Google releases Swiffy Extension for Flash Professional
Google recently announced a web based service named Swiffy which was designed to convert Adobe Flash content into web friendly HTML5 media.
Google has now gone one step ahead and released a plugin for Adobe Flash Professional development suite.
The idea is to enable developers and designers to export their creations directly from inside the application.
The plugin still uses the web based service so it gets the latest conversion module from the Google developers. Progress is shown inside the desktop app so it is intuitive for the creators.
Google said:
To speed up the development process, we’ve built the Swiffy Extension for Flash Professional. The extension enables you to convert your animation to HTML5 with one click (or keyboard shortcut). The extension is available for both Mac and Windows, and it uses Swiffy as a web service, so you’ll always get our latest and greatest conversion. Information about the conversion process is shown within Flash Professional.
Sting might not release another music album… could switch to app model!
Sting has made an interesting statement. He said that his future music compositions might never be released as albums in the market.
Instead he plans to release them through apps that work on different platforms. He said: “People are going to stop buying CDs. People are going to stop selling and making them, so I am looking for different ways to get music to people, and the [app] at the moment seems to be the favorite … The app is the new model.”
He has just released his first mobile app named Sting 25 which comes with a traditional CD box set. The app showcases media content about the singer. Sting said that the app is interactive in nature and can be updated in the future which makes it much more interesting and useful.
Remains to be seen how his app model would work out for folks that are still old fashioned and prefer to listen songs on LP and CD players!
CyanogenMod developers have said that they have already started working on the recently open sourced Android Ice Cream Sandwich edition.
They are aiming to come out with builds based on this edition in two months. So, you should be able to get Android 4 for your older devices starting January.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the first smartphone to feature Android Ice Cream Sandwich and it goes on sale this month.
And Google as promised released the source code just days after the actual launch.
It remains to be seen how soon we would see custom builds based on it powering older Android smartphones. Manufacturers take a lot more time to release their own editions and they tend to skip a lot of older devices while doing so.
RIM has said that their next generation Blackberry smartphones would be “charming, whimsical and fun.”
The company has already announced their BBX platform that would power their 2012 devices. It is based on the QNX platform which powers their Playbook Tablet PC.
We have already seen a leaked image of a rumored device running an early iteration of this platform. It looks pretty close to the modern touch optimized mobile platforms like Apple iOS and Google Android.
The company would however need support from the developer community for third party apps which makes Android and iOS more lucrative mobile platforms for the end user.
Developers behind the openSUSE project have released a new edition. openSUSE 12.1 is now available for download.
It has been under development for around eight months now. This edition comes with the latest GNOME 3.2 desktop with options for KDE, XFCE and LXDE interfaces.
They have also added a personal cloud service named ownCloud with mirall desktop integration.
The developers added:
openSUSE is also the first major distribution to ship the Go programming language, Google’s new open development language. Go is a fast, easy-to-use language that helps programmers handle multi-core, networked machines with the convenience of garbage collection and run-time reflection.
Online sources are reporting that Nokia is aiming to enter the Tablet PC market sometime next year.
The company is expected to use Windows 8 for these Tablets instead of a mobile platform.
Microsoft has already stated several times that they have no plans to launch a Tablet edition of their Windows Phone platform.
Nokia just recently launched their first two smartphones based on the WP Mango platform.
The company has officially declined to make a statement though sources quote a company representative saying: “In June 2012, we will have a tablet that runs on Windows 8.”
Spotify has launched their music streaming platform in three new markets.
These are: Austria, Belgium and Switzerland.
The company said: “Our new friends will be able to enjoy all three Spotify services - from absolutely free to paid subscriptions”.
As usual three options are available.
Spotify Free the unsurpassed free music service. Enjoy free, on-demand, buffer-free access to millions of songs on your computer. No gimmicks. Just listen and love it, month after month. All new users in Switzerland and Belgium can experience unlimited free, ad-supported music for the first 6 months of their account. After that, you’ll be able to listen to 10 hours of free music every month.
Spotify Unlimited – all the special features of our free service, but with uninterrupted, ad-free access to Spotify on your computer. All for only 4.99EUR or 6.45CHF a month.
Spotify Premium -the top-of-the-range Spotify experience. Premium gives you access to all the music, all the time. Listen online, offline, on your computer, your mobile phone and a whole heap of other devices. Enjoy enhanced sound quality and access to exclusive content, competitions and special offers. Premium costs just 9.99EUR or 12.95CHF.
Google has confirmed that they plan to bring their Chromebooks to the Indian market next year.
Google is already selling some models in the international markets. Acer and Samsung are two manufacturers offering netbooks powered by Chrome OS.
Pricing would be a big question when it comes to Chromebooks. The US pricing is very high when compared to regular netbooks on sale here in India.
And considering Chromebooks do not feature storage space for personal content and does not even have a regular old fashioned operating system, customers would want it to be priced below netbooks loaded with Windows and Linux.
Apple iPhone 4 Refurbished units on sale in India for Rs. 22500!
This is a deal not to be missed if you are an Apple fan.
The company is offering refurbished units of their iPhone 4 16GB edition for around Rs. 22500.
This is a pretty good pricing for this model. Makes it cheaper than top of the line Google Android based smartphones in the market.
Refurbished units are not second hand as they mostly consist of returns and units that were repaired for minor issues.
Apple iPhone 4S is launching in India on November 25. It would be interesting to see how airtel and Aircel price it in India. And how much they charge for the iPhone 4 8GB edition that would replace both 16GB and 32GB edition.
Steve Jobs wanted Apple iPhone to run on unlicensed spectrum used by Wi-Fi!
Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Stanton has revealed that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs originally wanted iPhone to run on unlicensed spectrum used by wireless internet networks.
He said: “He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision.”
However, it was not logistically possible at that time and Jobs had to end up collaborating with AT&T to launch the iPhone in the US market.
The phone continues to run on traditional cellular networks but it is pretty clear that the time is not far away when we would end up using other networks to make most of our calls.
Republic Wireless is a brand new mobile operator in the US market that allows users to make calls over wireless networks in addition to cellular networks.