We just announced the Open Screen Project which will be working to enable a consistent runtime environment, starting with the Flash Player, and in the future AIR, to remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and consumer devices, including phones, mobile internet devices, and set top boxes, and more. The Open Screen Project is also supported by ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics Inc., Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless, and leading content providers, including BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC Universal.

AMF (Flash Remoting) is generally the preferred way for Flash/Flex/AIR applications to communicate with back-end servers and services. ColdFusion developers are fortunate in that AMF has been built in to ColdFusion for years. Java developers have access to the open-source BlazeDS which, among other things, provides support for AMF. And the community and 3rd parties have implemented AMF for PHP, .NET, and more. And now Python users can share the benefits of AMF via PyAMF - AMF for Python.

Adobe TV has launched. We'll be posting new content regularly (I actually recorded 3 videos yesterday which will be going live in a month or so).

Just a reminder, the 11 city On AIR European Train Tour starts tomorrow in Madrid. The team is already there setting up (although, unfortunately, I am not joining them this time around). So if you are in (or near) Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Stockholm, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Munich, or Milan, be sure to drop by!

Adobe Developer Week 2008 is a week long online event with 20 sessions covering AIR, Flex, Flash, Mobile, ColdFusion and Dreamweaver. And it all starts tomorrow, March 24, 20008.

Today we announced that Adobe Flash Lite Shipments Pass Half Billion Mark and that Adobe Flash Lite and Reader LE Licensed by Microsoft (for inclusion in future Windows Mobile devices).

30onair is a series of 30 second videos answering "Why Flex?" "Why Flash?" "Why ColdFusion?" and more. These YouTube videos (all with the tag "30onair") were recorded with a wonderful little video camera called Flip which lets you shoot and post quickly and easily. And, I have a stash of these Flips to give away. Want one? Just tell me what 30 second video clips you'll record. If you come up with 10 great 30 second clips, I'll send you a Flip for you to use to record them (and yes, you'll get to keep it). And it need not be 10 videos of you yourself, you could play cameraman and director and enlist friends and relatives and coworkers. Check out the examples already posted, and then come up with your own list of videos. You can post your list here in the comments, or e-mail them to me directly, and I'll pick the ones I like best. I will expect you to record and post your suggestions rather quickly, so come up with ideas that are fun, creative, but also practical. Oh, and I don't have an endless supply of video cameras, and when I run out, so does your chance to win one of these babies. And with that ... Lights! Camera! Action!

30onAIR 30 second video clips on YouTube.

Have a great idea for a 30 second clip on AIR, Flex, ColdFusion, BlazeDS, and more? Please share, I have some really cool giveaways (hint: you can use them to create these 30 second videos!).

Intelligent Enterprise handed out their 2008 Editors' Choice Awards, declaring that "Adobe is the key company to watch in the race toward mastery of RIA/Web 2.0 development.", and noting that "Adobe has a strongly positioned client (Flash) on millions of computers, a corps of evolving development tools (Flex, AIR, ColdFusion)".

While the ColdFusion community may not know Lee Brimelow, the Flash community most definitely does. Lee has a strong Flash background, and has more recently been applying his skills and expertise to Flex and AIR development (his presentations on the On AIR Bus Tour were some of the most popular) And Lee has just announced that he has joined us on the Adobe Evangelism team. Welcome aboard, Lee!

Emmy Huang has posted thoughts on Flash Player adoption rates, and how to project those rates. And the really cool stat is that over 90% of connected computers have Player 9 installed, which is good news for those of us building and deploying Flex 2 apps.

Oh, this is just too slick for words! Here is a Google Maps link to the Adobe office (former Macromedia office) in San Francisco. The street view is using Flash. More details posted by Ted Patrick.

Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3 has been posted to Labs. This kit allows you to create interactive and animated content in Flash CS3, and then use that content in your Flex apps. This way the designers on your team get to use Flash, the coders get to use Flex, and everyone gets to contribute to the development process.

Creative Suite 3 has been officially announced. For an interactive introduction visit the Creative License page. To learn which products are included with which editions, see the product page (click on the Compare Editions tab). And for those of you who were worried, CS3 includes an update to our much beloved Fireworks. Yeah!

Subject says it all, the pre-release version of Flash Player 9 for Solaris (both Sparc and x86 systems) has been posted to Labs.

Spring <br /> is next week, and it's not too late to sign up. Once again they've lined up top-notch speakers including fellow Adobians John Cummings and Kevin Hoyt, as well as Phillip Kerman, Rob Gonda, Joseph Lowery, Steve Drucker, Dan Switzer, and many other well known names. It's been a few years since I last made it down to Athens OH, but I'll be there this year, presenting both a keynote and a lunch time presentation. Topics to be covered during this one day conference include ColdFusion, Flash, Flex, Apollo, Ajax, and more. You get 7 tracks, close to 40 sessions (including 3 hands-on sessions), lunch included - and all for $35 (or less)! That's one heck of a deal, and there is still some space left. I hope to see you there!

Courtesy of long time Adobe/Macromedia/Allaire friend and partner, two new search engines powered by Google, gotSWF? and gotAdobe?.

Bruce Eckel has posted his thoughts on Rich Internet Applications, why Java has failed as a viable client-side technology, and why he thinks Flash and Flex deserve some serious attention.

Flex Data Services provide rich data management and messaging capabilities. But what if you are not using a Flash client? What if you are using good old JavaScript, including Ajax type clients? Well, as first sneaked at MAX in Las Vegas, now JavaScript clients can leverage FDS using Ajax Data Services just posted on Labs.

Now that it looks like I'll be keeping my Samsung BlackJack (until I find something better, that is) I needed to install a Flash Player on this device. A preview release of Flash Lite 2.1 for Windows Mobile 5 (both Pocket PC and Smartphone) is up on Labs.

Installation is simple enough. Once installed there is a registration step that you need to go through, look for a file named License.txt (installed on the device), it'll contain a registration URL and a license key which you'll need to provide.

Andrew Muller has posted a great MAX 2006 report on Builder.au (Australia's Builder.com).

If you were not able to attend MAX, or just want more information on Apollo, then you may want to join Mike Chambers for an online seminar on Thursday, November 2nd at 3:00 p.m. (Eastern). Registration is required.

I've been working with Ray Camden and others on a hush-hush secret project for the past few months. Well, it is secret no more ... Welcome to RIAForge.

RIAForge is a place to host open source projects built with Adobe technologies - from ColdFusion applications to Photoshop plug-ins to Flex components and more. And of course the site is built using those same technologies.

RIAForge features:

• A unique project URL (eg. http://cfyahoo.riaforge.org/)
• File hosting
• Bug tracking
• Forums
• Blogging
• Basic stats
• Subversion access
• ... and more

This is not an official Adobe project, although the site is Adobe supported. Ray Camden did the primary development work with a lot of help and support from others, including Brian Rinaldi and Rob Gonda (SVN support is all from Rob, and will be a hosted project shortly.)

Let us know what you think!

An update to Flash Player 9 has been posted to Labs. Changes include a new full screen mode, support for Windows Vista, and some bug fixes. More details posted by Emmy Huang on her blog.

Ryan Stewart sat down with Kevin Lynch to discuss Apollo, and has written up the details in a ZDNet story.

You'll be hearing a lot more about Apollo at MAX later this month.