Oct 13, 2009
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
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…
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
Jul 17, 2009
3D CSS
3D CSS is appearing in the latest versions of Webkit - the rendering engine used by Google Chrome and Apple's Safari browsers. It can already do some pretty impressive stuff using 3D transformations.
To download webkit (available on Mac and Windows) go here. The browser looks incredibly like Safari 4.0 but 3D CSS is not currently in Safari 4.0 or any other released browsers.
Jul 13, 2009
Happy Birthday, App Store!
This month marks the first birthday of Apples App Store with the launch of a page on iTunes highlighting a selection of the apps that have helped make it so successful.
Given how much as all love our iPhone Apps at MadeByPi, we thought it only fitting to share our top five app-related facts.
1) The App Store first opened its doors on the morning of July 10th 2008.
2) The most expensive app sold via the App Store was the 'I Am Rich' app released in August 2008, this was billed as ‘a work of art with no hidden function at all', it's only purpose being to show other people that they were able to afford it. It was priced at a staggeringly stupid price of $999.99 (£599.99). The app was removed from the App Store the day following its release, on August 6, 2008. However, six people had allegedly already bought it before it was pulled (muppets)!
3) The one billionth app downloaded was ‘Bump', created by Bump Technologies. It was downloaded by Connor Mulcahey, a thirteen year-old from Weston Conneticut, who was hailed the grand prize winner of Apple's one billion app countdown contest
4) US blog 'Busted Loop' revealed after some research that in order to buy all 55,732 apps that were available as of 7th July 2009 you would need to fork out $144,326.06 (£89,818.381) - that's an average of about £1.60 per app to you and me.
5) In May 2009 Pinch Media analysed 30 million iPhone app downloads and discovered that only 5 per cent of users will open either a free or paid app 30 days after the initial download.
Jun 19, 2009
Sony’s EyePet
Have a look at this video of Sony's EyePet, (skip to about 1:00 to see it in action). It's a kind of virtual pet using the Playstation camera, but the level of interaction is amazing. You can even draw toys for it, which appear in the game.
Eurogamer's 'Hands on' article has more info.
Jun 11, 2009
Javascript Fluid Dynamics
This fluid dynamics simulator written in javascript is a great way of testing the performance of the latest browsers. Safari 4 (released on Monday) and Google Chrome are the fastest at the moment - with Firefox 3 trailing a long way behind. However, Firefox 3.5 will have a new javascript engine (then beta does show a performance improvement).
Get testing!
