Adobe’s Apple Anger As Flash is Dashed

Apple says it is formally abandoning attempts to bring Flash to the iPhone, and Adobe, on its side, says open platforms such as Flash will eventually win out over Apple’s closed platform.

The change in policy is said to be the result of a new clause in Apple’s iPhone app license which Adobe believes to mean that Apple could reject or remove any apps created with Flash.

That’s led Adobe to give up on a tool which allows app developers who use Flash to easily set up their apps to run on the iPhone platform. According to Mike Chambers, the “platform product manager” for Flash, Adobe’s work on the tool has not been in vain. He said it proved “there is no technical reason that Flash can’t run on the iPhone” and that “developers can create well performing and compelling content for the device”.

The tool will remain available, but Adobe isn’t planning “additional investments in that feature”, a statement that appears to relate to time and effort as much as money.

Chambers also argues that the work Adobe carried out on the tool has taught them lessons and technical approaches which can easily be applied to other devices and systems. He is also quite clear about his attitude to Apple’s policy:

The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross browser, platform and device development. The cool web game that you build can easily be targeted and deployed to multiple platforms and devices. However, this is the exact opposite of what Apple wants.

According to Chambers, he’ll now put more effort into how Flash can be used on Android devices. He also gives several examples of app developers who’ve begun work on Flash-based iPhone apps and have now switched their focus to Android.

And Chambers also questions whether Apple’s strategy will pay off: “I believe that ultimately open platforms will win out over the type of closed, locked down platform that Apple is trying to create.”



Red Bull Stratos Mission’s Next-Gen Space Suit

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner wants to do something dead crazy next summer: He wants to break Joseph Kittinger’s free falling record, jumping from an altitude of 120,000 feet up in the air. As you can expect, doing this isn’t exactly what we could call “safe”, so Baumgartner will need a special suit, giving him life support at high altitude, and protecting him while he plunges down through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking the speed of sound in the process. The following video gives a brief overview of whole project. Check it out:

[Via Discovery News]

Star Wars Meets Coming to America – Mashup

A hilariously good mashup mixing footage from Star Wars episode IV with some audio from Earl Jones’ performance in “Coming to America”. Check it out:

[Via Rustylime]



Small Worlds – A New Tilt-Shift Time-Lapse Video by Keith Loutit

If you live in the Sydney (AU) area, you’ll definitely want to go and check out [GaS] friend Keith Loutit’s new “Small Worlds” exhibition at Sydney’s Customs House starting April 27, 2010 and ending July 7, 2010. Here’s the awesome video he created to promote the event. Enjoy!

Oh, and for those who want to learn more about Keith, he recently had his whole site redesigned, and it now looks quite amazing. It’s also the perfect place to watch all his videos while enjoying some really nice music tracks.

Canada (and everyone else) to Google: You Suck

For anyone who’s not familiar with the huge privacy kerfuffle involving the launch of Google Buzz in February, here’s the basic timeline:

Feb. 9: Google Buzz launches
Five minutes later: Someone notices a major privacy flaw.
Ten minutes later: The world promptly freaks out.

Feb. 11: Google makes a small change that doesn’t go far enough (basically making it easier to opt out of the problematic feature).
Five minutes later: Everyone still freaking out.

Feb. 13: Google finally fixes it by making the feature opt in.

The speed at which this happened was actually kind of impressive for such a huge company; four days is pretty darn good compared to the three weeks or so that it took Facebook to deal with the outcry over Beacon. But people were still really pissed off, perhaps because in some cases the damage may have already been done – like the much discussed blog post from a woman for whom Google Buzz may have revealed information to her abusive ex-husband. Here’s a good overview of the privacy problems that popped up after launch.

And now Google has been officially (and publicly) scolded by some government officials in a number of countries. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada sent a letter to CEO Eric Schmidt. It was also signed by data protection authorities in France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. They’re making some serious demands, that as a company entrusted with people’s privacy information, Google should “incorporate fundamental privacy principles directly into the design of new online services.” They even enumerated some suggestions:

  • collecting and processing only the minimum amount of personal information necessary to achieve the identified purpose of the product or service;
  • providing clear and unambiguous information about how personal information will be used to allow users to provide informed consent;
  • creating privacy-protective default settings;
  • ensuring that privacy control settings are prominent and easy to use;
  • ensuring that all personal data is adequately protected, and
  • giving people simple procedures for deleting their accounts and honouring their requests in a timely way.

So what do you think, are these good guidelines? Are you worried about features that Google might roll out in the future, or do you think that they learned their lesson? And for those of you who use Buzz, did the information-sharing actually affect or bother you?

How Brains Cope with Multitasking

If you’ve ever heard somebody scream “I can’t do two things at once”, you’re wrong… but only just.

French scientists now believe the brain has the capacity to work on two tasks at once, but that it can’t cope with more than two. That’s because the limited multitasking which people can carry out is based on a physical characteristic of the brain, which then becomes a limitation beyond two tasks.

Staff at the Pierre et Marie Curie university in Paris carried out a study (published in Science) where subjects had to look at a set of uppercase letters and keep track of whether they were in the correct order to spell out set words, with a cash reward if they succeeded. The task was then made harder with two sets of letters, which proved manageable.

However, when the task was increased to three sets — effectively creating three separate tasks — subjects not only couldn’t cope but, rather than make a bad job of all three tasks, simply acted as if one task didn’t exist.

MRI scans of brain activity during the tasks appeared to give an explanation. When the subjects increased from one to two tasks, the two frontal lobes of the medial prefrontal cortex (part of the brain which responds to rewards) showed separate activity, suggesting the tasks had been divided across the brain. When a third task was introduced there was literally nowhere for it to go.

The researchers believe that as well as showing why multitasking is limited for humans, the results may also explain why most people struggle to cope with decisions that have three or more options. It appears that the brain cannot simultaneously compare the consequences (specifically the rewards) of more than two options at once.

While the brain can cope with two tasks, it usually comes with a notable performance cost. A recent study at the University of Utah found that just one in forty drivers have the ability to “supertask”: that is, they can carry out two tasks simultaneously, both at a high degree of competence.

The Utah study looked at the skills of driving and conducting a phone conversation. Its conclusions suggested that while there are some people who can drive safely while using a phone (whether hands free or handheld), they are so rare that they shouldn’t affect decisions of distracted driving laws.

[Picture credit: Etienne Koechlin, INSERM-ENS, Paris, France, 2010.]

Facebook Relationship Etiquette Rules [Video]

Rule #1: Don’t change your relationship status without consulting the other person.
Rule #2: Don’t post embarrassing photographs of other people.
Rule #3: Be discreet when posting messages on another person’s wall.
Rule #4: Don’t steal other people’s friends.
Rule #5: Don’t start hate groups.

Got any other rules to add to this list? Let us know about them!

[Via Bitsandpieces]