Flash technology

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'

One of the biggest complaints about Apple's groundbreaking iPhone has been that it doesn't support Adobe's Flash for interactive animation and video. But late last week Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen said his company is working with Apple to make it happen.

"It's a hard technical challenge, and that's part of the reason that Adobe and Apple are collaborating," he told the Bloomberg News Service in an interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The onus is on us to deliver."

Good News, Bad News

Adobe Systems is poised to launch several key enhancements to its Adobe Flash platform in San Francisco this week at its MAX 2008 conference.

Any major upgrade to Flash is significant because 81 percent of worldwide online videos are viewed with Flash technology, making it the number-one format for video on the Web, according to comScore. Adobe's Flash Player is also installed on 98 percent of Internet-connected desktops and a growing number of mobile devices.

In the wake of Thursday's announcement by Adobe Systems that it is launching the Open Screen Project to make it easier for developers to use the company's Flash technology on a variety of devices, the lingering question is whether the move simply comes too late.

Over the last few years, the mobile market has burgeoned into a multibillion-dollar industry, but Adobe has struggled to match its desktop market share. Its Flash software is installed on an estimated 98 percent of desktop systems, but only on 30 percent or so of mobile devices.

Adobe Systems, together with Intel, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, Verizon Wireless and others, is behind a new Open Screen Project that seeks to create a runtime environment capable of delivering a consistent Web experience across a variety of operating systems and consumer electronics devices.

Adobe's Flash technology is under the hood of video announcements Wednesday from Adobe and Yahoo's Flickr photo-sharing service.

Flickr, a groundbreaking Web 2.0 site when it launched but relatively quiet since it was acquired by Yahoo in 2005, launched Flickr Video, which allows "pro" users to upload 90-second video clips. Pro accounts start at $25 a year and offer unlimited uploads, although no individual video can exceed 150 megabytes.