Adobe is now shipping Flash Player 11 and the AIR 3 runtimes. Hop on over to check them out:

Flash Player 11

AIR 3

There are tons of new feature in each but I’d like to highlight one on each runtime.

Adobe Flash Player 11 has a new API called Stage 3D. Now Flash has had 3D for a while. Projects like Away 3D and Papervision 3D having been doing 3D within the Flash player for years. However these projects relied on computer’s CPU to do the 100% of the 3D rendering.

With Flash Player 11 projects like these can now take advantage the GPU’s 3D rendering capabilities. This allows for 3D performance on the flash platform with an order of magnitude greater performance and complexity.

OK, here’s a fun multitouch demo:

Adobe AIR 3 has added a fun new feature called ANE. ANE stands for Adobe Native Extensions and allows users to used the Adobe Air runtime in conjunction with natively executing code. This allows Adobe AIR to do fun things like integrate with phones that have NFC capabilities or view compass data (these aren’t available by default to Adobe AIR)

Here’s a round up of helpful links to follow up with up with:

List of features
Stage 3D devnet article
Developing native extensions for Adobe AIR
Extensions for AIR
Press Release About Flash 11 and AIR 3
You’ll also need the new AIR 3 SDK

I’m a Flex developer. I get paid to use the Flex SDK to build rich internet applications. I woke up feeling guilty about how much our community complains about the Flex framework.

Yes there are issues with Flex and we complain because we love it and want it to be perfect. And I don’t think we focus on that last part nearly as much as we should. Many of us love the Flex framework.

I’m posting a picture of my family below because the Flex team should know that their work has directly affected my ability to provide for them.

Flex work has paid for a lot of trips to the grocery store. Flex has paid for a lot of diapers. Adobe Flex has paid for a number of amazing vacations. Flex has enabled me to meet some of the most amazing developers and friends that I have in my life.

We’re finally looking for a home and we’ve been able to save up a sizable down payment, mostly, from working on Adobe Flex projects. When I say I owe the Adobe Flex team a big thanks you, I’m not being sarcastic or exaggerating.

My little family on our summer vacation:

Now I know that the Flex team gets paid, but I’ve noticed many of them going above and beyond their 9-5. I’ve seen team members hanging out online responding to FlexCoder mailing list in the middle of the night. I’ve seen team members showing up at user group meetings to ‘learn’ about some Flex 101 topic. Just generally being supportive of the Flex community.

I simply want to reminding the Flex team that their work makes a direct difference in many families like mine. Thanks and keep up the good work!

I’m really excited to announce that I will be speaking at the Seattle Flex Users Group on Thursday, September 8th.

The title of my talk is named “Multitouch. Small, Medium and Large”.

In Seattle, I will be going over the basics of developing multitouch applications and as the title suggests, we are going to look at using that multitouch development skill set across a large variety of screen sizes. I plan to have multiple examples running on a variety of devices.

Lastly, we are going to look at a few valuable tools, frameworks and components that will speed up your multitouch application development.

The Seattle Flex user group is fantastic. I’ve spoken in Seattle before and this is a really fun group to hang out with. If you are in the area I highly recommend you become a regular SeaFlex user group attendee. Here is a link to their website: http://seaflex.groups.adobe.com/

If you are interested in multitouch development (from mobile to kiosk), please make sure to earmark some time to join us.

Thanks!

(wallpaper of presentation title image)
Multitouch. Small, Medium and Large (1080p or 1024×768)

I was lucky to have had the opportunity to speak at 360|Flex back in April. Since that time, Zaa.tv has regularly been releasing great recordings of each presentation.

Today my video has been posted. So take the hop, skip and a jump over to their site to check it out:
Multitouch – Small, Medium and Large on Zaa.tv

Personally I love to learn via video tutorials. And there’s tons of great presentations on this site. So grab some popcorn and be sure to explore all of the great content on Zaa.tv. You will not be disappointed.

Here’s a link to my slides from the presentation:
HTML slides
PDF slides

All of the code and more demonstration code can be found at GitHub:
Demo Code on GitHub

And a link to the wallpaper of presentation title image:
Multitouch. Small, Medium and Large (1080p or 1024×768)

If you have constructive feedback on the presentation feel free to drop me a comment below.

Thanks!