alekkus

Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 updates

For the past two days, there have been many discussions surrounding the latest update to Microsoft’s Silverlight when it was announced during the MIX 09. The most interesting feature would be its whole new “Out-of-Browser” experience. I thought there was Microsoft’s answer to Adobe’s AIR, but soon found out they were addressing different problems. Although I’m a complete supporter of Adobe’s Flex and Flash platform, I must say Silverlight looks more attractive with each release.

I must also say MS are great marketers, on the video front, they were able to convince the Olympics folks to use Silverlight to stream videos in both the Beijing 2008 Olypmics and Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

An emerging trend – Augmented Reality (AR)

After checking out Cyber Figure Alice, I came across more products that use Augmented Reality. For instance, AR-powered baseball cards and GE’s Smart Grid. Let me know if you come across anymore.

For Flash enthusiasts, Saqoosha has released a library for enabling AR on the Flash platform dubbed the FLARToolkit. Ryan Stewart posted a FLARToolkit demo while attending Adobe Max in Japan earlier this year. Check it out : )

FLARToolKit Demo from Ryan Stewart on Vimeo.

Adobe Flex training course finally arrives in Singapore (or maybe Southeast Asia)

During the RIAction held at Microsoft’s Singapore office yesterday, LABSchool, an Adobe Authorized Training Center, unveils its Flex training course. I will be teaching the course, together with some of the dudes in FUG. If you are interested in taking up, feel free to contact me or LABSchool.

Fiat’s Eco:Drive AIR Application at Adobe Max 2008/09

During the Adobe Max 2008/09 in Milan, team members from AKQA demonstrated a very interesting AIR application, the Fiat’s Eco:Drive.

The concept of Eco:Drive is explained here:

Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten had an interview with the team after that. You can watch the interview here.