schematic

There’s been a bit of static on the airwaves this week about a new мека мебелAdobe AIR based digital magazine that Time Warner currently have in development.

Initially being trialed with Sports Illustrated, the upcoming digital publication (code named the ‘Manhattan Project”), is being developed by New York based The Wonder Factory. The aplication is chock full of social, and rich media, functionality and uses a gesture based UI targeted primarily at touch-screen, based tablet hardware such as the HP Tablet (or maybe the upcoming Apple tablet device).

The crew over at TechCrunch took an early prototype of the ‘Manhattan Project” for a test drive and were suitably impressed. Saying that “The tablet format is much easier on the eyes than reading the same story on the Web, and you get the added bonus of full-screen slide shows or videos. You can also flip through photos within the text, while continuing to read. Sports scores and other data can be dynamically updated from the Web, or you can share stories and photos via email, Facebook, or Twitter.”

Sports Illustrated editor Terry McDonell mentions that given one of the main reasons consumers purchase Sports Illustrated is for the quality of the photography, the digital format of the publication seems a much better fit for this purpose. McDonell goes on to mention that theoretically the new format would allow Sports Illustrated to show readers more of the photos which never otherwise make it into the magazine. Added to which, McDonell indicated that based on preliminary research they’ve conducted, some users have said they would be willing to pay $50 more a year for the digital version if such enhanced features were included.

For what its worth, Time Warner aren’t the only ones here leaping into the digital magazine based pool. Back in October, Wired Magazine’s parent company Condé Nast, revealed its plans to work with Adobe to re-purpose magazine content for upcoming digital devices, including the Apple tablet.

An interesting side-note to all of this. Another AIR based digital publication, which was released in May this year, the New York Times Reader 2.0 last week won the Digital Publishing & Advertising Awards (DPAC) - Best Digital Publishing/Content Platform Award . Which leads one to believe, if the digital publishing industry itself is now endorsing new delivery platforms such as this, there must be some truth behind the argument this is the future of digital publishing as we know it (all they need to do now, is just figure out how to monetise the damn thing!).

Dan Goldman from Adobe’s Advanced Technology Labs has showcased a sneak peak of some of the interactive video manipulation research he’s been working on with fellow Adobian David Sales and their University of Washington colleagues Brian Curless and Steven M. Seitz.

The research focuses on the streamlining of the user interface, and workflow, associated with manipulating video. Delving into features such as;

• Video object tagging and annotation
• Video object motion point/path tracking
• Video navigation via object manipulation
• Still image capture/composition via video object manipulation

Adding validation to this train of research, Dans work is very similar to that of Pierre Dragicevic and Gonzalo Ramos who have been have also been working on their own research project with their DimP – Direct Manipulation Video Player.

If you’re keen to check out some of these features in action, then be sure to check out this video.

Whilst we’re years off seeing API’s available that leverage some of the functionality outlined in the research. I think it’s the application of said research, within rich media based applications, where things start to get really interesting. All of this has definitely got my creative juices flowing and I see a HUGE potential for applications using this technology, such as;

• Games
• Social networking applications
• Collaborative video sharing applications
• Rich media advertising mash-ups
• Interactive sports applications
• Video object based metadata tagging
• Object motion tracking for security and ambient media based applications

If you’re keen to dig deeper on some of the magic going on behind the scenes, then be sure to have a read of the Video object annotation, navigation, and composition paper that Dan and the team released at the proceedings of the 21st annual ACM symposuim on User Interface Software and Technology.

Shout-out to JD for the heads up on this piece.

The battle for Olympic gold in the global video streaming event is well and truly under way. With Microsoft having a head start in partnering (*ahem paying*) with NBC to deliver 2,200 hours of live, interactive video, plus integrated broadcast coverage. Their NBCOlympics site will have massive spikes of traffic based on the hotly contended events, as well as peak viewing periods.

With the eyes of the world closely scrutinising their offering. It goes without saying, that what ever is produced needs to be designed for performance and deliver a brilliant user experience. This being the case, NBC and Microsoft have teamed up with UX glitterati Schematic to design the Silveright based NBCOlympics Player application. The application will offer users the ability to switch between multiple live streams (i.e. cameras), and multiple events simultaneously, as well as offer enhanced picture-in-picture, and interactive features for all users watching at any given time.

Whilst it has been widely reported that NBC will be forcing users to download Microsoft’s Silverlight player in order to see live and on-demand video. This is not necessarily the case. Of course Microsoft would prefer users to download Silverlight in order to get the best user experience, but users who don’t have the plug-in, or choose not to use it, will still be able to get stand alone video streams if they have the Windows Media player. Having said that, given that the market penetration of Silverlight is still pretty low, Microsoft are obviously hoping that the Olympics will be the face to launch a million downloads. In theory, this isn’t such a bad plan, so long as the technology actually delivers on the promises from from an end UX perspective (which unfortunately it didn’t in my small focus group).

Despite having Silverlight installed on our Macs, when we attempted to view/test any streaming content via the NBCOlympics Player our browser(s) continually crashed. Additionally, if you’re not running Windows Media Centre, or are on a Mac, you won’t be able to access NBC’s online Olympic video centre (NBC Olympics On The Go) either. According to TVTonics’ site if you don’t have the following system requirements (below) you can forget about any streaming (or on-demand) video.

System Requirements

• operating system — Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit currently not supported)
• Windows Media Center required — included with Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate
• processor — 1GHz 32-bit processor minimum
• memory — 1GB mininum RAM (2GB recommended)
• disk space — minimum of .5GB per subscribed channel + 1GB add’l
• video — 1024×768 minimum resolution; support for DirectX 9 graphics, minimum 128MB VRAM, WDDM Driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, 32 bits per pixel

*Update* according to comments left over at TechCrunch – Comcast, Cox and others users whose ISPs throttle their downloads, or users on Timewarner and others who have metered bandwidth charges won’t be able to tune in either.

All-in-all, the fact that NBC, and Microsoft have seen fit to restrict the availability of a global sporting event in this manner is pretty disappointing from an end user perspective. Personal annoyances/disappointment aside, as an advocate of rich internet applications, and the genuine benefits they bring end users, I wish NBC/Microsoft every success with this endeavor – and honestly hope we don’t see a repeat of the Microsoft/Mosiac strike out earlier this year with the US Major League Baseball site.

The bottom line is that if users are required to make the effort to download/install a new run-time (regardless of flavour) to support the viewing of rich/digital media – anything less than a stellar end-user experience will do way more damage to the overall benefits of RIAs (as a whole) regardless of which platform they’re built on.

Sarah Perez over at ReadWriteWeb has just given a heads up that Atlantic Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, has just launched an new AIR app called Fanbase. This app has to be one of the best examples of AIR i’ve seen to date.

Rather than just taking the easy route and simply re-inventing the MP3 player in an AIR based format, Fanbase combines music, video, chat, and images. Fans can even customise the app by choosing which artists they want it to display from the dropdown menu or the “Manage” screen. Whilst we’re talking about artists, Atlantic Records has some huge ones with their roster including big names like Death Cab for Cutie, James Blunt, Buckcherry, Gnarls Barkley, Jet (great Aussie band), Panic At The Disco, Paramore, Rush, Staind, Rob Thomas, Simple Plan, Missy Elliot, and a stack more.

Atlantic Records collaborated with imeem, the music social networking site that lets users upload, create, and listen to music. Through the integrated imeem music player, Fanbase will automatically capture the latest music from any particular artist and stream it directly into the player. Fanbase’s video content comes from YouTube and Brightcove and the chat feature is provided by Meebo.

“We’re always looking to elevate the experience and interaction our fans have with our artists,” said Eric Snowden Creative Director of Digital Media for Atlantic Records. “Through Fanbase we’re delivering that experience digitally, on-demand and in a manner that allows fans to create a much deeper connection with their favorite artists.”

To demo Fanbase, you can download it from here.

If you’ve been thinking about learning Flex but have found it either too hard, too expensive, or just too time consuming, have we got a treat for you.

Flex in a Week is a free video tutorial series that allows you to learn Flex at your own pace. It comes with a set of exercises that takes you through the foundations of Flex and onto some of the intermediate concepts. Definitely enough to get you started!

If you run into problems and have questions, you can ask a question on the Flex in a Week forum.

Whilst you’re in a learning mood you might also want to check out one of the other great, free tutorial videos we have on all the other Adobe products over at the Adobe Video Workshop.

Kudos to Matt Chotin and the Flex Team, Ted Patrick and the Community Management team, as well as Jeremy Allaire and the Brightcove posse, for making this all happen

If you didn’t get a chance to make it across to Adobe MAX in Chicago this year, Adobe Australia are holding a “Refresh” event for the local developer communities. This is your chance to hear first hand the about latest news and announcements made during the keynotes of Adobe’s largest single developer event!

I’m just about to hit the hay and thought i’d post some of the (now public) announcements which will no doubt be hitting the blogesphere tomorrow (or today) – depending where you are in the world.

For those interested i’ll be writing more detailed, and complete outlines of the following posts tomorrow (once i’ve woken up).

Adobe Acquires Virtual Ubiquity (Buzzword) – This is HUGE news as Virtual Ubiquity are the creators of ground-breaking online word processor RIA, Buzzword. Built entirely in Adobe Flex, Buzzword can run either in an online mode (via any Flash Player 9 enabled browser), or offline (from the desktop) as a stand-alone AIR application.

Adobe announces Share – Adobe announces new free online document sharing service, codenamed “Share”. Looking very much like an online version of Flash Paper, Share allows users to select, upload, and preview documents they wish to share with friends, colleagues, etc. Recipients are in-turn sent a message to view the document, and set whether the files will be publicly accessible or restricted. Built using Adobe Flex, the rich UI provides a smooth experience, integrating simple workflows to upload and share documents with high quality online previews to speed up finding the right document. Jump in and take Share for a test-drive here on Adobe Labs.

More than just hot AIR – Adobe has announced a swag of major organisations who have embraced the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and will be demo’ing applications at MAX this week. The companies include: Anthropologie, AOL, Business Objects, eBay, The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc., Nickelodeon’s Nick.com, PayPal, Philips Lighting, QVC, salesforce.com, SAP, and Yahoo!.

Adobe Media Player (AMP) – Whilst on the theme of major organisations adopting Adobe technologies. Major television broadcasters and leading content publishers including CBS, PBS, Yahoo! Video, Meredith Corporation, Blip.tv, Fora.tv, Motionbox, MyToons and StimTV are collaborating with Adobe to distribute video content via the new Adobe Media Player (AMP). AMP is a lightweight desktop AIR based application that offers viewers the ability to subscribe, and watch content online or download and view videos offline, all with full-screen hi-def playback. To download and try the demo version of AMP drop by Adobe Labs.

FlashLite 3.0 Announced – This is major news for developers looking to bring video to mobile devices. This latest upgrade to the FlashLite Player provides improved performance along with ability to embed or stream Flash video content to mobile devices.

Andrew Muller sours US/Australian relations by refusing to tip our taxi driver – In all fairness we can probably write this one off as a combination of jet-lag and naiveness. Luckily the cab driver in question had another fare jump in, just as we fled to the sanctuary of our hotel – so wasn’t able to pursue Mr Muller for his $2 tip.

2 x teams, 2 x webites, 2 x clients, 24 hours – No excuses, no extensions, no budget overruns (and lots of coffee, red bull and chocolate).

I’ve just got back from judging the inaugural FullCodePress competition and have to say it was a great experience. Adobe was proudly one of the sponsors of this charity event, which set out to design and build 2 x websites for 2 x not-for-profit organisations within 24hrs.

Both teams put in an outstanding effort, with the competition being tight….very tight. Infact, at the final bell there was only 2 points (out of 100) separating the 2 x teams.

The winning team was Team Code-Black (NZ) who were developing on-behalf of the Grampian disAbility Advocate Association. This orgainsation helps provide a community voice, and information resource, for people with a variety of disabilities, from the remote Grampians region of Victoria, Australia. Their winning effort can be seen here.

Close runners up – Team Australia were developing for The Ripple Effect. A not-for-profit organisation that works with schools and orphanages in Thailand to deliver projects that help change the lives of children and their communities. Their effort can be seen here.

Each of the teams participating was made up of 7 members;

1. Project manager
2. User experience advocate (information architecture and usability)
3. Graphic designer
4. HTML/CSS
5. Programmer
6. Content editor/writer
7. Captain’s choice (can be someone from any specialty)

It’s worth keeping in mind that both of the sites still require a tad of polishing before they’re officially launched. When this happens, you’ll be happy to know that it isn’t just a case of build, deploy and forget. Each of the clients will be receiving ongoing training and support in the updating and maintenance of their sites. To ensure their long-term success.

Once again – well done to everyone involved!

By-the-way, word on the street has it that the next FullCodePress event (tentatively slated for February 2008 in New Zealand) will raise the bar even further, with 32 countries slated to take place – so watch this space!