Feb 18, 2010
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Jan 8, 2010
Camera drone piloted via iphone
Posted by Joer | Filed under Cool stuff, Technology
I want one of these! It's controlled via your iphone over it's own wifi (so the range is a little limited), but it has a camera attached which even be used to play augmented reality games.
Dec 17, 2009
Google Browser Size
Google Labs has a visualization of the different browser sizes used by people accessing google.com. It can be overlaid over any site to see what percentage of people have to scroll to see elements, the drop off after 1024x768 is quite remarkable. How much of this is negated by people having a smaller browser window to search or netbooks even?
Nov 4, 2009
Reducing the drudgery of embedding fonts in AS3
Using and managing embedded fonts in Flash is a lot easier than it was a few years ago, but I still find myself repeating tedious steps of set-up each time I need to create a new font-asset swf.
So, I created an Air application to do it for me 
Skip to the end to download the app and source, or read on for all the juicy details...
Oct 6, 2009
CS5 on the horizon…
Posted by Mikea | Filed under Technology
No doubt you'll of heard that with Flash CS5 you'll be able to build applications for the iPhone. Nice.
But along with that there are some long awaited improvements to the IDE, most notably a new XML based FLA file format (hurrah!), and much improved text handling/rendering with the open source Text Layout Framework (TLF)
Sep 20, 2009
Away3D
There have been a fair few updates recently at Away3D - a real-time 3D engine for Flash.
Most recently, a lovely new collection of Pixel Bender shaders for the Flash Player 10 version of the engine - be sure to check out the demos on their site.
Not only that, but there's the scene design and export tool - PreFab, an Air app for "creating top quality 3D content in Away3D". A must try.
Then, not too long ago, Away3D lite was released, a streamlined version of Away3D (25K) for Flash Player 10. Perfect for high-performance, small footprint projects.
As you've probably worked out you, can find out more on the Away3D site.
Aug 14, 2009
Some bright Spark…
Posted by Mikea | Filed under Cool stuff, Technology
Now then, if you're not aware of the Spark project, you're missing out.
It's a large open-source community of Flash / ActionScript developers based in Japan. Their SVN repository is bursting with experimental and innovative code - it's the birth place of the FLARToolkit which you will (probably) of seen used for a bit of augmented reality, like this and this.
There are many interesting things hidden away in the extensive ( 800-900Mb if you check it all out ) SVN repository, and it's well worth a browse if you have a spare moment or two... you're almost guaranteed to find something inspiring lurking in the depths.
Not unlike this high performance tweening engine. Huzzah, another tween library(!), I hear you cry. But it looks fast and feature filled. Be sure to check out the speed comparison demos (and scroll down the page for a few more interesting projects hosted on libspark)
Ooh, now this is not from the Spark project, but it is rather nice. Check out a retro-tastic 64K demo for FlashPlayer 10
