Flex Monkey Patches

There were lots of exciting new things at Adobe MAX 2008 today, plus a lot of new stuff landed on Adobe LABs. Here are the things I think are cool and showcase the innovation of the people at Adobe:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/

Alchemy is a research project that allows users to compile C and C++ code that is targeted to run on the open source ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2). The purpose of this preview is to assess the level of community interest in reusing existing C and C++ libraries in Web applications that run on Adobe® Flash® Player and Adobe AIR®.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/(formerly Thermo)

“Adobe® Flash® Catalyst is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding. These can range from interactive Ads, product guides and design portfolios to user interfaces for applications. Flash Catalyst enables designers to start from static compositions created in Adobe Photoshop® CS4, Illustrator® CS4, or Adobe Fireworks® CS4 and convert the artwork into applications and interactive content. The designer does this by visually defining events, transitions and motion. Flash Catalyst can output a finished Flash SWF or AIR application that’s ready to publish on the web. In addition designers can provide the project file to developers who can use Adobe Flex® Builder™ to add additional functionality such as connection to back-end systems.”

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cocomo/

Codename “Cocomo” is a Platform as a Service that allows Flex developers to easily add real-time social capabilities into their RIA (rich Internet applications). Comprised of both Flex-based client components and a hosted services infrastructure, Cocomo allows you to build real-time, multi-user applications with Flex in less time than ever before. And because Acrobat.com hosts the service, issues like deployment, maintenance, and scalability are taken care of for you.

Add social features to your existing Flex apps or build totally new ones, such as real-time productivity/collaboration apps, multiplayer games, and audio/video chat.

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Genesis

Genesis is the code-name for a new product initiative at Adobe with the objective of joining business applications, documents and the web on every knowledge workers desktop with integrated collaboration capabilities. Using the very intuitive interface of the Genesis desktop client (built on Adobe AIR) knowledge workers are able to create custom workspaces combining views into business applications, analytics, web sites and documents. Workspaces can be easily and securely shared with other colleagues or business partners outside the company and provide out-of-the-box real time collaboration capabilities like instant messaging, voice and video as well as screen sharing and white boarding.

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Adobe_Wave

Adobe® Wave™ is an Adobe AIR application and Adobe hosted service that work together to enable desktop notifications. It helps publishers stay connected to your customers and lets users avoid the email clutter of dozens of newsletters and social network update messages. Adobe Wave is a single web service call that lets publishers reach users directly on their desktop: there’s no need to make them download a custom application or build it yourself. The Adobe Wave pre-release program is geared towards developers, so if you’re a user who wants to try it out, click here to send us an email. We’ll let you know when Adobe Wave is available for you to try!

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Stratus

Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR 1.5 introduce a new communications protocol called the Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP). The most important features of RTMFP include low latency, end-to-end peering capability, security and scalability. These properties make RTMFP especially well suited for developing real-time collaboration applications by not only providing superior user experience but also reducing cost for operators.

In order to use RTMFP, Flash Player endpoints must connect to an RTMFP-capable server, such as the Adobe Stratus service. Stratus is a Beta hosted rendezvous service that aids establishing communications between Flash Player endpoints. Unlike Flash Media Server, Stratus does not support media relay, shared objects, scripting, etc. So by using Stratus, you can only develop applications where Flash Player endpoints are directly communicating with each other.

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