MAX Day 2 | Sneak Peeks – ‘Mind Blowing’

OK today’s Sneak peek session was simply AMAZING. Changes and new stuff like we never imagined…like using C++ in FLASH! Here is my summary (full photo slideshow URL to follow):

Visual Communicator

Video editing for the non-video professional. They said they had third graders use this software to create ‘professional looking video’. It actually has some really cool features you don’t even see in Premiere or Final Cut – features I saw in third party software years ago made specifically for shooting live video with a text reader…but way cooler. There is no timeline. It is made to work similiar to the way live TV is shot. It has Flash Media Encoder embedded within the application. It also communicates directly with Flash Media Server and can be used with streaming video / for live broadcasting. It can be used to switch between up to three live cameras. They gave every MAX attendee a free copy of Adobe Visual Communicator 3 in their conference bags from the beginning of MAX. The thing is, I noticed right away that the disc is labelled “Windows” – so I’m guessing there is no Mac version. Sucks, my kids will have to run Parallels, or worse, Boot Camp, to utilize this software. Personally I will never use it – I use Final Cut Studio 2, and the Adobe tools I use for post are After Effects, Audition, and Encore, although after getting FCP2 I have to debate getting the Mac versions of Audition and Encore. Won’t know until I learn DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack Pro better. One thing for sure, the Adobe tools are easier to use and more intuitive. Then again, I have a lot more experience using the Adobe tools, too (used Audition since it was Cool Edit, Encore since it came out). OK, sorry, I diverge…

VOIP in the Flash Player (Pacifica)

This was more on Pacifica and a clarification that it was indeed VOIP although Daniel Diebler didn’t specifically mention that term this morning in the keynote. She demonstrated an application called CoCoNiki – a flex application, and then demonstrated an AIR application. (see slideshow – url in upcoming post). Oh, btw – in the keynote this morning (I haven’t posted those notes yet!) she mentioned they are having a PRIVATE beta screening of Pacifica. If you want the Beta let her know…they are especially interested in people who have existing AIR applications in which they want to leverage Pacifica.

Ken Sundermeyer presented Flash Home This is one AWESOME technology, to say the very least, especially if what I saw and heard is what I think I saw and heard…

Flash Home lets you completely replace the interface of your phone. Now, you’re thinking…hm…Flash Lite? NO! This replaces the OS of the phone…you boot your phone into Flash Home. Furthermore…it LOOKS like its supposed to be for ANY phone – even phones that aren’t ‘flash enabled’ (so very few of those in the U.S.!). It looked like Ken was doing his demo on one of the newer Motorola Razr phones. Man! That’s not a flash enabled phone as far as I know…at least my Razr wasnt’ before it konked out completely. And the interface in flash was a zillion fold improvement over the motorola phone’s native interface…Moto never looked so good before.

He said the mobile phone personalization market is a $2.7 BILLION dollar industry – NOT including ringtones. Imagine if ANY phone on the market could be now booted with Flash Home – our audience is suddenly way bigger…I imagine Flash Home would catch on as fast or faster than the Flash player on the Internet, if for no other reason than it simply makes your phone so much better.

Move over, iPhone.

Flash Home can access web data AND it is completely integrated with the phone – there is not sandbox – its like an AIR app on your phone. Or rather AIR OS. It can access your address book, SMS, system info, etc. I already had no plans to buy an iPhone – it doesn’t even support Flash and I have my Macbook everywhere I go…so who needs a smaller, less able MacOS? And why would I watch movies on that tiny screen over my 17″ Macbook Pro? I guess its a paradigm I just don’t understand… But now there is even less incentive with Flash Home potentially available a year from now…

Unlike WAP, which is very slow – Flash Home is ‘instant on’. Data can be downloaded and still available when you drive into that tunnel and have no signal.

Jeff Baum presented PhotoShop Express.

This is a lightweight, consumer-oriented, web-based version of photoshop. They demonstrated some awesome features that I have never even seen in Photoshop, but I highly suspect it has to do with some amazing imaging algorithms from a new Adobe hire (see below).

It is built with Flex. It has suspiciously similiar (identical) tools to LightRoom, such as rotation and crop, vibrance, etc.

Amazing and new: blemish removal, timeline based, non-linear history, astoundingly intelligent, one-click color replacement and distortion effects. See the slideshow (url to be posted) for more details.

Fireworks CS4

Fireworks CS4 embodies the workflow between Flex, AIR, and Fireworks. You can design an application in Fireworks and preview directly in AIR. Together with Thermo these tools are going to seriously redefine application and web development! They said a Beta version should be available in the next few months.

Indesign / Flex

New web enabled version of Indesign leveraging the power of Flex. They showed a demo application of a restaurant menu that was updated daily with the special of the day, and different layout templates used depending on the type of food being served.

Flash CS4

The new version of flash has a new stage rendering core built around Flash Player 10. That’s right – this is the second presentation where they have explicitly been referring to Flash Player 10. What happened to sticking with Flash Player 9 through and through? Guess it wasn’t cutting it for all the new features they are leveraging in the next generation of flash platform, like VOIP and more.

• In the new version of the Flash authoring tool you can preview live video on stage at development time, and the video is even interactive; you can use color picker to choose colors from within the video for use throughout the application, etc.
• It also has new graphics tools for working with 3D space.
• Tweening can be done directly on an object now, not on the timeline.
• No more keyframes.
• Tween path can be modified with a bezier.
• Wireframing
• Run time reverse kinematics
• All that in less than twenty lines of code

Acrobat CS4

• Flash player is now inside of Acrobat.
• The UI is written in Flex.
• CoCoMo client running inside of Acrobat
• Real time document collaboration within Acrobat

Building Flex on Linux

• Early Alpha is on Labs NOW
• No design view

C++ on Flash

• can approximate multi-threading
• can utilize existing C++ code
• can leverage for PhP, Ruby, etc. all from within Flash
• further enabling AIR applications built in Flash
• Demo: He ported Quake III to Flash!!!

iSeam Image Application

Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing

by Shai Avidan

This guy is a genius. Lucky for Adobe to hire him. Quite frankly, I have never seen anything like it…and he claims the imaging algorithms are actually quite simple. I can’t even begin to describe this. See the slideshow (url to be posted) for before/after/traditional resizing comparisons, and look out for a video of his demo…(let me know if you find one! Hope Adobe posts it!). The future potential for his impact on every image-related technology in Adobe is just plain mind blowing.