Today onwards, the penguin too will get a taste of the AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) alpha version. And, Adobe Systems has joined the Linux Foundation to focus on Linux for Web 2.0 Applications.

Adobe’s AIR is meant to enable developers create RIA (Rich Internet Applications) and take Web applications to the desktop and store data offline. AIR will enable developers to create RIAs on the desktop using Web technologies such as HTML, Ajax, PDF, Flash, and Flex that they already employ. A free and open-source technology, it will allow companies with Websites to inhabit a permanent spot on people’s desktops, in a way similar to Google’s widgets. For consumers, AIR will reduce the wait time for downloading images and data, because the desktop is constantly updated while the computer is online.

Version 1.0 of AIR was made available last year for the Windows and Mac OS platforms, however release for Linux was deferred due to wait on the core Flash Player’s support for Linux to be finalized, as per the Adobe Web site (last year).

Major news that follows is Adobe collaborating with the Linux Foundation (LF), a non-profit organization that works towards the development of Linux. Through this association, Adobe plans to work with the involved community to ensure Adobe RIA technologies are compatible across the Linux software platform; support for RIA on Linux has been limited until now. Adobe deems LF as a valuable resource that provides a platform to be able to accomplish this mission, as quoted on the LF Web page.

In order to install RIAs for the browser and the desktop, Adobe currently provides major RIA technologies for Linux users such as Adobe Flash Player and now also Adobe AIR.

Article source - http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Now_AIR_for_Linux_Adobe_Teams_with_Linux/551-88069-580.html

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Users gain ability to strictly monitor who can access content they store on the social network

By Heather Havenstein

March 19, 2008 (Computerworld) After enduring withering criticism late last year for the lack of adequate privacy controls in its Beacon advertising system, Facebook Inc. today garnered positive reviews for new controls that let users more strictly monitor who can access the content they create on the site.

The privacy controls launched Wednesday let users limit access to information like photo albums or contact information to specific Facebook friends or friends lists, the company said. Facebook had rolled out the friends list feature in December as a way to help users communicate with groups of friends on the network.

Nick O’Neill, a blogger on All Facebook, noted that the new features

provide users with more granular privacy by specifying various settings for each friend list. “This means that, in theory, all of my professional contacts will no longer be able to access my photos, and I can start posting those photos of my crazy times in college,” he added.

“These new settings have theoretically transformed Facebook, making it possible to manage all of my contacts from one site,” O’Neill wrote.

The All Facebook blogger also noted that the social networking firm today also launched a new option that allows users to opt-out of personalized SocialAds that integrate into photos a notice telling his or her friends about recent purchases made at various online retailers.

“If you hadn’t noticed already, once in a while your friends’ photos have been showing up on ads promoting applications and fan pages,” O’Neill said. “Many were turned off by those ads complaining that making money off of our profiles is crossing the line. This is a significant step by Facebook, highlighting that Facebook has granted a higher priority to user privacy over monetization. This is an encouraging step and greatly welcomed, considering there wasn’t much controversy over the ads as they existed.”

Josh Catone, a blogger on ReadWriteWeb, said that when the friends list feature was rolled out in December, he called it a necessary first step in attracting the business networking crowd to Facebook. However, he also noted that the feature “had no teeth” because of a lack of privacy controls. That has changed because the new features give users the option of showing private information to only specific friends or “friends of friends,” which is similar to features in the more business-oriented LinkedIn professional networking site, Catone added.

“While going after the business networking crowd has never been an objective expressed overtly by the company, it does make sense,” he said. “As Facebook’s core early audience — college students — grows up, they’ll need a more secure environment to network with colleagues and friends. Facebook is slowly positioning itself to be a place where both casual and business networking can take place at the same time, which means that rather than maintaining two accounts — one at Facebook and one at LinkedIn or Xing — users could stay at Facebook and use the tools they grew accustomed to in college.”

Not all industry observers were pleased with the changes. Jeffrey Chester, founder and executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy — one of the strongest critics of Beacon’s initial lack of privacy controls — noted that Facebook still has to ensure that its members are candidly informed about any personal data shared with advertisers and marketers.

“Its incremental improvements — all due to the increasing scrutiny in the EU and U.S. and from privacy advocates — are occurring at a snail’s pace,” he said. “Facebook’s senior managers still have not come to terms with the need for them to ensure transparency and full user control.”

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The latest version of Apple’s browser adds some major enticements to switch.

By Seth Weintraub

Apple released Safari 3.1 on March 18 with an updated rendering engine that makes the fastest Internet browser even faster.

On top of that, Apple’s new browser includes some features that reflect the future of the HTML 5 specification: offline storage, media support, and CSS animations and Web fonts. It also adds some needed compatibility and bug fixes, as well as some other new features that really make it a great everyday browser.

For the uninitiated, Apple provides a great PDF overview of Safari. You can get the upgrade/installer from apple.com/safari/download/ (it’s about a 16MB download for both Mac and PC) or simply update from Software Update. The installation is easy but strangely requires a restart on Macs but not on Windows. By the way, Safari 3.1 is the first Windows version not to carry the “beta” tag.

The interface and the user experience are largely unchanged from those in Safari 3.0. Under the hood, however, Apple has made some significant changes that it has pulled from the latest builds of the open-source WebKit engine.

WebKit is the framework version of the engine that’s used by Safari. It is also the basis of the Web browsing engine in iPhone’s Mobile Safari, Symbian’s browser, the Google Android platform and Adobe’s new AIR platform.

Testing

To check out how well Safari 3.1 handles Web sites, I ran it through some popular standards testing — and found that it leads the pack. In the Acid3 Tests, which were created by the Web Standards Project to test dynamic browser capabilities, Safari 3.1 scored 75 out of 100, significantly higher than the previous version of Safari and other shipping browsers (Firefox 3 Beta 4 scored 68, while the most recent WebKit scored 92).

However, the big news is how fast the new version of Safari is. How fast? I tested Safari 3.1 on my first-generation 2-GHz MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM. In MooTools’ SlickSpeed speed/validity test, Safari came out on top in almost every category on both Mac and PC.

It also did significantly better than any shipping browser on the SunSpider JavaScript speed tests (although since these tests are hosted at WebKit.org, they are perhaps biased). For example, on the Mac, Safari scored 4430ms, compared with 5048ms for Firefox 3 Beta 4.

While I spend 90% of my time on a Macintosh, I also installed Safari on my Windows XP box to see how it stacked up against Internet Explorer, Opera and Firefox. In short, it worked extremely well for everyday browsing, offering speed and efficiency, especially on a four- or five-year-old machine. It also performed really well with lots of tabs open.

Although Safari 3.1 does perform much better than the shipping version of Firefox, the speed improvements in Firefox 3 Beta 4 are catching up with Safari 3.1 — though Firefox 3 did consume more CPU cycles during my tests.

One of the drawbacks of Safari has been the perceived “over-smoothing” or softening of fonts on the PC. While this hasn’t been completely fixed, Apple’s Safari 3.1 allows Web sites to specify fonts outside the seven Web-safe font families; these new fonts can be downloaded by the browser as needed.

Unfortunately, there are still prominent features that are part of rival browsers that Safari simply can’t match. For example, Safari doesn’t have all of the add-ons that Firefox enjoys, such as the Google toolbar.

Furthermore, if you need to use a site that employs Microsoft’s proprietary DirectX technology — like Microsoft Exchange’s Outlook Web Access, for example — you’ll find that the experience on Safari leaves much to be desired. In this case, you’re better off using Internet Explorer.

Finally, Opera offers features, such as direct BitTorrent downloads, that aren’t offered in Safari.

With the 3.1 release, Safari has become the fastest browser you can use. If that isn’t enough reason to make a switch, its strong adherence to Web standards and rapid adoption of new technologies might make you think again.

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Rumors of a new music service appear to be just that, but with iPod sales slowing and competition growing, now may be the time to pursue such a plan

by Arik Hesseldahl

Apple’s iTunes Store sells individual songs for download for 99¢ apiece, but a new unlimited-music service is rumored to be in the works.

Reports that Apple is discussing an “all-you-can-eat” subscription music service with major record labels are overblown, say people in a position to know. But giving customers access to the entire iTunes catalog in exchange for a premium on iPod music players isn’t a bad idea—and it’s one Apple may need to consider.

According to a story in the Financial Times, Apple (AAPL) would charge enough for iPod and iPhone devices to cover the cost of licensing entire music collections. It would use that premium to create a pool of revenue, a portion of which would be divided among the major music labels, the newspaper said.

Trouble is, no such talks are under way, according to people familiar with Apple’s plans. An Apple spokesperson declined to comment. Insiders at major music labels were similarly dismissive. One person familiar with the matter said the idea of subscription plan has been “kicked around” for about a year, but said there have been “no meaningful discussions” on the subject.

Consumer Appeal

That doesn’t mean the music industry wouldn’t welcome the chance to distribute songs and albums through a subscription plan. The reason is simple. Unlike the existing 99¢-a-song iTunes model, subscriptions provide a reliable revenue stream. Customers who pay $10 a month for access to a music library contribute a predictable cash flow. At present an iTunes customer can buy 12 songs one month and no more for months on end. The music industry has long railed against Apple’s adherence to an à la carte model and its refusal to consider variable pricing, such as charging a higher price for songs deemed more valuable.

Consumers would probably welcome the chance to choose whether to keep buying songs one track at a time or pay a monthly fee for an unlimited number of songs. “There may be millions of people who would never buy into the iPod-iTunes ecosystem who’d be willing to pay $7 to $10 a month for all the music they can get,” says analyst Michael Gartenberg with JupiterResearch. “If anyone can explain the benefits of a plan like this, it’s Apple.”

So why won’t it? For starters, Jobs doesn’t have a lot of reason to change tack. The iTunes Store is wildly successful. It has become the second largest music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart Stores (WMT). It boasts some 50 million customers and has sold some 4 billion songs since its inception in 2003.

More important for Apple, the online music store is a catalyst for sales of the highly profitable iPod and iPhone. So iTunes would be a success even if it operated at a loss, which it doesn’t. Apple has sold nearly 142 million iPods since the product family launched in late 2001, most of them since 2005, plus 4 million iPhones. Total them all up and you find that the average iPod or iPhone owner buys fewer than 30 songs and tends to fill the iPod with music from an existing CD collection or other means.

Keen Competition

Besides, some subscription services have struggled to gain wide acceptance. Jobs considers subscriptions more akin to rentals, because customers never permanently own the music they listen to. Purchasing a song on iTunes is more like purchasing a CD that enables the buyer to play it at will, the argument runs.

Here’s the rub: Growth in sales of the iPod is slowing. Despite having sold a record 22.1 million units in the quarter ended Dec. 29, the year-on-year growth rate was 5%, compared with 50% a year earlier. A new iTunes business model might appeal to a new batch of customers who have passed on the iPod-iTunes combo as currently offered.

New competition gives Apple additional reason to consider alternative sales methods. Social networking giants, including Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace have their own music-store plans in the works. MySpace is said to be working on its own ad-supported service that would let users stream music for free, and pay to download MP3 music files à la carte, similar to a service introduced by Amazon.com (AMZN) late last year.

A strong competitive threat from MySpace, the labels hope, might spur Apple to reconsider its aversion to subscriptions. As an executive with an independent music label familiar with the thinking of counterparts at larger labels puts it: “They are fixated on not getting shafted by Jobs again.”

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Posted by Greg Sandoval

Protests break out in some nation around the globe and one of the first things a media-shy government does–just after sending in riot police–is pull the plug on YouTube.

The latest example is China’s handling of protests in Tibet. The Chinese government has blocked access to YouTube in that country after scores of clips showing violence between police and protesters were posted to the site, according to hundreds of reports found on Google News.

Scores of other media outlets have been blocked or partially blacked out in China, including broadcasts of CNN, the BBC World, and Google News. But it’s YouTube that gets all the ink.

In an example of YouTube’s influence, blocking access to the video-sharing site is now a sort of scarlet letter for governments. The site, which allows individuals to communicate with mass audiences, has become a symbol of free speech to many, and governments that forbid it are immediately branded around the world as repressive.

This kind of image can’t be welcomed by China as it prepares to host this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

In its report on China’s YouTube ban, The New York Times asks whether the Internet and its ability to enable individuals to communicate with large audiences can stand up to a “ruthless government.”

The Web publication for British newspaper The Times wrote Monday: “YouTube has been blocked in the past, and the so-called Great Firewall of China prevents discussion of and searches for many sensitive topics, such as the Tiananmen Square protests.”

The ban was reported in newspapers in a host of other countries including Russia, Turkey, Canada, and Ireland.

China is obviously no fan of user-generated content. In January, the Chinese government tried to impose a rule whereby only state-run companies could post videos to the Web. The measure was quickly altered after people began raising questions about freedom of speech.

The country’s authorities routinely block sites such as Wikipedia, the BBC, and even live TV transmissions to hinder publication of stories on the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong, or even stories critical of leaders or governments that China is trying to build better relationships with. Last May, while reporter Michael Kanellos watched a CNN story on Myannmar from a hotel in Beijing, the screen went blank. CNN only returned when a the news station was broadcasting a different story.

The Great Firewall of China isn’t perfect, and it will alternate between blocking particular sites and allowing particular sites, but it does make it more difficult for Chinese citizens to get full information or news stories, according to some analysts.

The Firewall also seems to allow Westerners to view objectionable material in China, while blocking it for Chinese readers. Conceivably, this could be a technique to blunt criticism from the West.

On an Internet connection from a room in a Western-owned hotel, censorship was fairly light, Kanellos reported. Hundreds of images of the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989 popped up on Google Images, particularly images of “Tank Man.” News stories, or at least headlines, on controversial subjects came up as well. In an Internet cafe, far fewer images of “Tank Man” appeared, but they could still be found. A few videos of the riots also were available on second-tier video sites like Veoh Networks.

But those results came when the search is conducted in English. Searching for Tiananmen Square on Google’s Chinese Image site with Chinese characters revealed no pictures of the riots in 14 pages of images. The only one–on 14 pages of results–that relates to the 1989 riots was a picture of the Goddess of Liberty. On Baidu, the more popular Chinese Web search site, not even that came up.

In the latest controversy, the Chinese government may have been spooked by what happened in Myanmar last year. Clips of troops clashing with protesters were widely videotaped and posted to YouTube before the site was blacked out in Myanmar. By then it was too late. World condemnation of the crackdown was only spurred on by the YouTube ban.

Perhaps the poster child for bans gone wrong is Pakistan. The government there was angered over videos it found disrespectful to Islam and demanded YouTube be blocked. An ISP in Pakistan goofed and erroneously shut down access to YouTube around the world. The government lifted the ban soon after.

The other important issue in all this is how Google will respond to China’s ban. A representative said that the company is “looking into the matter,” and trying to “ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible.”

But what happens if China wants Google to begin self censoring videos or wants to know the names of the people who posted the clips of the Tibet violence?

Yahoo can be used as a model of what can go wrong when negotiating with the Chinese government. The portal handed over information about a journalist who was later sentenced to an eight-year prison sentence for posting comments critical of the government online. Yahoo’s action has been widely condemned ever since.

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by Jim Dalrymple

When Apple introduced the iPhone, CEO Steve Jobs claimed the ability to surf the “real Internet” as one of its strongest features. However, one technology missing from the iPhone since day one is Flash. Although many users want Flash support, analysts don’t see the missing feature as harming Apple’s position.

“There is no question the iPhone delivers a compelling Web experience and there are good reasons to want Flash in there, but Flash Lite [Adobe’s scaled-down version for mobile devices] wouldn’t give you the Web experience you’re looking for,” said Avi Greengart, Research Director for market research firm Current Analysis.

Apparently Jobs agrees. During the annual shareholders meeting earlier this month he said the iPhone “needs something much better than the current Flash player that Adobe makes for cellphones. The Flash Player option that fits the bill is made for devices like laptops that are larger than the iPhone; as a consequence, it performs too slowly on the iPhone.”

In fact, Greengart points out that Flash Lite will work with some Web sites that use basic Flash, but it won’t work with YouTube or any other site that extensively uses the technology. Flash Lite will not load content that is made with the most recent incarnation of Flash, version 9, either.

Companies such as Vodafone and Nokia have used Flash Lite to build interfaces for their handsets, which the technology is well suited for.

However, not everyone agrees with Apple’s position of eschewing the technology altogether. Microsoft, just this morning, announced that it would support Flash Lite in addition to its Silverlight multimedia framework in its Windows Mobile operating system.

Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and LG are all shipping Flash-enabled devices, but it doesn’t appear Apple will join them anytime soon. But Adobe isn’t giving up — the company is looking to the recently released Software Development Kit (SDK) as a way of delivering the technology.

“We’d love to see Flash come to the iPhone,” said Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for mobile and devices at Adobe. “Hopefully when we have the opportunity to review the SDK, and if it’s a vehicle to deliver a solution, we would look forward to working with Apple.”

In the meantime, Apple isn’t likely to be losing any customers because it doesn’t have Flash Lite implemented on the iPhone. According to Greengart, most consumers look at the touchscreen and don’t dig down into included technologies.

However, as long as Apple continues to bill the iPhone as having the “real Internet” people are likely to complain about the lack of Flash support.

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