Flash Lite Headers Euro 2008 Game on PocketGamer

Flash Lite Headers Euro 2008 game got a great mention on PocketGamer by Stuart Dredge.

"It's a simple yet addictive game where you choose a team, and then play one-on-one matches of header tennis, where you have to position your player in the right place to bop the ball into your opponent's goal.

The characters look very nice, and it's the kind of game we always imagined Flash Lite would be good for delivering - topical, pick-up-and-play fun."

Read the complete article here

Mariam

Root for your favorite Team at the Euro 2008. Play this Flash mobile game and make them win!

While the world sits and watches the semi finals between Russia and Spain, I blog about a sport which I have only recently started watching. Soccer was never one of my favorite sports...infact living in India I only witnessed an dizzying cricket furore and concluded that the world consisted of no other sport (ok..now that was a little exaggerated :)), until recently when I got to watch a soccer match prior to the Euro 2008. And I did get hooked to the game!

Now as the final Euro match closes on Sunday, I launched a soccer game called Headers Euro 2008 for the Flash Lite gaming community. This game is developed in Flash Lite 1.1 and is currently available on the Playyoo System for all the supported handsets.

The game has a simple game play where you as the player, selects your team and heads the ball into your opponents net to score a goal. As you progress through the initial rounds, you will play against teams of your own group. For the final 3 rounds you play with teams across groups. The opponent keeps getting smarter as you progress through the rounds.

So if you think your favorite team did not qualify for the finals...grab a mobile, play the Headers Game as your favorite team and win through all your opponents!

Forum Nokia Code Camp Winners announced

Forum Nokia recently conducted a Code Camp Competition for attendees of their Code Camps wanting to build Web Runtime (WRT) widgets and Flash applications.

The Grand Prize winners of the competition are -

Flash: CityLite by MSCorp of Coral Springs, Florida. A mobile guide to night life, restaurants, and entertainment venues in Latin American cities.

WRT: Flickret from Mark Caunter of the U.K. A mashup that combines the Flickr photo-sharing application with MapQuest APIs to let users look for and get directions to places of interest.

The Regional Winners are -

Europe/Middle East/Africa

• Flash: Kuneri Easy Vote from Kuneri of Oulu, Finland. One-button mobile voting lets users vote by mobile phone call, text message, or Web service.
• WRT: Flickret from Mark Caunter of the U.K.

Americas

• Flash: CityLite by MSCorp.
• WRT: Fon11 by Mo'Blast of Berkeley, California. A mobile social-networking utility that lets users share their whereabouts with friends and family and determine if their contacts are nearby.

Asia-Pacific

• Flash: WIND from Fieldsystem. This screen saver displays an image of a propeller turning in the wind. If the mobile signal is strong, the propeller spins quickly; if the signal weakens, the propeller spins more slowly. Also, the screen saver's background scenery changes throughout the day.
• WRT: Nutrition from Singapore Polytechnic. This widget is used for calculating your BMI and also calories burned on a daily basis, and it can help the user to check typical food nutrition in order to maintain a healthy life style.

China

• WRT: Push To Speak from Beijing Motech Technology. This mobile travel guide to China helps tourists search for restaurants, places of interest, streets and more. Also, when the user clicks a word, the software "speaks" the word in Chinese, a useful feature for asking directions and instructing taxi drivers. The latest version includes information relating to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

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Adobe and Qualcomm to collaborate on the BREW Mobile Platform

(via Bill Perry) A great announcement makes its way through for developers as Qualcomm and Adobe get together to integrate Flash into the BREW Mobile Platform.

Till now the Flash Lite BREW extension limited developers to only the Verizon Wireless network, but with the new BREW Mobile Platform, all the major BREW handsets supported by BREW carriers worldwide can be targeted. This means we now have an additional development platform option available apart from Nokia S60, Nokia S40, Sony Ericsson and Windows Mobile.

I really look forward to researching and knowing more about this platform. Cheers to the Adobe and Qualcomm teams for this!

Read Bill Perry's Post here
Read the Qualcomm Press Release here

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Chunghwa Telecom launches Flash Cast powered Channel Me

(Via Mark) Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan recently launched their new Channel Me service powered by Flash Cast. This service is supported on Series 60 and Windows mobile devices including the HTC Diamond.

Currently they have an online representation of the service with selected channels. The actual service also includes channels such as news, weather, sports, travel, dining out amongst others.

This seems like a great opportunity for developers wanting to develop Flash Cast channels. I personally think its a great news and would love to hear more about it in terms of list of devices supported, real time working example on a handset (maybe a video), possibility of developing and testing channels outside Taiwan, etc.

Great news for mobile developers again!

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ICE 08: Panel Argues Opportunities Offered By iPhone, Flash Lite

The ICE 08 Conference that took place in Toronto last week had a panel discussion on the challenges and future of the mobile game industry. The iPhone and Flash Lite were a part of the panel discussion with a few positives being discussed.

The panel were asked if the Flash Lite platform offered the solution to mobile's current woes.

Grunwoldt from Nokia said "I think it's a really interesting development platform -- very unique, relatively easy to do things that look very nice -- but I don't think it solves any of the problems that we have discussed. It's really just ‘another platform'. It doesn't solve any of the problems of discovery or purchase process."

Matt Gillis (Senior VP, Capcom Interactive) recounted his experience of the way new technologies are disseminated by carriers. While the technology department might want every new technology, such as Flash Lite, in every new phone they release, the sales department want new handsets to market very fast. So while marketing might announce that the carrier offers Flash Lite, perhaps only 9 handsets that make it to market, out of the tens a carrier offers, will have it.

Despite their opinions of the iPhone and Flash Lite, the panel did overall have a positive outlook for the mobile games industry in general. When asked if they felt that things had reached a status quo and if "Tetris was going to sell the most forever" Grunwolt argued "Original IP will eventually take it down."

"If you can create something compelling, the market will decide," he concluded.

You can read the complete report here

Adobe to open Flash Cast Development for Dashboard Verizon Wireless

(via Bill Perry) Adobe is now inviting developers to participate in Flash Cast channel development for Dashboard, which is the Verizon Wireless version of Adobe Flash Cast.

Dashboard will provide an ecosystem for Verizon Wireless consumers to enjoy rich and interactive services by leveraging the proven content authoring tools and workflow that Flash developers are familiar with. The wide range of experiences that developers and brands will create are known as “channels” which can be thought of as “widgets”.

Dashboard is expected to launch in mid-2008 in the United States on specific handsets however those details are not available as yet.

• Verizon Wireless Dashboard Developer Site
• Dashboard Flash Cast Content Guide
• Dashboard FAQs
• Overall Process for Developing a Channel

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Forum Nokia comes to India

(via Alessandro) Forum Nokia now has now extended to India with a dedicated website. We can now read the latest news, testimonials, and India related events right here.

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Once upon a time there was an iPhone born....

And then the Flash on iPhone news never ceased to disappear. The latest to appear this morning was that Adobe has already started development of the Flash Player for the Apple iPhone. This revelation was made yesterday by Adobe's chief executive officer, Shantanu Narayen during a conference call.

"We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone. We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves." Shantanu is said to have said.

Well, after all is said, it will be worthwhile waiting for the player only once an official press release is made. Till then its best to work on all the other devices, handhelds and consumer electronics that Flash currently supports.

Read directly from the sources - Engadget and AppleInsider

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Flash Lite interviews on Beet.tv

(Via Ryan Stewart) Beet.tv recently released two interviews related to Flash Lite.

The first is with Rhett Woods, director of Mobile Expression at Adobe, who talks about the cool stuff that the technology can do along with some videos. The second is with Briank Frank, of the Mobile Applications and Solutions at Adobe, who talks about the history and growth of the Flash Lite technology.

Both videos are worth checking out!

Mariam

iPhone Trivia

Apparently the most expensive iPhone is ready for sale for a whopping 120,000 euros!!! Sure you are wondering what makes the phone so expensive... it is 318 diamonds of 17.75 carat weight!!!! And it has a name too - The iPhone Princess!!!!!

An Austrian designer has redesigned the iPhone for a Russian businessman in diamonds and 18 carat gold making it one of the most expensive iPhones in the world.

Well, I have heard of people having a fetish for mobiles, but this news was way too expensive to digest.


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Catch the Playyoo Blog for their Latest Featured Interview

Playyoo has interviewed another game developer and this time it happens to be...me! In this interview, I have tried to share my impression of the Playyoo platform and the Flash Lite technology in general.

Fortunately for me I met Paolo Dotta, one of the important Playyoo guys, during MAX in Chicago last year and I was quite impressed with their team's presentation of the Playyoo platform and what it could offer developers. The launch of the contest thereafter proved to be a huge success as developers populated their website with new games.

I started my association with Playyoo when I uploaded my first game, and after that it has only been addition of more games (winning wasn't the objective..honestly :-P). I'm glad to know that my games were played and liked by many members.



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Over Half a Billion Flash Lite Devices Shipped

This comes from Bill Perry, Flash Lite has been shipped to over half a billion devices and is expected to reach 1 billion by 2010. Now thats what I call an impressive number!!

With 500 million devices we have Flash Lite across regions + with varied implementations + big developer community = Interesting content, happy clients and content consumers.

You can read the complete press release here

Mariam

Colin Moock's ActionScript 3.0 Ground Up Tour comes to Bangalore, India

Coming next month to India is ActionScript Expert Colin Moock for an extensive 1 day training workshop of ActionScript 3.0.

This event is aimed at all levels of developers right from the beginners to the intermediate. The workshop will not cover expert-level topics so advanced ActionScript 3.0 programmers are unlikely to encounter new concepts, but can attend for a refresher on ActionScript programming fundamentals.

This full day workshop will include

• exposure to all major concepts of object programming
• understanding of classes and objects
• understanding of how to structure and write an ActionScript 3.0 Program
• to the Flex Builder 2 development environment
• pamphlet reviewing the days major concepts

This event is sponsored by Adobe and is completely free, but its best to register because it is a one day event so they might have a cutoff limit.

Date: 29th April 2008
Location: Bangalore
Website: http://www.adobeas3tour.com/

Register here for the Bangalore event. The workshop will also be heading to Sydney in the the first week of May.

Mariam

Widgets and Flash Lite Code Camps in APAC

Widgets and Flash Lite Code Camps are coming up in April for the APAC region. This is organized by Forum Nokia and will be held at Sydney, Singapore and Bangalore.

Moket will be the guest speaker at the Sydney code camp. The Bangalore guest speaker is still to be decided.

Code Camps have become immensely popular in recent times where a developer can immediatelt start coding and sharing his apps with the community. This Code Camp will cover how-to tutorials, intensive discussion with the Code Camp leaders, plus hands-on experience with coding mobile applications.

Click here for the Widgets Code Camp Agenda. Click here for the Flash Lite Code Camp Agenda.

Chumby in the New York TImes

This news comes via Alessandro, there is an interesting article titled - The Chumby is Open but Not for Business, in the the NewYork Times today. This article is a really good read for those who want to know more about this consumer electronic device.

I only wish it would be available in India for developers like us to get our hand on it.

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Aniway views the mobile Flash Lite game market - past and present

Miikka of Aniway has written a great post on the Flash Lite gaming market by talking about his past and present development experiences.

Aniway has been a part of the Flash Lite community since 2004, and this post is the first in the series planned by them.

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QNX Software Systems demonstates multimedia frameworks and engines in Flash based human machine interface (HMI) at Mobile World Congress

This news comes via BusinessWire, QNX Software announced a powerful Adobe® Flash-based framework for accelerating embedded UI design on mobiles, running on Freescale's multimedia processors, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The announcement and showcase included networked multimedia frameworks and multimedia engines in a Flash-based human machine interface (HMI) highlighting the power of Freescale multimedia processors with the performance of the QNX Neutrino(R) Realtime Operating System (RTOS) and the QNX Aviage middleware family.

The QNX Aviage family includes the QNX Aviage HMI player for Adobe Flash Lite 3, the QNX Aviage multimedia suite, and the QNX Aviage acoustic processing kit.

IMG Award Winners announced

The International Mobile Game Awards ceremony concluded last night in Barcelona, with the winners of their contest being announced. The giant winner was Ideawork3D's Metal Gear Solid Snake that won the Grand Prix and the Operator's choice award.
The other winning games included -

Best licenced IP - Furby Island by Lemonquest

Best 3D Game - One Sequel by Digital Legends Entertainment

Best Gameplay - Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol by Jadestone

Best Casual Game - Treasure Arm by Tequila Mobile

This award function was also streamed live last evening from Barcelona.

XPERIA™ X1 is Sony Ericsson's first handset with Windows Mobile OS

Today at the Mobile World Congress, Sony Ericsson launched it's first mobile phone with the Windows Mobile 6 operating system. With a full QWERTY keyboard and a 3-inch clear wide VGA display, this phone looks very slick.



Says Rikko Sakaguchi, Head of Portfolio and Propositions at Sony Ericsson, "Our vision for the XPERIA™ X1 is to deliver a seamless blend of mobile Web communication and multimedia entertainment within a distinctive design. XPERIA™ is our promise to think foremost of user experience and to deliver the premium experience – anytime, anywhere, anything, with anyone."

The phone's user interface can be operated either by the touch interface, an optical joystick, a 4-way navi-pad, or the QWERTY keyboard. Connectivity can be through Wi-Fi, 3.5G HSDPA/HSUPA, and GPS. A 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera sits at the back. The 400 MB of internal memory can be expanded via microSD cards.

We only need to watch for the support for Flash Lite, which does not see a mention in their press release.