Android 2.2 using the Latest Version of Flash Player Tweet

Adobe has officially launched their latest service is the Flash Player version 10.1 for smartphone based on Android 2.2 (Froyo). According to Adobe spokesman David Wadhwani, the new Flash player redesigned from the bottom up with optimal performance and special features of mobile to bring full web on the desktop to the handheld device.

Flash Player 10.1 supports the accelerometer enables users to view Flash content in landscape mode and portrait. Viewers can also use the full screen with zooming intelligent. Flash version also offers features 10.1 sleep, which automatically slow flash when there is a transition device to screen saver mode. Besides other features, the Flash Player 10.1 will stop automatically when there is a variety of other activities, such as incoming phone calls from a browser or switch to other device functions.

Adobe hopes tablets Android smartphone that supports Flash Player Froyo and 10.1 are expected to include Streak Dell, Google Nexus One, HTC Evo, Desire HTC, HTC Incredible, Milestone and Galaxy S. Flash Player 10.1 were also released to various other platforms for use with devices based on the BlackBerry, WebOS, Windows Phone, LiMo, MeeGo and Symbian OS.

Labels:

Flash Player 10.1 Now Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux Tweet

Today I'm thrilled to announce that Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. You can get it now. Flash Player 10.1 for Android will be coming later this month - the beta release is currently available in the Android market.

In this post, I'd like to share some of the top new PC-specific features, many of which have mobile implications as well, as I discussed in an earlier blog post about the engineering efforts behind Flash Player 10.1. In this post, I'll cover the work we did to improve performance, power management and video, and discuss the new multi-touch and private browsing capabilities, as well as our work to provide a better Flash Player experience for Mac users.

Performance and Power Management
With Flash Player 10.1 we aligned our development efforts to create a single runtime that works across desktops and devices. Performance and power efficiency was a huge focus since different devices have varying sized processors and memory, and we needed to ensure Flash Player 10.1 would work across all of them. So we made a number of changes to Flash Player that directly translate to faster execution and reduced resource consumption. We achieved some large gains in reducing the amount of memory used at runtime, particularly for bitmap-intensive apps. The ActionScript virtual machine received some targeted optimizations, which directly benefit typed AS3 code. And, our release wouldn't be complete if we didn't improve the garbage collector - where we tuned its behavior to run more efficiently and better amortize its processing over the application's lifetime.

As noted above, the team invested a lot of time in memory optimization. Tabbed browsing is common for PC users, who often have many pages open in their browser at the same time. This is a great timesaver but also uses up lots of RAM. With Flash Player 10.1, we added new functionality that detects when memory is running low. Now, content that runs in Flash Player will automatically shut down when the available memory is running low.

The Flash Player team made a number of improvements to conserve resources, reduce power usage and extend battery life. For example, Flash Player can now automatically reduce the power consumption for content running in the background on a non-visible browser tab to improve performance when users are multitasking. In cases where audio is playing in the background, playback fidelity is maintained.

Some significant changes were made to Flash Player 10.1 to re-architect the system for managing timers and events. Without going into the details here (Tinic Uro will share a post next week that covers this topic more comprehensively), the end result is that apps for Flash Player and Adobe AIR will use significantly less CPU when the content is idle and consume less power in the process. These improvements are most pronounced on Macs.

Video improvements
From hardware decoding to better buffering, p2p video, multicast and http streaming -- there are many improvements in Flash Player 10.1 with regards to web video delivery and playback. For desktops, Flash Player 10.1 introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding to deliver smooth, high quality video with minimal overhead across supported operating systems. Using available hardware to decode video offloads tasks from the CPU, improving video playback performance, offering smoother frame rates, and reducing system resource utilization.

The addition of HTTP Dynamic Streaming expands the delivery options for high quality live and on-demand media with full adaptive bitrate functionality. This new option enables media publishers to leverage standard HTTP networking infrastructure to help increase capacity, reach, and quality of service for video delivery using standards-based MP4 fragments. Using the Open Source Media Framework, Flash developers can easily leverage this new technology to deploy your video much more quickly. You can download the free tools for HTTP Dynamic Streaming here.

Peer-assisted networking and Multicast is available for Flash Player 10.1 by leveraging Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP), which enables peers on a network to assist in real time communication and content delivery over the web. Flash Player now supports peer-assisted networking groups, which allows an application to segment its users and send messages and data between members of the group. Application level multicast allows for one (or a few)-to-many streaming of continuous live video streams as well as real-time audio/video chat applications.

Enhanced RTMP streaming and buffering features will also greatly improve the video viewing experience for Flash Player users. Stream reconnect lets Flash Player 10.1 allow an RTMP stream to continue to play through the buffer even if the connection is disrupted, thereby making media experiences more tolerant of short term network failures and enabling uninterrupted video playback. When a connection is re-established, the stream resumes playback. Developers can add stream re-connection logic in ActionScript to re-establish server connection and resume streaming with limited disruption in the video.

New to Flash Player 10.1, Smart seek can easily make using Flash Player a DVR-like experience. Smart seek allows the video viewer to seek within a new "back" buffer so viewers can easily rewind or fast forward video without Flash Player calling back to the server, thus reducing the start time after a seek. Smart seek can speed up seeking performance of streamed videos and enable the creation of slow motion, double time, or "instant replay" experiences for streaming video. With buffered stream catch-up, developers can set a target latency threshold that triggers slightly accelerated video playback to help ensure that live video streaming stays in sync with real time over extended playback periods. Finally, Fast Switch benefits Dynamic Streaming with RTMP to improve switching times between bitrates, reducing the time to receive the best viewing experience for available bandwidth and processing speed. Users no longer need to wait for the buffer to play through, which can result in a faster bitrate transition time and an uninterrupted video playback experience, regardless of bandwidth fluctuations or client computing power.

Multi-touch
Many companies are beginning to rollout touch enabled devices, and not just smartphones, but tablets as well as PCs like the HP Touchsmart. With Flash Player 10.1, you can take advantage of the latest hardware and operating system user interaction capabilities using a new set of ActionScript 3 APIs for multi-touch and native gesture events, creating the ability to interact with multiple objects simultaneously or work with native gestures, such as pinch, scroll, rotate, scale, and two-finger tap. Multi-touch may be one of the most important features for developers and designers creating new content with the Flash Platform, knowing your implementations may be easily extended to devices with touch capabilities. To get started using multi-touch with Flash Player 10.1, check out this ADC resource.

Browser Privacy mode
Flash Player 10.1 abides by the host browser's private browsing mode (where local data and browsing activity are not cached on the local system) providing a consistent private browsing mechanism between SWF and HTML content. Private local shared objects (LSOs) behave like their traditional variants as long as Flash Player is in memory, and LSOs created during private browsing are removed when the user returns to conventional browsing mode. Existing shared objects are preserved but inaccessible until private browsing is turned off.

Mac-specific improvements
Our Mac engineers, with some help from the Safari team, made significant changes to Flash Player for Macs. Here's a partial list of the work we completed for Argo. First and foremost, Flash Player 10.1 is a full-fledged Cocoa app (though legacy Carbon support remains for some browsers that require it). We now leverage Cocoa events, use Cocoa UI for our dialogs, leverage Core Audio for sound, Core Graphics for printing support, and use Core Foundation for bundle-style text.

Mac performance was also an explicit focus for us. One improvement we made is the use of a double-buffered OpenGL context for improved full screen playback efficiency. We also investigated a number of compile-time optimizations using Xcode to improve our overall execution speed of Flash Player on Macs. Rendering performance was improved by our use of Core Animation. For Macs running OS X 10.6 or greater, we leverage the hardware acceleration in Core Animation to dramatically improve the efficiency of displaying web pages which combine both SWF and HTML content. The details and performance implications of the Core Animation work are outlined in Tinic's blog post . The overall performance improvements of Flash Player for Mac users will result in faster video playback, more efficient CPU utilization, and greater battery life.

As you can see, don't let the version number fool you! Flash Player 10.1 is more than a "dot upgrade." It was a monumental undertaking including some significant architectural improvements and a long list of enhancements that will help the more than 3 million Flash designers and developers continue to move web innovation forward. We can't wait to see what you develop. Be sure to check out the new Flash Player 10.1 product pages and ADC content to learn more.

Additionally, today we announced the immediate availability of the Adobe AIR 2 runtime. Starting today, you can download and install the new version at get.adobe.com/air/. Developers can now deploy applications built for AIR 2 on Mac OS, Windows and Linux. Read more about AIR 2 on the AIR Team blog.

Paul Betlem
Flash Player Engineering

Labels:

Androideroids (rough cut) Tweet

Androideroids is a prototype multiplayer game that uses Android phones as adhoc game controllers. The phones have a general purpose LANPad application on them that connects to the host and receives a "surface" SWF. This SWF dictates the mobile interaction, including sending and receiving data from the host, displaying a first person view on the game, and playing sounds that are specific to the player.

More info: gskinner.com/blog/archives/2010/06/androideroids.html
Twitter: twitter.com/gskinner/

Androideroids (rough cut) from Grant Skinner on Vimeo.

Labels:

Sling Media Launches SlingPlayer Mobile for Android Smartphones Tweet

Application now delivers your home TV experience to Android phones anywhere you have mobile phone access.

Foster City, Calif., – Sling Media, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), announced the availability of its SlingPlayer Mobile™ application for Android™ Smartphones. The all new application gives Android phone users easy access to their home TV experience anywhere they have mobile phone or Wi-Fi internet access. Now anyone with an Android phone never has to miss a favorite TV show when they’re away from home.

“We’re committed to the Android platform, and users of our new and improved SlingPlayer Mobile application will experience one of the most complete mobile television experiences available today,” said John Gilmore, Sling Media Senior Vice President and General Manager. “Now the full spectrum of viewing, including local channels and sports teams, video on demand, pay per view and even control of their home DVR, is available to the growing number of people moving to Android.”
How it Works
When in your mobile phone provider’s area of 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi coverage and connected to a Slingbox® SOLO, PRO or PRO-HD, SlingPlayer Mobile makes it simple to watch and control your living room television at any time from any location. Watch live and recorded TV and schedule recordings of new programs from any Android Smartphone.

SlingPlayer Mobile for Android features faster startup and control response times, and it works among a variety of Android-based mobile phones in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. It also has a new user interface that gives quick-touch access to the most critical remote controls and recently viewed channels.

Current Pricing and Availability
SlingPlayer Mobile Android is available now for download for $29.99* in the Android Market in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.
*Price is in U.S. dollars. U.S. dollar to local currency exchange will be carried out at purchase via the customer’s bank or credit card provider. Pricing and availability subject to local laws.
Visit http://www.slingbox.com/go/android for more information.

About Sling Media, Inc.
Sling Media, Inc., an affiliate of EchoStar Technologies L.L.C., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), is the leading provider of video placeshifting products and services for consumers and television service providers. Sling Media’s product family includes the internationally acclaimed, Emmy award-winning Slingbox™ that allows consumers to watch and control their living room television shows at any time, from any location, using internet-connected PCs, Macs, PDAs and smartphones. For more information, visit www.slingmedia.com.

Labels:

RockPlayerBase Plays DivX, AVI, and Other Videos You Want on Android Tweet

Android: By default, Android phones can only handle a small number of video types, and leaves your ripped and downloaded files in the dust. RockPlayerBase, on the other hand, nimbly plays DivX, AVI, XviD, MKV, and other file types.

The bad news is that RockPlayerBase isn't available in the Android Market just yet, but is widely available in beta form if you poke around on Google—the via link below, Android Community, and others have posted media hosting links. It's a very minimal application—it launches with a file browser, then jumps into a player when you've picked your file, with simple play controls and timeline scrubbing. You'll see the frames-per-second count in the upper-right corner, but you can kill it by clicking the DivX button once or twice.

RockPlayerBase is, at the moment, a free download for Android phones running 2.1 and above only. Be sure to grab it before your next flight.

source

Labels:

Co0kie's Home Tab v1.8.5 Tweet

Intro:

This is a Manila (Sense) 2.5 Home Tab modification which features:

* Very Customizable Home Tab:
o home items are movable and customizable
o flip and analog clocks with 6 layouts
o 1 to 5 quick link rows
o multiple home levels can have different layouts
o landscape is customizable
* Extended Quick Links:
o Quick Links layouts include 3x3, 4x4, 4x5 and 5x5
o up to 80 shortcuts on multiple pages
o links can be easily rearranged via drag and drop
o options to hide empty links, icon frames and text
o grid view in program selector
* Special Quick Links:
o toggle switches: comm, sound profile and weather animation
o notification links
o miscellaneous: lock device, restart device, restart sense, settings
* Extended Appointments and Tasks:
o unlimited appointment and task entries
o dated enties for more than 2 days in the future
* Lockscreen:
o 3 unlock styles
o customizable layout
o slider shortcuts
* Music Player:
o 3 sizes
o usable on the locksreen
o linked with the Sense music tab
* Wallpaper controls:
o different wallpapers for: home tab, all tabs, lockscreen
o wide scrolling home wallpaper
o regular, HDWall and high quality mode
o taskbar and softkeybar skinning
* And more:
o Configurable links for: alarm, calendar, call history, date, weather, clock, tasks
o 4 animation levels
o retractable slider
o text color settings
* Mod options are configurable with CHTEditor

Thanks to:
- johncmolyneux for his great work with CHTEditor
- JMHL for JMLToday - parts of which are used in this mod
- MichelDiamond for making tasks possible
- danielherrero for LockDevice that makes lock on standby possible for all devices
- the beta testers (in alphabetical order): 12aon, caliban2, dafunk2, madindehead, Mariad, MaxCF, MichelDiamond, mike2nl, mwalt2, myslee_ovi, NRGZ28, santod040, Steve0007
- for the graphics: dafunk2, santod040
- the translators: saleemhd, BoneMo, Napzter, MonacoHias, jolas, jibotella, L_o_k_i, kristofpetho, tuniel, geenzin, nirvanax, icsulescu, MaxCF, cnzqy1, kane159, Som30ne

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=625483

Labels:

FrostWire for Android - Introducing Short Range P2P Tweet

Teaser Video Introducing FrostWire for Android.

FrostWire for Android allows multiple Android users connected to a Wi-Fi network to Chat and Share Files at very high speeds in a peer to peer fashion, no third parties involved.

It's about sharing with the people around you, your phone shouldn't be a device for remote social networking, it can be great for short range interaction too.

Labels:

Android Owners Can Now Listen to Over 50,000 Radio Stations and Shows on WunderRadio – Available in the Android Market for $6.99 Tweet

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Weather Underground launched its popular mobile application, WunderRadio, for the Android platform, providing users with the same interactive features and reliable radio streams that iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile owners already enjoy. The application is available in the Android Market for $6.99.

Awarded the title of Best iPhone Radio Application (terrestrial division) at last year’s MacWorld Expo and dubbed the “Best radio hub around” by Rolling Stone magazine, WunderRadio has already been downloaded by over 400,000 iPhone users who use it to listen to AM/FM and Internet radio stations from across the world. The Windows Mobile version of the app won Handango’s award for Best Entertainment App in 2009.

Android owners can now browse the enormous directory provided by RadioTime, to find radio stations that meet their needs and tastes, searching by location and over 400 different genres such as music, talk, sports and entertainment. Users can save presets for faster tuning to their favorite stations and use the RadioTime Guide to automatically detect what is airing on their local stations, browse by affiliates like the BBC, AOL Radio, Bloomberg or Sirius and search for specific programs or on-air personalities.

“The multi-tasking capabilities of the Android platform showcase the many interactive features of WunderRadio,” said Josh Carroll, President of Jeyo, the developer of the Android version of the software. “Users can access the built-in Twitter directory to connect with an on-air DJ, while streaming their favorite station in the background, and never miss an e-mail or phone call.”

WunderRadio for Android provides playback of more media types including global broadcasts and podcasts and easily connects to your Bluetooth speaker system or headset. It also allows users to listen to radio in the background while using other applications on the phone and elegantly handles incoming calls. Additionally, when listening to music, the application provides song information and convenient links to the iTunes Store.

“With the addition of the Android version, WunderRadio is now accessible to the majority of smart phone users and continues to set a new standard for listening to radio on mobile devices,” said Alan Steremberg, President of Weather Underground, the developers of the original application.

Bill Moore, CEO, RadioTime, explains: “WunderRadio leverages the RadioTime Guide to provide a wider selection of stations than any other tuner available for Android. Everything that made WunderRadio for the iPhone and Windows Mobile so popular is available for Android: the most comprehensive worldwide channel list, a wide range of audio formats, reliable listening and integration with your device.”

If you would like a free version of WunderRadio for Android to review, please email press@wunderground.com.

About Weather Underground
The nation’s first online weather service, Weather Underground is committed to delivering the most comprehensive, reliable weather information possible. In addition to serving free online weather information to millions of web users, Weather Underground delivers custom weather services to an array of businesses and media clients — both online and in print. WunderRadio was initially developed to play local weather radio streams but evolved to include RadioTime’s full directory of stations. More information is available at www.wunderground.com

Labels:

New Foursquare update lets you flag venue info on the fly Tweet

An update to Foursquare just came down the pike, and this one's a goody if you're anal about your check-ins. (Wonder which side of the fence we're about to be on?) You now have the ability to fix those blasted incorrect, inaccurate or otherwise just plain wrong locations.

Now your old friend Jeremy, who fled his beloved hometown for the Midwest, can't become mayor of his forsaken airport merely because he misspelled it and you were too squinty-eyed for your 6:30 a.m. flight to notice and check in at the proper location. (Hey, warned you about our anal-check-in thing.)

Anyhoo, you can now tell Foursquare of your buddy's transgressions and suggest that the venue info be flagged, market it as closed, as in incorrect address or as a duplicate.

source

Labels:

kinLauncher - A Kin Theme for Windows Mobile Tweet

kinLauncher - A Kin Theme for Windows Mobile

Labels:

What Can You Do With Blackboard Mobile Learn? Tweet

*
nnouncements

Assignment due? Class cancelled? This is the place where instructors go to post the news students need to know. Students have instant, on-the-go access to the latest announcements, and instructors can post announcements anywhere, anytime.
*
Discussions

The Discussion Board is a key course communication tool for engaging students and promoting learning. It's the place students ask and answer questions, and where instructors can respond to one student for the benefit of all. With Blackboard Mobile Learn, instructors and students can review and post to threaded discussions, as well as create new threads, all while on the go.
*
Grades

Want to know how you did on the midterm or your last homework assignment? Students can view their grades right here.
*
Blogs

Read blog posts and interact with classmates by posting comments on their blogs or responding to comments on your own.

*
Tasks

Help students track and manage the progress of various tasks, from turning in homework assignments to reminders to pick up a midterm or purchase a textbook. Tasks allow students to mark when they've started a project, when it's in progress, and when complete.
*
Roster

Wondering who's in your class? With the class roster, you can quickly see your full class list, making organizing study groups a whole lot easier.
*
Media

Students can access music, videos and images uploaded by their instructors and experience directly from their mobile devices using the appropriate media-specific software.
*
Journals

Read and reflect on your Journal posts and those of your classmates. Both students and instructors can comment on Journals.

Labels:

Fuze Meeting - First Online Meeting App for Android, Introduced by Fuze Box Tweet

Fuze Meeting, a product of Fuze Box, becomes the first online meeting software to announce a dedicated app for Android users, further extending their presence as the leader in mobile collaboration.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Fuze Box, the visual collaboration powerhouse providing mobile meetings and online collaboration solutions, announced the release of their best-in-class meeting software, Fuze Meeting, for Android mobile devices - thus introducing the only web conferencing software with a dedicated app on Android devices. Joining its sister apps on the iPhone and BlackBerry™, Fuze Meeting for Android allows users to collaborate on various forms of content including videos and office documents from anywhere in the world. The Fuze Meeting Android app and device specific download instructions are now available on the Fuze Meeting Android page.

Features in this attendee-only release include:

* View desktop sharing - Android attendees gain an unprecedented ability to view meeting participants' desktops, files and presentations on-the-go and in real-time, while synced with the meeting presenter. The viewing quality and precise synchronization set the standard for visual collaboration among smartphones.
* Actively participate in media collaboration – Attendees are able to watch and listen to high-quality video and audio – start, stop and pause with the same level of functionality as meeting hosts have.
* Contribute content with presenter functionality – Once the meeting host designates an Android attendee as a presenter, users can share video or image files by uploading directly from their device.


"We have anticipated the rapid adoption of Android in the workplace for quite some time," remarks Jeff Cavins, CEO of Fuze Box. "As a company, we saw it as a vital move to develop a version of our software to seamlessly allow global Android users, the ability to participate in meetings with the same ease and proficiency as they have become accustomed to with our web experience. We believe that being the first to market with an Android based collaboration app leaves us well poised as the leader in online meeting space."

The Fuze Meeting Android app is the latest in a series of enhancements to Fuze Box's collaboration offerings. With a mission of being the leader in mobile collaboration solutions, Fuze Box continues to evaluate all mobile platforms for future development catering to the demands of global professionals.

About Fuze Box:

Fuze Box is a leading platform provider of visual collaboration applications for consumers and businesses. Its applications - Fuze Meeting, Fuze Messenger, Fuze Movie and Tweetshare - allow people to communicate, collaborate and share from any device, anywhere in the world. Fuze Meeting is a mobile and web-based collaboration service that features integrated audio conferencing as well as high- definition, synchronized video and image sharing. The company's technology is based on a real-time visual communications platform that converges telephony, high-definition, synchronized video and image sharing across the enterprise, the web and mobile networks. The company holds seventeen patents and has over fifty more pending in the fields of telephony, web and visual media technologies to transform how professionals and individuals communicate. For more information, please visit www.fuzebox.com

Labels:

“[Bilayn]” let out the special version Of internet Of explorer 8 for the users of the domestic Internet Tweet

Telecommunication operator “[Bilayn]” declared about the release of the special version of the Internet browser Of microsoft Of internet Of explorer 8 for the subscribers of the domestic Internet “[Bilayn]”. The special version of browser is developed together with Microsoft and contains the Web- fragments of the entertaining of the service lives of internal network “[Bilayn]”. In the form Web- fragments into the browser are added the resources “of photos”, “forum”, “the news”, “games”, “weather” and “TV- program”.

To free of charge load special version IE8 is possible in the internal network of the domestic Internet “[Bilayn]”. As they report in the company, new IE8 are build it more than 1000 accelerators, which reduce the time of obtaining necessary information.

Labels:

Microsoft Office 2010 Now Available for Consumers Worldwide Tweet

Millions of beta users help Microsoft deliver the best experience for getting things done across the PC, phone and browser.

NEW YORK -- Today, Microsoft Corp. announced the worldwide availability of Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010. Consumers can now purchase Office 2010 at more than 35,000 retail stores across the globe, such as Best Buy, Fnac, Harvey Norman and PC World; through online retailers, including Amazon.com; and direct from Microsoft at Office.com.

Office 2010 can also be purchased with the most popular desktops and laptops from leading PC makers including Acer Inc., Asus, Dell Inc., HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Sony Corp. In the next year, more than 100 million PCs will ship with Office 2010 preloaded, which can easily be activated with the purchase of any one of the three versions of Office 2010, including Office Home and Student 2010, Office Home and Business 2010, or Office Professional 2010.

"Working with major retail partners and PC makers, we've made dramatic changes in the way we deliver Office 2010 to give consumers more buying choice, making it easier than ever to unlock the power of Office on new and existing PCs," said Stephen Elop, president, Microsoft Business Division. "For the first time, people can purchase a Product Key Card at retail to activate Office 2010 preloaded on new PCs. For those who want to download Office 2010 direct from Office.com for an existing PC, the new Click-to-Run technology will have them up and running in a matter of minutes."

Office 2010 Represents a Great Growth Opportunity for Microsoft and Its Partners

"Recent comScore Tech Metrix™ data confirms that more than 1 billion PCs worldwide have Office software installed, making it the most widely used productivity suite in the world," said Mike Hurt, senior vice president of comScore. "This milestone helps illustrate the importance that software products like Microsoft Office have played in shaping the digital world to date."

Considering there are approximately 1.8 billion Internet users worldwide, Microsoft and its channel partners see an incredible opportunity to deliver Office 2010 to existing and new Office customers around the world.

From a survey of Office 2010 beta users, Microsoft found that 75 percent say they plan to buy Office 2010 within six months. The Office 2010 beta program had more than 9 million downloads — more than six times the size of the 2007 Microsoft Office beta program — indicating strong consumer interest in Office 2010.

"Following the great response to the Office 2010 beta and the success of Windows 7, we predict this will be the biggest consumer release of Office, ever," Elop said.

Productivity Solutions Across the PC, Phone and Browser

Throughout its development cycle, customer feedback has been critical to the improvements found in Office 2010. Based on this valuable input, Microsoft has made considerable enhancements to help users do the following:

* Create great-looking documents and presentations. Express creativity in PowerPoint 2010 presentations with new video and photo editing features. Add extensive text effects and table formatting options in Word 2010. Reveal important trends in data with Sparklines in Excel 2010. OneNote 2010 makes everything you need simple to find, organize and share.



* Connect and work together more simply. Advanced e-mail management and calendaring capabilities in Outlook 2010 and the new Outlook Social Connector help people stay productive and in touch with personal and business networks. Work with others more efficiently using new co-authoring in Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and OneNote 2010. Deliver presentations over the Web with new PowerPoint Broadcast Slideshow.



* Get things done from virtually anywhere. With Office 2010 and the Office Web Apps — the online companions to Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote — people have the freedom to save documents directly from Office 2010 to Windows Live SkyDrive, then view, edit and share those documents in the cloud. The Office Web Apps preserve the look and feel of Office documents, so valuable content and formatting are not compromised while moving between the PC, phone and browser*



Office Mobile 2010 also is available from Windows® Phone Marketplace for all

Windows Mobile 6.5 phones. People using Office Mobile 2010 can perform

lightweight editing of Office documents and take notes on the go, or work on Office

documents stored on their phone or attached to an e-mail.

Today, Office 2010 is available in 10 languages and will expand to 94 languages.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

* An appropriate device, Internet connection and supported browser are required. Some mobile functionality requires Office Mobile 2010, which is not included in Office 2010 applications, suites or Web Apps. There are some differences between the features of the Office Web Apps, Office Mobile 2010 and the Office 2010 applications.

Labels:

ABBYY(R) Offers Recognition Server iFilter to Extend Capabilities of Microsoft(R) Search Systems Beyond Text Formats Tweet

New Solution Enhances Indexing Capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server and Windows® Search to Make Image Files Easily Discoverable throughout Corporate Networks.

MILPITAS, Calif. -- ABBYY®, a leading provider of document recognition, data capture and linguistic software, announced that it is expanding its offering for enterprise search systems with the new ABBYY Recognition Server iFilter solution. Integrated with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) Search or Windows Search, it unlocks image files such as TIFF, JPEG, DjVu, and PDF for full-text content indexing and therefore enables faster and more complete search of all documents in a corporate network. As a result, corporate users have a reliable tool to easily sort through volumes of image files accumulated in their organization.

"Enterprise search systems give corporate users quick access to information contained in a variety of documents necessary to perform everyday tasks. A document that cannot be quickly retrieved is usually considered to be lost even if, nominally, it still exists somewhere in the archives. But some documents are stored in formats that are not convenient for search and retrieval, such as image formats," commented Andrey Isaev, director of Technology Products for ABBYY. "Our product, designed to enhance Microsoft systems with the image search support, provides an easy solution to simplify access to corporate information and knowledge, and increase work efficiency in an organization."

Many important documents, such as scanned faxes, agreements, correspondence, etc., are stored as images and, therefore, cannot be indexed by the Microsoft search engine. The ABBYY solution provides the iFilter plug-in to integrate with the Microsoft search system and gives access to a background optical character recognition (OCR) service which is performed by the award-winning ABBYY Recognition Server software.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server indexes text documents which are located in the corporate network itself, and utilizes ABBYY Recognition Server iFilter when image files need to be processed. iFilter transmits the image-based documents to Recognition Server for OCR processing and then submits the recognized text back to the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for indexing. This processing makes the documents available for full-text search. To avoid the possibility of overloading the search system, ABBYY Recognition Server is installed on a separate computer and can be scaled up with additional capacity at any time.

ABBYY Recognition Server iFilter also works with Microsoft Windows Search, a system for searching files on desktop PCs and connected recourses. One copy of ABBYY Recognition Server can perform OCR for all Windows Search clients installed on the corporate network, and therefore is enough capacity for all employees of the organization to be able to search through images on their computers. The background image processing is performed on the server and does not consume resources of the users' PCs.

For more information about the product's functionality and availability, please visit http://www.abbyy.com/recognition_server/scenarios/OCR_iFilter_for_Microsoft

About ABBYY Recognition Server

ABBYY Recognition Server is a powerful server-based solution for document capture and conversion based on widely renowned ABBYY OCR technologies. The solution "reads" scanned, photographed documents, and PDF files in over 190 languages including multilingual documents with various language combinations (e.g. Japanese and German, Chinese and Russian, etc.). It supports input of a variety of images formats including TIFF, JPEG, PDF, DjVu, BMP, PCX, and DCX. With its scalable and flexible architecture, it can process large volumes of documents while remaining easy to integrate and use.

About ABBYY

ABBYY is a leading provider of document recognition, data capture and language software. Its products include the ABBYY FineReader line of optical character recognition (OCR) applications, ABBYY FlexiCapture line of data capture solutions, ABBYY Lingvo dictionary software, and development tools. Paper-intensive organizations from all over the world use ABBYY software to automate time- and labour-consuming tasks and to streamline business processes. ABBYY products are used in large-scale government projects such as those of Australian Taxation Office, Lithuanian Tax Inspectorate, Ministry of Education of Russia, Ministry of Education of Ukraine, and Montgomery County Government of the USA. Companies that license ABBYY technologies include BancTec, Canon, EMC/Captiva, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, NewSoft, Notable Solutions, Samsung Electronics and more. ABBYY OCR applications are shipped with equipment from the world's top manufacturers such as BenQ, Epson, Fujitsu, Fuji Xerox, Microtek, Panasonic, Plustek, Toshiba, and Xerox. ABBYY is headquartered in Moscow, Russia, with offices in Germany, the United States, Ukraine, the UK, Japan and Taiwan. For more information, visit www.ABBYY.com.

Labels:

Industry Leaders Launch UTI, Home to the Java Verified Program, as an Independent Organization Tweet

UTI appoints Executive Director, announces enhancements to the Java Verified program, and moves forward as a self-funded organization to advance proven high-quality mobile applications.

LONDON -- Today, the Unified Testing Initiative (UTI), home to the Java Verified program, announced that UTI has become an independent organization. Oracle and the UTI management board, which consists of representatives from AT&T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Orange, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone, have been collaborating for the past year to ensure the new self-governing and self-funded organization meets the evolving quality assurance requirements of mobile application developers worldwide.

Signaling this new chapter, UTI has appointed an Executive Director who will be responsible for all UTI program management, with financial and legal support provided by the standards organization, IEEE-ISTO.

UTI is committed to continuing to provide Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) developers and the mobile industry with testing and resources for delivering more high-quality mobile applications to market faster. Java ME is the world's most broadly deployed mobile runtime, utilized by nine of the top 10 handset manufacturers and powers nearly three billion phones in over 150 countries worldwide.

"The Java Verified program has always been the global standard for ensuring mobile application quality based on stringent application testing and signing procedures," said Martin Wrigley, chair of UTI and director of developer services, Orange. "Now, as Java Verified moves 'full speed ahead' within an independent organization, we salute Oracle and the UTI management board for providing the industry with new opportunities for advancing more high quality mobile applications."

As an independent organization, UTI has increased flexibility for more easily adding new capabilities and functionality to the Java Verified program. This new structure also lays the foundation for UTI to quickly develop, implement and manage new quality assurance programs for mobile application developers, carriers and handset manufactures working across the mobile ecosystem.

"Java technology powers 85 percent of all mobile phones, including almost a billion new devices shipped in the last year. Empowering the UTI, as an independent organization, to run the Java Verified program is a very important step in the continued growth and success of the Java open mobile ecosystem," said Hasan Rizvi, senior vice president, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java. "Oracle is committed to making Java an even more attractive investment for developers, who have already built more than 100,000 mobile Java applications, for the over 400 operators who have deployed Java ME and for the growing number of handset manufacturers who rely on Java technology. We look forward to collaborating with the members of UTI to ensure that the Java Verified Program provides developers with even more of the resources they need to rapidly deliver new, high-quality business and consumer applications into the global marketplace."

Announcing UTI's first Executive Director

As part of today's news, UTI is announcing the appointment of Ruth Cattell as the organization's first Executive Director. Cattell is working with the UTI management board to assist in driving the strategic direction of the organization on a global basis. Based in the UK and with ten years of telecom marketing and program management experience, Cattell has worked with mobile application developers worldwide, managing a variety of technical and marketing support programs. Cattell is responsible for UTI program management as the organization moves to enhance the Java Verified program and readies a variety of new quality assurance programs for mobile application developers.

"The launch of UTI as an independent organization represents a significant step forward in the evolution of Java Verified," said Cattell. "As UTI continues to grow, developers around the world will regularly have access to new industry-leading resources for advancing mobile applications that have met a wide range of quality assurance requirements."

New Java Verified Website and developer tools launched today

With today's news, UTI is announcing the launch of an updated Java Verified website and new features for Java ME developers. These enhancements are designed to make it easier for Java ME developers to test mobile applications in the Java Verified program. The new site allows developers to find relevant information more quickly and includes educational and "how to" videos featuring Java Verified experts discussing a wide range of topics.

Enhancements released today include an updated version of the Testing and Signing Portal featuring an improved user interface. Also available today is an automated version of the Java Verified device matrix, which includes all of the handsets and devices Java Verified supports. The automated device matrix makes it faster for manufactures to add new devices and handsets to the matrix, and easier for developers to locate the devices they should test their applications against. The device calculator allows developers to price testing before they begin the application testing process.

About UTI

UTI is an industry-approved, not-for-profit mobile application testing body, run for the industry by the industry. The organization develops testing and de-fragmentation initiatives for the mobile industry and is working to provide a common testing standard for mobile platforms: initially, but not exclusively, for Java ME. UTI leadership includes representation from AT&T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Orange, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone. More information about UTI is available at www.javaverified.com.

About Java Verified

As a program of UTI, the primary goal of Java Verified is to provide developers with testing and resources for delivering more high-quality Java ME applications to more devices faster. Java Verified membership is open to all organizations interested in advancing high-quality mobile applications in a collaborative environment. For more information about the Java Verified program please visit our website at www.javaverified.com.

Labels:

Skype now available for Sony Ericsson Symbian smartphones Tweet

Runs on Symbian-based Satio™, Vivaz™ and Vivaz™ pro.

LUXEMBOURG — Skype announced the availability of Skype on three Sony Ericsson smartphones based on the Symbian platform, the world’s most popular smartphone platform. Users of Sony Ericsson’s flagship smartphones Satio™, Vivaz™ and Vivaz™ pro can now use Skype on the move, over either a WiFi or mobile data connection (3G, GPRS, EDGE). It can be downloaded now by visiting skype.com/m on a compatible handset, and will also be made available on the Sony Ericsson Play Now™ arena (www.playnow-arena.com) later this month.

Skype for Symbian enables users to:

* Make free Skype-to-Skype calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world*
* Save money on calls and texts (SMS) to phones abroad.
* Send and receive instant messages to and from individuals or groups
* Share pictures, videos and other files.
* Receive calls to their existing online number
* See when Skype contacts are online and available to call or IM
* Easily import names and numbers from the phone’s address book

Skype for Symbian will run on any Sony Ericsson smartphone using Symbian ^1, the latest version of the Symbian platform.

“Applications for communication and social networking are incredibly popular with mobile users. The opportunity to use a world-class app like Skype, in combination with the excellent applications and capabilities we have already integrated into our Satio™, Vivaz™ and Vivaz™ pro devices, will make up a compelling package to our customers," said Kristian Tear, Executive Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing at Sony Ericsson.

Russ Shaw, General Manager, Mobile at Skype said, “We see a huge demand for Skype on mobile. The users want to keep in contact with the people that are important to them without worrying about the cost, distance or whether they are away from a computer. It is our goal to meet this demand and make Skype available on a wide range of mobile devices by entering relationships with operators and handset manufacturers. Just a few weeks ago we have announced Skype for Symbian. Now, we are very pleased to bring it to Sony Ericsson smartphones and enable more people to take the Skype features they love with them on the move.”

Sony Ericsson is the exclusive provider of Symbian smartphones to Skype during CommunicAsia, 15th – 18th June.
About Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson is a 50/50 joint venture by Sony and Ericsson established in October 2001, with global corporate functions located in London and operations in major markets around the world. Sony Ericsson’s strategy is to become the industry leader in mobile Communication Entertainment, through new styles of interaction across the internet and social media. Sony Ericsson offers exciting consumer experiences through innovative and feature rich phones, accessories, content and applications. For more information visit www.sonyericsson.com.
About Skype

Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Download Skype to your computer or mobile phone at skype.com.

Labels:

Fortumo In-App Payments for Android Tweet

Monetize premium features inside Android apps using mobile operator billing. 1-click solution for users & ready-made libraries for developers.

Labels:

SlingPlayer Mobile for Android Sign up Tweet

Get the Latest SlingPlayer for Android News Direct from Sling Media

Be one of the first to know when SlingPlayer Mobile for Android becomes available in the UK. Submit your email address below and we'll keep you posted.

http://uk.slingmedia.com/get/android-signup-uk

Labels:

Big in Japan (ShopSavvy) Feeling the EVO 4G Effect Tweet

Qik is not the only company feeling the effects of the EVO 4G and its massive sales figures. ShopSavvy developers Big in Japan are reporting similar workloads and finding that some of their retailers are "not fairing as well under the load." That's a great thing for them as it means the app has been downloaded in droves. Overall scans traffic is up 50% since the launch of the EVO 4G. In fact, Big in Japan is seeing a record number of downloads thanks to Sprint's latest handset.

source

Labels: