Apollo ushering in the next generation of apps
Posted by admin | Filed under Apps, Web
[Apollo is now named Adobe AIR]
I’ve always like the web for its interaction; the ability to make everything interactive. I’m not talking drag and drop, but more working with databases and such – the things we expect of desktop applications. Finally the ultimate “mashup” of technologies is in alpha and it allows web apps to behave like a desktop program.
One of the benefits of having a desktop program installed is interacting with the filesystem on your computer. Forget about the malicious side of that and think of the possibilities. One sample application called Maptacular will read vcard files (contacts) from your computer and plot them on Google Maps.
More sample applications include an RSS reader, a webpage structure analyser, and one that lets you draw over anything on your screen.
Adobe’s Mike Downey did a demo of an eBay-branded Apollo application. It showed a nice interface for browsing, integrated webcam support, and even creating auctions offline which are posted when you reconnect. [Watch it here]
One of the biggest benefits is there is only 1 browser to code for, which happens to be the same one used by Apple’s Safari, WebKit. Apollo will be supported on Windows and Mac, and behave the same on both, with Linux support coming a bit later. Web designers and developers are always struggling to get the site working in all major platform/browser combinations, but eliminates that problem, saving time and money.
My first thought is a CMS for client websites. Imagine giving the client a CD which just works. It doesn’t matter if they still have IE 6 or if they have a Mac.
For me and I’m sure many others, it will be fantastic to be able to create applications which don’t require learning more programming languages like C++ or Java. I could use just HTML and JavaScript, although flex looks to be well supported in Apollo.
Not only is this runtime going to be free, Adobe plans to contribute back to the WebKit open source project with any bug fixes and developments they can.
Now it is still in alpha, which means it could be changing before being released (first half of 2007), but you can find all the details and downloads at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/. After you’ve installed the runtime you can download some sample applications from http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo:Applications:Samples.
Tags: Freeware, mac, Software, Web, Web Apps 2.0
World of Warcraft
Posted by admin | Filed under Random
One of my frequent occupations is World of Warcraft, a MMORPG. Basically, you control a character that can interact with all the other people controlling characters. Its set in a fantasy world with different races and everyone is at war with each other as well as demons scattered around the virtual world.
The character to the right is my main character, Lodis, who just got his mount (the cat he’s riding which goes 60% faster than running). It’s quite a big world so any movement speed increase is welcome. As you can see from the tiny image here, the gear has been color coordinated, which delayed getting his mount until yesterday at lvl 45. There was also some spell training involved in the delay. Lodis harvested and sold Gromsblood for about 1g each to go from 5 to 80 gold in a week.
Lodis has also spent more than a few gold on pets like the moth to the left. These pets follow you around and don’t actually do anything but attract other player’s attention.
I’ve installed some add-ons to improve the experience. You can see what my interface looks like to the right. Some of the add-ons display information, like Titanbar across the top, cartographer which keeps notes on the map, or ItemStats which remembers every item I’ve seen. Others add functionality such as automatically feeding hunter pets or serving character profiles while role-playing. Only problem is the stream of updates to the game can break add-ons you come to rely on.
Even being drunk has been simulated…
Tags: Games
Star Trek Edges Closer
Posted by admin | Filed under Random
Was the creator of the Sci-Fi world on TV that good at predicting the future, or have scientists been swayed by their childhood addiction?
Tags: Hardware
Adobe Photoshop… Online?
Posted by admin | Filed under Web
Adobe has already created an online video editing tool called Adobe Remix, but they want to beat the competition to a good online photo editor in the next 3-6 months.
More on c|net
Tags: Photography, Web Apps 2.0
