Flash Player content. It'll serve to limit access to sensitive system resources and make Flash's operation a generally less threatening proposition than it currently is. This also marks the fulfillment of a longstanding promise from Google to give Flash the same treatment it's afforded to JavaScript and HTML rendering for a while, and should be welcome news to Windows users eager to minimize "the potential attack surface" of their browser. Sorry, Mac fans, you're out in the unsecured cold for now. Of course, the Dev channel itself is one step less refined than beta software, so even if you're on Windows it might be advisable to wait it out a little bit.
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.
Adobe confirms Flash Player 10.1 is coming to BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and more
We've already known that Adobe would be bringing Flash Player 10.1 to Windows Phone 7, but the company has just now made that fully official at its currently-happening MAX conference (alongside its Air 2.5 announcement), and it's also confirmed exactly which other mobile platforms the plug-in will be headed to. That includes WebOS 2.0, which we've already seen first hand, along with BlackBerry OS, Symbian, MeeGo and, last but not least, the LiMo platform -- those will all of course join Android 2.2, which already supports the plug-in. Unfortunately, there's still no timeline for a release on each platform, with Adobe only saying that Flash 10.1 is "expected" to hit each mobile OS. Head on past the break for the relevant snippet from Adobe's press release.
Flash plugin absence on MacBook Air was deliberate, says Apple
Several of the folks lucky enough to get their hands on new MacBook Air review units noticed something a little strange: the Adobe Flash Player, usually bundled as a browser plugin with new Mac OS X installations, was AWOL. It wasn't clear at first if this was an early-build hiccup or a design decision; although Apple has been dinged in the past for shipping out-of-date versions of Flash Player, it hadn't stopped bundling the plugin. I confirmed today that shipping units and Apple retail store models were also Flash-less. Now Engadget has an official statement from Apple that confirms the situation: yes, Flash Player is no longer being included, and users can & should download the most up-to-date version from Adobe if and when they need it. Alternatively, they could just grab a browser that bundles it in. The official statement: "We're happy to continue to support Flash on the Mac, and the best way for users to always have the most up to date and secure version is to download it directly from Adobe." Easy enough for them to say, not always so easy for the novice Mac owner to do. I expect that some of the MacBook Air-shaped packages under the Christmas tree may be followed on 12/26 by phone calls saying "YouTube is broken! Help!" Then again, another plugin not installed by default: Silverlight.
T-Mobile G2 comes out from hiding, pre-orders begin later this month
At last, T-Mobile just went official with its G2 QWERTY slider. As expected, this Android 2.2 device ships with Qualcomm's MSM7230 Snapdragon silicon optimized for T-Mobile's HSPA+ network with an 800MHz CPU and second generation application co-processor. Other specs include a 3.7-inch screen, 4GB of internal memory with pre-installed 8GB microSD card (supporting up to 32GB cards), Swype keyboard, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and 720p HD video capabilities. Oh, and web browsing is supported by Adobe's Flash Player. Look for this successor of the T-Mobile G1 to go up for pre-orders sometime later this month. Update: T-Mobile has exposed a bit more of its G2. So, in addition to learning about a 1300mAh capacity battery and 4.7 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches / 6.5 ounce footprint, we're also seeing a footnote related to price: "†On approved credit. $125 down payment, plus 3 monthly payments of $125, required. 0% APR. Taxes & fees additional. Available only at T-Mobile-owned retail stores." Thing is, no pricing was announced so the footnote is premature to say the least. Nevertheless, it adds up to $500 before discounts and rebates. That alligns nicely with the rumored prices pegged at $199 with contract / $499 without. [Thanks, Ollie]
Flash Player 10.1 goes final for Nexus One handsets, available to download now
Google just confirmed it at an Android / Flash event in San Francisco, and sure enough, our trusty Nexus One just found, downloaded and installed the final (read: non-beta) version of Adobe's Flash Player 10.1. It weighs in at just under 5MB, and it's looking as sweet as ever so far. Nexus One owners can hit up the Android Market to get their download on, and we'd highly encourage you to bookmark a few dozen Flash sites just to rub in the faces of your dearest iDevice-owning friends. Just sayin'.
Flash Player investing in a 3D future, plans coming in October
Man, Adobe is really teasing up Flash and 3D. Straight from the mouth (or, rather, keyboard) of product manager Thibault Imbert: "What kind of [3D] API? True textured z-buffered triangles ? GPU acceleration? Even better? What I can say is forget what you have seen before, it is going to be big." Big talk in regards to a session at the company's upcoming MAX 2010 conference entitled (aptly enough) "Flash Player 3D Future." According to the description and some added details care of Imbert, expect discussion and demos of a renderer coming in a future version of Flash Player. We'd love to give you something more concrete, but looks like that might be awhile -- the talk isn't until October 27th.
Adobe expects Flash on 250 million smartphones by end of 2012
While in the midst of fixing a unicorn-sized hole in the security of its desktop software, Adobe has been talking about its future in the mobile space. According to its rose-tinted forecasts, Flash Player will be featured in a quarter billion handsets by the end of 2012, including 53 percent of all smartphones shipped that year. Those are pretty strident words for a company that has yet to ship Flash Player 10.1 in even one new handset, but we're reminded that Android 2.2's leading position on the issue will be swiftly followed by BlackBerry OS, Symbian, webOS, and Windows Phone 7 supporting the full fat Flash experience. Whether all that momentum will be enough to produce an install base of 250 million, we don't know. What we do know, however, is that people want the blasted thing and Adobe had better start doing a bit more work on its mobile player and a little less talking about it -- that's what we're here for.
Adobe posts Flash Player 10.1 for Mac
At long last, Adobe has released Flash Player 10.1 for Mac OS X. There's a huge list of changes with this update; hopefully one will address "...the number one reason Macs crash." The major changes are aimed at developers, and include GPU hardware acceleration, support for dynamic quality during video streaming, dynamic sound generators, and upload/download functions in web apps. The 7.44MB download requires Safari, Firefox or Opera and Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Linux and Windows versions are also available now. [Via Electronista]
Adobe Flash Player 10.1 now officially available for download
Well look at that -- Adobe's now officially serving up Flash Player 10.1 on its download pages. If you're anything like us, you've been running 10.1 since it hit Release Candidate status a couple months ago, but if you've held off the upgrade brings some much-needed hardware acceleration to the mix, as well as other assorted performance enhancements and improvements. We're curious to see if the various issues with Broadcom Crystal HD netbooks have been resolved in this final version, and Mac users will have to wait for the "Gala" update to see any hardware-powered boost on their systems, but it's nice to finally see Adobe ship this thing. Let us know how it goes in comments, yeah? Update: Sorry folks -- contrary to reports, it doesn't look like the Gala hardware acceleration code was secretly included in the OS X build, as we just tried it on a new MacBook Pro and the graphics didn't switch over to the discrete chip. What's more, the Gala project page is still alive and kicking with a release date expected "following the release of Flash Player 10.1." We'll just have to be patient, we suppose. [Thanks, Neal and Sam]
Adobe's Flash and Acrobat have 'critical' vulnerability, may allow remote hijacking
When Adobe said Flash gives you the full web experience, it meant it. Part and parcel of the web, as we all know, is the good old hacking community, which has been "actively exploiting" a vulnerability in Flash Player 10.0.45.2 (and earlier versions) and Adobe Acrobat and Reader 9.x to overtake people's machines and do hacky stuff with them. This so-called flaw also causes crashes, but that's probably not what's worrying you right now. Adobe says the 10.1 Release Candidate for Flash Player looks to be unaffected, while versions 8.x of Acrobat and Reader are confirmed safe. To remedy the trouble, the company advises moving to the RC for Flash, and deleting authplay.dll to keep your Acrobat from performing undesirable gymnastics. Oh boy, Steve's gonna have a field day with this one.
Adobe's Flash Player 'Gala' OS X preview tested: results may vary
Gala1 Flash 101 2.40GHz Core i5, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 256MB2 Safari 4.0.5 95.4 - 152.8 74.2 - 123.5 Firefox 3.6.4 83.5 - 148.4 89.4 - 130.5 2.66GHz Core i7, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512MB2 Safari 4.0.5 59 - 64 96 - 132 Firefox 3.6.4 69 - 79 111 - 140 So we just put a few minutes aside to put Adobe's new "Gala" build of Flash 10.1 through its paces on our latest-generation Core i5 and i7 15-inch MacBook Pros here, and the results are a little confusing to say the least. On our i7 equipped with the high-res display and 512MB GeForce GT 330M, processor utilization playing a 1080p sample video on YouTube dropped by a third to a half on average -- not bad -- with Safari 4.0.5 besting Firefox 3.6.4 by a smidge. Our i5 saw strangely different numbers, though, with Gala actually increasing the load on the CPU by as much as about 20 percent. Adobe is quick to note that this is nothing more than a rough preview release; Apple just unlocked access to the necessary hardware a few days ago, after all, and we're sure the company still has plenty of optimization to do. Ultimately, if our i7 figures are realistic, it should make high-def Hulu a decidedly less drama-packed experience down the road. Notes: 1 Performance measured by processor utilization (note that numbers greater than 100 are possible on multi-core machines). 2 15.4-inch high resolution display, 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM
