Is it a bird ... a plane ... no it's Flash 8

I'm not sure how I missed this ... maybe it's been around the blogs already and I just didn't see it (or maybe I was, ahhh, working or something!), but I've seen on Mossyblog talk about the interactive featurette created by Nectarine for the release of Flash 8.

Anyone who has been to MXDU in Australia will know of Flash design studio Nectarine and their great introduction "movies" for the conference, and this gem is no exception. Including cameo appearances from Mike Downey, Guy Watson and Jesse Warden (although I though the script should have had Jesse using the word 'pimp' more often), the whole show gives viewers an insight into some of the new features of Flash 8 in a very entertaining way. 5 stars.

Oh, and there's even an appearance by Flash Lite!    

I always new the Ford Escort was made in heaven

The first car I owned was a 1979 Ford Escort panelvan, a very cool car for a drummer in a rock band. It actually was the band-car for many years, and made many trips up and down the east coast of Australia on tour. Some years later I also owned a slightly more delapidated 1976 Escort Ghia - woodgrain dash ... mmm ... nice. My wife hated it, but I just thought it had charm (although I have to admit the exhaust smell inside the cabin got a little too much sometimes).

But now my childhood visions of the Escort as the car they drive in heaven have been reignited by the recent sale of 1975 Escort GL for $690,000 - all because it's previous owner was Pope John Paul II. Now I sold my last Escort on eBay for $400 (cause it didn't run any more!) but the Pope does carry a little more weight when it comes to celebrity sales! Still, it just goes to show that the mighty Escort was loved by all types ... popes ... bum musicians ... everyone :)

Moket does content deal in Taiwan

Moket is pleased to announce the signing of a new content distribution deal for its Flash mobile games and content in Taiwan. The signing represents the first commercial deal completed by Moket for its products since the company launched in July this year.

The deal is with Taiwanese start-up content aggregator, Flash Mobile Ltd. The company is focused on Flash Lite content for its service which will launch in December this year to approximately 1.25 million subscribers.

Moket's first contribution will be the Chinese version of its original Flash Lite game, Whack Attack. Moket will contribute mainly games in the early stages, but with views to releasing other types of applications in the future, as well as possible associated content bundles for their game titles (e.g. Whack Attack ringtones and wallpapers). Moket's latest game project, DoJo Monkey, will be a key release on the service in early 2006.

Moket is very excited to have it's first avenue of distribution for Flash content and looks forward to 2006 with much anticipation of the growth of the Taiwan market, along with others that are currently being negotiated over.

A Tribute to Paul

Some of you may remember that earlier this year, Crowded House drummer and Aussie music icon Paul Hester took his own life in Melbourne. I've been reminded of this tragic event a couple of times this week, and they continue to show that I'm actually still not over it fully (see post). Anyway, at the ARIA awards last Sunday night, rock royalty and Paul's former band mate Neil Finn did an acoustic tribute to Paul, performing "Better Be Home Soon" to a crowd of thousands singing along. Best moment of the whole night. And just today, the local council of the area where Paul lived announced that they're naming a stretch of parkland after Paul in tribute. As the ARIA awards (and countless other music award shows) so clearly showed, music stars come and go as quickly as night follows day (and sometimes quicker), but true music legends affect people long after they're gone. Cheers again Paul.

Finally, iTunes Music Store in Australia

Hooray! Today we finally got iTunes Music Store in Australia, after a long time of looking on. Let's face it, iTunes is the brand for digital music, I don't care what Telstra or anyone else tries to do. The whole brand is extremely trusted amongst users, and the shopfront is so well built into the player software, it makes it too easy to ignore. Gotta go, I got me some downloadin' to do tonight!

Move As One Featured on Macromedia AsiaPac

Smiles all 'round the DRD office, as the Move As One campaign site and Flash Com game game we recently worked on for Saatchi & Saatchi has been added to the Showcase of the Asia Pacific Macromedia site. Our first showcase item for Macromedia ... well done to Glen, Andy, Robin, and everyone on the extended project team. We're glad to have been a part of it.

Phone buy puts Adobe head-to-head with Microsoft | The Register

An interesting article I found from John Dowdell's (Macromedia) blog from Andrew Orlowski, talking about the recent aquistion of Mobile Innovation by Macromedia. Seems that word is spreading thick and fast about the advantages of Flash on mobile devices, the response is getting warmer. Is the mobile player headed for the same ubiquity of the desktop player? Time will tell, but it looks like a distinct possibility to me.

Macromedia seem to have their thinking caps on, going by their recent history of mobile-related company aquisitons. We're not just talking about development companies, or even those that would be considered competitiors (as is often the way with lareg companies consuming smaller ones), but we're seeing, particularly with the Mobile Innovation purchase, a focus on infrastructure and hardware as well as development capabilities. As most of the Flash mobile development community has heard me say several times, at the end of the day, there's no future in making great little apps for phones if consumers can't get it on the handset.

It's always been Macromedia's path to target phone manufacturers (Nokia, Samsung) and software/OS comanies (Symbian, BREW) with Flash Lite so that consumers don't have to worry if they *have the player* or not - that Flash content *just works* on handsets. The Mobile Innovation aquisition is heading towards that same goal, and I for one get a lot of confidence from it as a developer and business owner in the Flash mobile space.

A Boy Named Google

From News.com.au ... what will this poor kid have to deal with later on in life because of his nerdy and completely deranged parents!?!?!

A COUPLE in Sweden has named their new-born son "Google", reportedly because the baby's father is a search fan.The healthy baby boy, born on September 12 this year, was christened "Google Kai" by his father who coincidentally, has a doctorate in search-engine marketing.
According to father Walid Kai, a Ph.D. in search engine marketing from Kalmar in Sweden, the name came to him as soon as he found out his wife Carol was pregnant.

"When we first knew that my wife Carol is pregnant, I said, 'we will name our child Google,'" wrote Walid in an email to who else, but Google. "Everyone laughed and did not take me seriously. My brother said, 'Yeah, name the next one Yahoo Fuji Nikon."
Walid had a small amount of trouble with disbelieving officials at the Kai's local birth registry, but he soon won them over. "I said 'Yes, GOOGLE KAI'. Carol knew how serious I am, she knows how much I adore Google services."

Lebanese-born Walid explained that as his culture has a tradition of calling father and mother a name related to their child, "All our friends and families are calling us Abou Google (Google's father) and Emm Google (Google's mother)."

Visit Google Kai's website

Moket in Chinese

Well, it's the season for announcements it seems, so Moket has jumped on board the "We have some exciting news to share soon" bandwagon. Hopefully we'll be able to give you more specific details over the coming weeks, but I just wanted to share this "sneak peek" screen grab of our first Flash Lite app translated into Chinese :)

Airservices Australia Gets the Gong

Big congratulations to local Brisbane Macromedia-guru Richard Turner-Jones whose FLash application has taken out a MAX Award for Best Government Experience for his avaiation mapping system, "Flying Around". Richard's been working on this one for a while, and showed it off initially at MXDU earlier in the year. Nice one Richard, well done! You can check out all the winners from MAX 2005 here.

Flash Lite 2.0 Previewed at MAX

Jonathan Duran has authored a feature article on the upcoming next release of Flash Lite. Expect to hear lots of cool stuff as MAX rolls on (they like to store up announcements for big events like this!) but in the meantime have a read of what can be expected with Flash Lite 2.0. Of course it'll still be a way off reaching our shores pre-installed on handsets, but the future is looking a lot brighter with this on the horizon.

The Guitar Shred Show - Mr Fastfinger

One of the best Flash sites I've seen for a while. For those shred masters out there (and you know who you are), this site is for you. Let your fingers guide you through guitar shred lessons, jams, and an ultimate dueling solo with a demon accordian player - with Mr Fastfinger on the Island of Tapping Dwarves. It's even fun for drummers like me :)

http://www.guitarshredshow.com/

X & Y of Tickets

Well, I may have missed out on MAX (the US Macromedia conference) this year, but I've decided that at the end of the day, my Coldplay tickets are better anyway :) The Brisbane show is sold out now (sure they'll put on another, but hey), and I only have another 8 months or so to wait until I can use it! Better put it somewhere safe - 8 months is a long time for kids to have a crack at losing them, or feeding them to the baby!

DRD and Lexus Move As One

I mentioned recently a project that we were involved with for Saatchi and Saatchi in Sydney, working alongside Robin @ Rocketboots and Generator Interactive. Well after some late nights and more coffee than I've had in a while, the project is now live ... Move As One

Last week, Lexus unveiled their latest model IS luxury car at the Sydney International Motor Show. As part of the pre-launch marketing, Saatchi and Saatchi put together a team of designers and developers, including their own interactive department, to create the Move As One online game. The concept is centred around the thought that the new Lexus is very much in synergy with the driver - the car and driver move as one. The game is based on that message, and rewards players who demonstrate a certain level of synergy with each other.

From a technical perspective, the Flash game is using Flash Communication server to create the real time interactivity between remote players, and also to bring together the players in a kind of meeting room where they can select new playing partners, view leaderboards, and register for more information on the IS250. We had some inetersting fun with the AS2.0 Flash Remoting components on this one, but that's another post all together.

The gameplay was developed by Generator Interactive in Sydney (Glen and Andy are now up to speed on triganometry and programming physics, so give them a call, I'm sure they're keen to spend a lot more time there!), with the game site and backend developed by myself (and designed by Andy Cooke and the Saatchi interactive design team. Both Generator and myself had great support and help from Robin Hilliard across all aspects of the project. Craig and the Austiger crew also did a fabo job on setting up the box in record time! Joel Lipman @ Saatchi also get's big wraps for his project management, witty Skype chats and VNC / FTP skills :)

All in all, a pretty cool site and concept and one that we were really happy to be involved with. Get on and move as one and see how synergistic you can get with a perfect stranger ... or send an email invitation to a friend.

www.moveasone.com

Codename for the next release of Flash

My back-ordered copy of Studio 8 hasn't even shipped yet, and already the Flash team are announcing the start of the journey towards Flash 9, or "Blaze" as it's been codenamed. It actually gives me a lot of confidence that Macromedia's roadmapping for their products is always on the go. The big thing with F9 will be ActionScript 3 - which of course ties in with the recent announcements in regards to Flash Player 8.5, Felx Builder 2 and the new Flex framework. It's all good!

Where the hell have I been?

I'll tell ya - head down and tail up in some projects for DRD that have been some of the most challenging so far. I marvel at guys like my mate Scott Barnes who seem to work 30 hours a day, and then have time to write lucid and lengthy blog posts.

Sorry for the absence, but things have definitely been *mad* around the office. We're about to launch a new Flash Com Server (yes, Flash Com 1.5 and not the new Flash Media Server 2.0) game for a large client, which has been the main reason I've been off the decks and down in the dungeons chained to my PC. Been finding some really nice little "quirks" with AS2.0 Flash Remoting components that I didn't know before (send me an email if you want the best of them - I won't bore people with the details here). Anyway, we'll tell you all about it in the coming days when the project is live. The guys from Generator Interactive and Rocketboots have been putting in big also on this one ... c'mon guys ... group hug!

Moket has suffered accordingly with the higher than ususal amounts of dev work on DRD, but things are still moving along. DoJo Monkey is still coming together nicely and should be fun once it's out. We've also got some cool announcements to make towards the end of the year on some new content deals and opportunities we're taking up, which will benefit consumers as well as other Flash Lite developers ... stay tuned.

Until then, I'm looking forward to blogging more often!