| Adobe releases Moviestar beta for Flash Player 9
Adobe Systems's upgrade for its Flash Player, released on Tuesday, adds support for one of the latest video encoding standards as well as new audio support. The upgrade, called Moviestar, applies to Adobe's latest Flash Player, version 9. A beta of the upgrade will be available for download later in the day, with a final version to be ready in the third quarter, Adobe said. Moviestar supports the playback of video encoded using the H.264 standard, which allows for greater compression of video files than previous standards while maintaining quality. Adobe already supports H.264 encoding in products such as Premiere Pro and the After Effects video editing software. Moviestar also includes High-Efficiency AAC support, an improved audio compression technology. Although the complete specifications of the upgrade are complicated, Adobe has tried to stick to industry standards as users sort through a range of available video technologies, wrote Tinic Uro, an Adobe engineer who works on the Flash Player, on his blog.
Taunton readies for Hollywood invasion
Filming of Martin Scorcese's feature "Ashecliffe" is set to begin this week at Whittenton Mills, but it's unlikely that city residents will be able to get an in-person sneak preview of the action. "It's a closed set, per the direction of Martin Scorcese," Mayor Charles Crowley said. The mayor has a meeting scheduled this afternoon with the Oscar-winning director's publicist and will discuss the possibility of making the set a bit more open. He said he would like to work out an arrangement to allow students in audio-visual classes at Taunton High School to be on set to see how the pros do it. Based on Dennis Lehane's novel, "Shutter Island," the film will feature a number of Hollywood stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo and Michelle Williams.
Intractable, implacable, unavoidable change
I had a great visit today with an undergraduate journalism class at Washington State. The "professor" was former SR reporter Ben Shors who took a voluntary buyout last year. Ben is now teaching at WSU as an adjunct faculty member and also is on staff as advisor to The Evergreen, the student newspaper. Ben's class was as well prepared for our discussion as any class I've visited in recent years. It was an exhilarating visit. After the class I met with The Evergeen staff and other student journalists for a wide-ranging brown bag session that kept coming back to what these students need to do to prepare for careers in journalism. Inevitably, I fall back on some of my own "war" stories to illustrate my views. So I talked a bit about the changes I've experienced since becoming a professional journalist in 1973.
Microsoft prepares to take Office online
In addition to Google's effort, which, as of earlier this month, also includes presentation software, IBM has announced its free Lotus Symphony productivity software, which prompted 100,000 downloads in its first week of availability. Adobe, meanwhile, on Monday is expected to announce it has acquired Virtual Ubiquity, a start-up that has built a web-based word processor, called "Buzzword", using Adobe's Flash and AIR technologies. Adobe is also introducing a service, code-named "Share", that allows people to share and store documents via the web. A blend of online services and traditional software
For Microsoft, Office Live Workspace is also the next step in what the company touts as its "software plus services" strategy, essentially the notion that online services can serve as a complement to locally run software, but not necessarily fully replace software running on a consumer's own desktop machine or on a businesses server.
Denzler: Caught off guard by a proud moment
It has been my finding that no matter how trying some parental decisions and moments may be, witnessing a smile on a child's face on Christmas morning, being given a hug, a firm handshake by a young adult as they leave for college or simply being told goodnight before another day comes to an end are great rewards. With that in mind I wish to pass along a quote from Ecclesiastes: "Generations come and go but it makes no difference. The sun rises and sets and hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south and north, here and there. Twisting back and forth, getting nowhere. The rivers run into the sea but the sea is never full, and the water returns again to the rivers and flows again to the seas ... Everything is unutterably weary and tiresome. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied; no matter how much we hear, we are not content, so I saw that there is nothing better for men than that they should be happy in their work.
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