PDF May Embed Flash Content

Adobe announced that the next iteration of its Acrobat line of product, but may be taking the wrong direction by adding the ability to add Flash Content to PDFs.


Has Adobe Taken a Wrong Turn with Acrobat 9?
Niel McAllister

This week, Adobe announced details of the next iteration of its Acrobat line of products, due in late June or early July. Perhaps the most prominent new feature of Acrobat 9 will be the ability to embed live Flash animation and video directly into PDF documents.

But while this capability sounds appealing, I can't help but be skeptical. PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It seems to me that this new direction that Adobe is taking in some ways flies against the original idea of what PDF is all about.

For starters, adding Flash to PDF documents is instantly going to make them a whole lot less portable. Flash support is nearly ubiquitous on the Windows and Mac OS platforms, but Adobe's track record with Flash on Linux leaves something to be desired. Also, there are a whole lot of handhelds and other devices that can render PDF documents just fine, but lack the power to render video animation.

Second, if something is moving, dancing, and singing across the screen, is it still a "document"? Historically, PDF has been a way to deliver nicely formatted, graphically rich pages in an electronic way. One of the most popular uses of PDFs, in fact, is to print them out on plain, old-fashioned paper. What happens when you go to print a document with embedded video? If nothing else, the printout will not be an accurate representation of the original file.

One of PDF's strengths has been that it has been somewhat less of a moving target than online file formats, such as Flash. By wedding the two, Adobe risks lessening the value of one of its strongest properties.

What's more, if Adobe is now positioning PDF as primarily an online (or mixed-media) file format, what message does that send to the print publishing community, which has long relied on PDF to manage prepress workflows? Will Adobe continue to act with their best interests at heart?

Though the distinctions are subtle, the new features of Acrobat 9 seem likely to create confusion about PDF in the minds of customers. I wonder if, in its zeal to be viewed as a major player in the online content creation business, Adobe might be taking a wrong turn here.

Source: www.pcworld.com

Microsoft Clarifies XP SP 3 Flash Issue

Amid concerns that users of its Window XP SP 3 may be vulnerable to online attacks, Microsoft has finally explained XP users need to upgrade Adobe Flash Player


Microsoft Clarifies XP SP 3 Flash Issue

Amid concerns that users of its Window XP Service Pack 3 operating system may be vulnerable to online attacks, Microsoft has finally broken its silence and explained which XP users need to upgrade their Adobe Flash Player software.

The confusion started Monday, when handlers at the Internet Storm Center pointed out that Microsoft had quietly noted that the recent XP SP 3 was vulnerable to five Flash bugs patched in November 2006. Some took this to mean that if an XP system was updated to Service Pack 3, it would somehow wind up with an older, buggy, version of the Flash Player.

Microsoft originally declined to comment on the matter, but on Tuesday it reconsidered and said that this is not the case.

"Microsoft does not ship any version of Flash in the Windows XP Service Pack 3 update that customers use to update existing SP2 machines," the company said in a statement.

However some people who build new XP systems using SP3 will need to update their software. "A new system built using a copy of Windows XP with SP3 integrated will install the original Flash 6 that shipped with Windows XP Gold and will need MS06-069 installed from Windows Update," Microsoft said.

They should, however, be running the latest version of the player, 9.0.124.0, which includes bug fixes that protect against an attack currently being used by criminals.

Just last week Symantec mistakenly reported that attackers had discovered an unpatched zero-day flaw in the Flash Player. The bug turned out to be something patched in April, but nevertheless, it is being exploited in a fairly widespread attack, so having a vulnerable version of Flash is a dangerous proposition.

But that incident, combined with Microsoft's initial silence on the XP SP 3 issue, has made things tough for Windows users, said Susan Bradley, a Windows blogger who is chief technology officer with Tamiyasu, Smith, Horn and Braun, Accountancy Corp. "It is very confusing," she said. "First we were really freaking out because we thought we had a zero-day," she said, "Now we've got this bulletin that says if you apply this, you're [in trouble]."

Users can find out if their PCs are running the latest version of the player by checking with this Adobe Web site.

Flash Player 10 Available for Public Testing

For those of you who love your cutting-edge Flash content, Adobe made a prerelease test version of the Flash 10 Player


Flash Player 10 Available for Public Testing

For those of you who really, really love your cutting-edge Flash content, Adobe made a prerelease test version of the Flash 10 Player available today. You can download an installer for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux from the Adobe Labs Web site.

Because this is a testing version, you're not likely to see any content that requires the new player in the wild just yet. But if you design or maintain Web pages yourself, it might be a good idea to give them a whirl with the beta player, just to make sure that all your old content still renders the way it should with the new version.

Among the new features in this edition of Flash Player are support for new 3D rendering effects, Adobe Pixel Blender filters, new drawing APIs, and an advanced text rendering engine. What's more, Flash Player 10 has expanded use of hardware graphics acceleration, so Flash content should be a little snappier.

Don't expect it to be completely without bugs, though. In fact, it's safe to assume that not everything will work exactly as expected -- this is a public beta release, after all. When you do encounter abnormal behavior, be sure to submit feedback to Adobe and/or discuss your issues in the public forums.

As for when we can start authoring content for use with Flash Player 10, expect an announcement from Adobe regarding the next version of Creative Suite on May 27.

Microsoft's Answer to Adobe Flash

Microsoft has developed its own Flash a few months ago. Silverlight was Microsoft's answer to the ever popular Adobe Flash, providing a new foundation for web content.


Silverlight versus Flash

Adobe's Flash has been around for years, and many of the popular websites enrich their content and experience by adding Flash. Not only does it provide a way to create animation, it also provides interactivity and unique interface. But it looks like Microsoft's entry into the industry will shake things up. Adobe's Flash may have a serious rival on the business.

Microsoft's Silverlight is, according to Wikipedia, "a runtime for browser-based Rich Internet Applications, providing a subset of the animation, vector graphics, and video playback capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation". The fact that it can be written in any language using the .NET framework means it inherits the robustness and flexibility of the framework.

To be fair, Adobe's Flash is currently used by the majority of web developers. For one thing, all modern operating systems support it, and has been the de facto for web interactive controls. Developers know how to create interactive content using Flash's own scripting language, and are confident to know they only have to write the code once for different platforms.

Silverlight's entry should shake things up, with its promising feature - the ability to program it using the .NET language. Developers who are skilled in .NET programming language could easily code interactive content for Silverlight. In effect, they can create localized version and a web version of their application using the same code. The flexibility and power of the .NET framework should draw more developers into writing Silverlight applications.

Microsoft's entry into the business is late, and will take a lot of effort to race ahead of Adobe's Flash. However, Adobe has to do its own part as well.

"The biggest thing Adobe needs to bring FlexBuilder up to date with modern developer tools," said Greg DeMichillie, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "I would say they are two years behind Visual Studio."

"The other thing not to underestimate is the value of Microsoft's programming languages," he added. "C# and VB -- they are real programming languages," he said. "[Adobe's] ActionScript has certainly grown up in the last year or two, but you won't find people building industrial-strength applications with it."

While a wealth of smaller companies and startups have crowded the RIA platform space, DeMichillie said he expects only Adobe and Microsoft will emerge as true players.

"When you build a platform you need so many pieces," he said. "The other player trying to do this is Sun [with its JavaFX platform], but I don't think they have all the pieces."