Marco Casario | RIAvolutionize the web

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro for iPhone is available to download

I've just realized that the Connect team has released Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro Mobile  for download from the iTunes store !

Connect Pro Mobile lets you to access via an iPhone or iPod touch to create and attend collaborative meetings, training sessions and Web seminars.

 Key features:

o Attend Connect Pro Meetings with integrated conference call or Voice over IP audio. 
o If your meeting host is using integrated conferencing, you can let the meeting call you, and avoid entering cumbersome dialing codes.
o See who has joined the meeting, and their role (host, presenter, or attendee)
o View presentations, PDF documents, videos, and screen sharing provided by the meeting organizer. Rotate, pan, and zoom to choose your personal ’best view’ of shared content
o View webcamera broadcasts from unlimited live camera feeds provided in the meeting
o Participate in chat conversations throughout the meeting.
o Join meetings attended by users on virtually any computer system: Mac, Windows, Linux, and Solaris. Plus other mobile attendees on iPhone and iPod touch.


 

Adobe anticipates iPad users will be able to take advantage of Connect Pro Mobile as well.  For more information on iPad applications with Flash, click here 
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/2010/01/building_ipad_apps.html
 

AIR on mobile devices and Flash Player 10.1 available to content providers and mobile developers worldwide announced by Adobe

Wow great news from Adobe at the Mobile World Congress  2010, Barcellona :

• Adobe AIR on mobile devices, a consistent runtime for standalone applications to come out of the Open Screen Project™, an industry-wide initiative led by Adobe that has grown to close to 70 ecosystem partners.
  
• support for the Android™ platform expected in 2010
  
• Adobe also announced that a beta of Flash Player 10.1 was made available to content providers and mobile developers worldwide. With the general availability expected in the first half of 2010, Flash Player 10.1 is the first consistent runtime release of the Open Screen Project enabling uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) videos across screens including new tablet devices, smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks, desktops and other consumer electronics.

Some links:

Getting started with Adobe Flash Player 10.1 content for mobile devices

Resources for Flash developers optimizing mobile content to deliver uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content, and video across devices with the upcoming release of Adobe Flash Player 10.1. 

www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/mobile_flash_10-1_developers.html

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2 mobile preview videos

Videos highlighting various aspects of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2 prerelease software, including websites and applications, on devices from Open Screen Project partners and other providers.

www.adobe.com/go/airmobile

Follow Adobe at the official Mobile World Congress blog at blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform.

Flex and mobile, a whitepaper to create Flex application for mobile devices

Adobe ha realesed the first whitepaper where it explains that:

" The mobile version of the Flex framework (code-named “Slider”) will provide structure and guidelines for creating application experiences that translate well across platforms, and make it easy to build adaptable multiscreen applications. “Slider” may be used by a broad spectrum of Adobe customers, from traditional media brands and agencies to internal IT organizations. Initial applications built with “Slider” will range from simple companion applications that complement existing web or desktop applications, to more complex contextual applications where multiscreen delivery is a core requirement from the outset.

There are several reasons why developing for non-PC devices requires a framework that is different from the Flex framework currently used to create applications for the desktop. First and foremost, the input mechanisms, screen real estate, and interaction patterns, commonly found on mobile devices differ in significant ways from the desktop. Supporting interaction patterns such as five-way navigation, soft keys, and gestures, are important factors in building mobile applications and need to be considered by any framework targeting mobile devices. Second, target devices are expected to be more constrained in terms of both memory and processor speed for the foreseeable future. In the long run, as devices become more capable, some of the key elements of “Slider” will likely be integrated with the desktop Flex framework to provide a more unified software development kit (SDK) across platforms.

Based on the Flex 4 codebase, “Slider” will include significant changes to optimize performance and user experience for more constrained device environments. The initial “Slider” framework will be optimized to run on high-end smartphones (phones with a processor speed of 400Mhz or more and 128MB of RAM), and will initially target standalone application environments such as Adobe® AIR.® This matches the category of devices targeted by Adobe Flash® Player 10 and fits with the type of device that will likely be most interesting for application developers.

While the features of Flex may be modified from their desktop counterparts, the goal will be to preserve the core capabilities of the desktop framework that make sense for mobile. The “soul of Flex” will be maintained, including the underlying Adobe Flash API, the language, and core capabilities such as binding, skinning, layout, styling, and media support. In all cases, any modifications will be balanced with the goal of getting great performance on mobile devices.

“Slider” will also include new capabilities specifically designed for mobile development, such as a construct for managing “screens” of an application, and the notion of resolution-independent sizing to deal with screen-size variations. A new set of user interface components designed for mobile form factors and input methods will be added. Finally, “Slider” will encapsulate design principles and guidelines that make it easy to create applications that fit in across a range of native platforms."

Donwload the Flex and Mobile whitepaper.

(via Scott)

Samsung Mobile Innovator extended support to the Java and Windows Mobile platforms

Samsung just extended support to the Java and Windows Mobile platforms in addition to Symbian for their developer network program, Samsung Mobile Innovator.
Samsung Mobile Innovator is free to join, and basic (Hub) membership is open to everyone at all levels of interest in open mobile devices. Join the Samsung mobile community, take advantage of the resources Samsung offers and discuss your ideas and challenges with other developers and Samsung!

For registration and more information, please visit our website:http://innovator.samsungmobile.com
Follow us on: http://twitter.com/MobileInnovator
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Samsung-Mobile-Innovator/50457604410

Top ten iPhone's bad features that make me switch back to Nokia N95

Less than one month ago, a 16GB iPhone was sent to me for development purposes. We have some clients interested in porting their web applications to iPhone devices so I needed the Apple device to test applications.

After one month testing I can say that I'm totally disappointed with the iPhone as mobile device and today I've turned back to my Nokia N95.

First I thought it was only a matter of time. I believed that, as usual, when you buy a new device you need time to take confidence with the new tools, features and shortcuts.
But I was wrong.
These are some of the most important bad things about iPhone that made me switch back to Nokia N95:

1. Low Battery Duration: a mobile phone can't last 4 hours. And the time could be a lot less if you browse internet, watch YouTube videos, using the GPS mapping system, launch applications, listening music . Everything on the iPhone is battery-intensive and can drastically reduce the battery usage.  I can't recharge my phone 4 times per day. It's absurd ! My N95's battery last all day long (watching videos, navigating, using the GPS ...)

2. Poor camera quality: the quality of the camera is very low (2 MegaPixels). You can't print (with a decent quality) an image taken with 2MP camera. Nokia N95 has 5MP camera.

3. No flash and no zoom: when I discovered this I went crazy. iPhone camera DOES NOT have flash and zoom. Is useful a digital camera without the flash and zoom features ? Not at all. Th Nokia N95 has a 5MP camera that means having a real digital camera device with you !

4. No video: iPhone can't make videos. It's fun because iPhone gives you the ability to watch videos on the web via YouTube but the camera can't take a video. I travel a lot for conferences and I often need to shoot video quickly. The Nokia N95 makes great videos.

5. No MMS: Multimedia messages are very popular in Italy. They're fun and useful. iPhone can't send MMS messages.

6. Bad autocomplete features: This is one of the worst feature that makes me very unhappy. When you write text messages iPhone tries to help you autocompleting text. 95% percent the system is wrong. Then if you don't click on the popup with the suggested text it will overwrite your word. It should work in the opposite way letting me choose whether accepting the suggestion or not. The Nokia's T9 system is very powerful and useful. I can write a complete message while driving without watching at the mobile screen (it's impossible to do that with iPhone)

7. No video conference call: I'm not a fan of video calls but they can be useful when you want to see your girlfriend when you're out for business for a long time. iPhone does not support video calls.

8. no FlashLite plugin for browser: I'm honest. With the ecosystem of applications available for the iPhone you won't miss Flash Lite standalone player. But what it's missing is the Flash player browser plugin. I think that the iPhone is a great Internet device. But it's a great limit for an Internet device not to show flash contents. Nokia N95 has Flash Lite player embedded.

9. No Expansion slot: 8 or 16GB can't be enough, especially if you start installing many applications, copying videos and music. iPhone does not have any expansion slot. Nokia N95 supports microSD cards !

10. Cut and Paste: no needs to explain this feature. You can't cut/copy and paste anything !

UPDATE: 11. Modem usage: this is something I forgot to mention but it's crucial for a mobile device. iPhone device can't be used as a modem connecting it to a laptop via USB. The Nokia N95 once connected through USB to a laptop can connect to Internet working as a modem.

iPhone is a trendy device. It's cool, user friendly, with a a fabolous screen (for size and quality) and it's one of the best Internet device I've tested so far. But it's not a mobile phone.

On demand mobile distribution with MobyMobile platform, now available in english

We've released MobyMobile platform in english at least ! MobyMobile is an innovative technological solution which gives you on  demand distribution and fruition of editorial contents of various genres  through mobile phones, also delivering high quality interactive images and films.

MobyMobile formats contents in a particular way, reducing their weight in KB in order to considerably reduce the download time required; and therefore, the cost for the user is also kept down and his satisfaction maximum.

MobyMobile is the solution finally capable of distributing multimedia editorial contents through a world of 60 million mobile phones active today in Italy (almost triple the number of computers connected to the internet!).

Photos of Nokia N96

I found some first shots of a new Nokia phone that could be identified as Nokia N96. The design is inspired to N95 and N81 and it looks very cool.

No please Nokia ... not now.
I was very happy of my recent N95 8GB

Find enchanting locations in Italy with a brand new RIA : YuBuk

I'm glad to announce a new project's on which Comtaste is working on : YuBuk. Flex with cross scripting techniques,  Google MAPS, AJAX with Scriptacolous and Prototype libraries are some of the technologies involved in this project.
It was very fun to see how a simple web based old style application in some months turned into a real rich internet application.

We have published a Case Study on our site, where you can have more details.

Yubuk is  a platform which is accessible on the internet and on mobile terminals for all those who love Italy for its enchanting locations, for its excellent cuisine and exceptional hotels.
Yubuk.com contains information on ten of the “coolest” locations in Italy, information which is accessible to all and to which all the users can contribute and create, modify or comment.

This is one of the best and most useful mash up Rich Internet Application we've worked on. In fact to be able to conceive new and richer modes of fruition, the technological choice has also required a careful analysis of the languages and the standards of highest profile.

Starting from the initial prerequisites, at Comtaste we have analyzed the following list of technologies was opted for which together has contributed to create a true and real mash-up application:

• AJAX with Scriptacolous and Prototype libraries
• Flex with cross scripting techniques
• Google MAPS
• PHP
• Zend Framework
• MySql

It was chosen to use Google Maps to visualize, through the use of its API, the restaurants, hotels and all the locations present in the data bank of Ybuk.com.  Furthermore, Ajax and Javascript functions were adopted to reduce the minimum traffic of data and download only the data relative to the portion of map visualized by the user. Through the use of the combination of Flex and Javascript technologies additional filters were made available to the user to optimize the searches on the map.  

The increase of the visits to the site has brought (and will continue to bring more) an increase of traffic and load on the infrastructure web server. To avoid problems of instability or delays on the site, it was decided to separate the principle applications of the site on two different servers, Apache and PHP 5 was installed on the first, and instead MySOL is present on the second. Both applications were configured in order to obtain the best performance in relation to the load.

To improve the entire infrastructure of the site, a course or restructuring of the code was undertaken to exploit the potential offered by a powerful and famous PHP framework such as Zend. Security, reliability, modulation and integration are just some of the benefits that such a choice entails. The Zend Framework uses the latest development technology to be able to produce flexible and extendible code, using the standard design pattern for the web applications, the model-view-controller (MVC). Furthermore, in the framework, there are also functions present among which internationalization and localization, authentication, session management, search, cache and integration with external APIs.

The activities on Yubuk are up and running, with a continuous assistance for the improvement and evolution of the service. Important goals have already been achieved, measurable especially in terms of the improvement of the user experience and the ranking of the portal.

Convert DVD to Nokia N95 video (MPEG-4)

Now that I have the N95 8GB I want to upload some videos from my laptop to my mobile. It will be very cool to see an entire movie while travelling on an airplane or train.
When I first browse the video gallery of my N96 8GB I discover that the N95 8GB has integrated the full SpiderMan 3 movie. It's amazing to see the quality of the movie on the mobile device.

Anyway I started to google to find a way to convert a DVD to N95 video using some free software.
This is a list of softwares I found and that I'm trying to use, feel free to add your favourite tools :

SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) : is a free GUI for ffmpeg. You can download it for free.
DVDFAB platinum (not free but very easy to use)
Mobiola Media Player (not free but cheap)
Videora iPod Converter to convert it to MPEG4
Winnydows: Soft for PSP, iPod and PC
DVD Shrink
ProjectX: used to demux the VOB MPEG2 files
mplex1.exe: used to remultiplex the audio and video stream to  an MPEG2 file

Browsing Flex applications on the new Nokia N810 with the Flash Player 9 support

The Nokia N810 seams to be a great mobile phone. It's linux-based and it runs a Debian derivated OS, Maemo, with a custom user interface built with the GTK-based Hildon framework.

The N810 supports WiFi,  a four-inch touchscreen with an 800x480 resolution, Bluetooth, and VoIP via Skype,  GPS and a slide-out keyboard.

But one of the greatest features is the support of the Flash Player 9 as well as PDF documents.
This means that you can launch Flex applications on the N810 phone.
Cooool !

If you want to read more have a look at this detailed review of the Nokia N810.