flash

Chumby, the snuggly hybrid of stuffed animal and widget device, will be introduced next month to a small group of beta testers willing to shell out $179.95. The device, which has been in private testing for the last 10 months, lets its owners add and access all sorts of Internet-enabled widgets, including weather information, sports scores, horoscopes, and even Flickr slide shows. The team plans to make it available to everyone else later in the year.

According to Chumby's creators, part of the launch delay has been due to the inclusion of video, which required getting Adobe's Flash Lite 3 … Read more

I doubt it will replace the CD anytime soon, but some record labels are experimenting with distributing music on portable USB flash drives. The latest in this occasional trend is The White Stripes, whose Icky Thump album is available in both traditional CD form as well as in a limited edition USB thumb drive format.

Now, the flash drive version sells for $57, well more than the $15 price tag of the CD. That means that only die-hard fans will likely buy the drive versions, which depict the band's Jack White and Meg White as Russian dolls. (Those who … Read more

YouTube's mobile site has been live and available as of a few days ago. The service offers a hand-picked selection of videos users can watch on their mobile devices. Users have access to just the bare essentials, such as running time, rating, and a link to a video's page with more details. There is, however, no community aspect--no user comments, ratings, or video responses--the kind of things that make YouTube so interesting. Also missing is a dedicated video uploader, as mobile users are still required to submit their mobile videos via MMS messaging.

Instead of running in Flash, … Read more

It's hard to believe, but there was actually a time when gold USB drives were a rare commodity. Now, it seems like a rare week when we don't see one. But that, of course, won't stop us from rolling another one out.

And how can we resist, given the bargains that are to be had these days? The latest model from Israel's E-Jewel, for example, is a 14k specimen that holds 4GB of data for a mere $2,000, according to Coolest-Gadgets. That's a third less than the $3,500 key we cited only a … Read more

Category: Publishing

Adobe's Flash was once shunned in the world of Web design, but it has since grown into a powerful and lightweight platform for delivering video and other media-rich pages to users on multiple computing platforms. Flash has two components, one is the authoring platform for developers, and the other is the Flash player plug-in, which lets users experience the Flash content in their browsers.

One of the most common uses of Flash on the Internet is by video-hosting sites like YouTube. These services encode their videos in Flash formats, and play them in customized video players. Users … Read more

One of our favorite MP3 players is getting an upgrade. Cowon announced the iAudio 7 today in Korea, updating their micro-drive iAudio 6 player to a lighter, leaner flash-based player. The update includes a significant jump in battery life, from 20 hours to a remarkable 60 hours. The iAudio 6 supports standard audio formats such as MP3, AAC, WMA, ASF, WAV, and even beloved (yet rarely supported) formats such as OGG and FLAC. It looks as though many of the great features of its predecessor have been maintained, including line-in recording, voice recording, video playback, BBE sound enhancer, and its … Read more

Adobe's upcoming Apollo runtime engine (hands-on look at Apollo) will be an important platform for Web and software developers, since it lets programmers create applications that work equally well online and off, and also across computing platforms. At the moment, Apollo requires developers to use Adobe's tools. It's a platform primarily for applications written in Flash or Flex, both Adobe products. But that's going to change.

Renamed AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), the product previously known as Apollo will change from being a runtime for Adobe products to being a runtime for any Web application, even one … Read more

Like a mini-version of SimCity, the Flash-based Web game Electrocity lets you develop your own metropolis from the ground up. Rather than existing solely as a entertaining Web diversion, however, Electrocity has a hidden agenda.

The sponsor of the game, Genesis Energy, is an energy provider and retailer in New Zealand. Electrocity was developed to increase public awareness about energy usage, its cost, and its effect on the environment.

Electrocity is a fairly simple, turn-based strategy game. You get 150 turns to create your masterpiece, but the challenge is to allocate resources wisely as you build. One-hundred and fifty turns … Read more

While YouTube continues to be one of the most popular and widely recognized Web video sites, there's a rather large smattering of niche video services out there. Sclipo (formerly known as Visuarios) serves up a bevy of instructional videos in nine different categories. The service won "Best Start-up" last week at the StartUp 2.0 awards in Bilbao, Spain.

Like other video-hosting sites, Sclipo users can rate, comment on, and share the videos with others. What makes it so interesting is its revenue-sharing model. "Masters," or users who provide skills videos, will get a portion … Read more