Adobe releases Flash Player 11, AIR 3

Notwithstanding the cold-shoulder treatment from Apple and a looming snub by Microsoft, Adobe on Wednesday (Manila time) released the next generation of its Flash player software for desktop and Android platforms. Adobe also released its AIR 3 software, which along with the Flash update include new features, enhancements and bug fixes. "This release includes new features as well as enhancements and bug fixes related to security, stability, performance and device compatibility," it said. AIR 3 runtime allows developers to use HTML, JavaScript, Flash software and ActionScript to build web applications as standalone clients. The new releases came amid Apple's discouraging of Flash in its Mac OS X computers, and Microsoft's plan to use HTML5 for its Internet Explorer 10 browser for its upcoming operating system Windows 8. New features in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 include:

• Stage 3D Accelerated Graphics Rendering (Player & AIR desktop + AIR for TV), a new architecture for hardware accelerated graphics rendering that enable advanced 2D and 3D rendering capabilities across screens and devices (desktop, mobile, and TV).
• Flash Access Content Protection Support for Mobile, with content protection now supported on tablet devices powered by the BlackBerry Tablet OS. Flash Access for iOS is not supported at this time.
• Flash Access Content Protection Enhancements
• Protected HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS)
• H.264/AVC Software Encoding for Cameras (desktop), which allows one to stream high-quality video from a computer's camera with higher compression efficiency and industry standard support. This promises both immersive real-time communications such as video chat/conferencing and live video broadcasts.
• JPEG-XR support
• Enhanced high resolution bitmap support
• High efficiency SWF compression support
• G.711 Audio Compression for Telephony
• Native JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) Support
• Garbage Collection Advice, which provides smoother, more responsive user experiences by allowing developers to provide hints to optimize garbage collection scheduling.
• Cubic Bezier Curves
• Secure Random Number Generator, to build more secure algorithms and protocols..
• Socket Progress Events

Adobe touted the following new features on Flash Player 11:

• Native 64-bit Support (Flash Player desktop).
• Asynchronous Bitmap Decoding (new for Flash Player), to improve app responsiveness and deliver smoother animation by decoding images on initial load instead of on demand. Images are cached as needed.
• TLS Secure Sockets Support (new for Flash Player), which nables secure communications for client/server applications.

New Features in AIR 3 include:

• Native Extensions, which allow developers to create and use native libraries that can be invoked using ActionScript.
• Captive Runtime Support
• Stage Video Hardware Acceleration (AIR Mobile)
• H.264/AAC Playback Support (AIR for iOS)
• Front-facing Camera Support (AIR for Android), which allows use of the front-facing camera in Android devices.
• Background Audio Playback Support (AIR for iOS)
• Device Speaker Control for Mobile (AIR for iOS & Android)
• 16 and 32-bit color depth
• Game Controller API (AIR TV), which lets developers build TV applications that can communicate with an attached game input devices such as a gamepad or controller wand.

— TJD, GMA News