Jeffrey Hammond

The pace of interactive multimedia continues to evolve with the release Tuesday of Adobe Systems' beta versions of its AIR 2 and Flash Player 10.1 software. The updates are available for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. The 10.1 player is also available for x86-based netbooks and, at some point in 2010, for smartphones and other mobile devices.

A new report indicates that Android may be on the verge of a popularity explosion. According to Strategy Analytics, sales of smartphones using the Google-backed open-source mobile operating system will grow an astounding 900 percent this year.

By comparison, the report said the next fastest-growing smartphone OS, Apple's iPhone, will grow 79 percent.

'Gained Early Traction'

Palm's efforts to jump-start an ecosystem for its new webOS platform took another step forward Wednesday, when it expanded the release of its Mojo software development kit (SDK). The announcement at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco also included plans for integrating cloud services into the webOS platform, as well as the unveiling of an application that will allow legacy Palm OS programs to run on webOS devices.

Release Later in 2009

Facebook is about to get Flash-ier as the result of a joint effort announced Tuesday by Adobe Systems and the popular social-networking site. The companies said the newly available Flash ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for the Facebook Platform, a free and open-source programming library, will support all Facebook application programming interfaces, including APIs for the growing network of sites that back Facebook Connect.

'Simpler Access to Facebook Data'