Google Creates YouTube Video Game to Highlight Chrome and Flash

 

 

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Google Creates YouTube Video Game to Highlight Chrome and Flash

via Mashable! by Jennifer Van Grove on 6/30/10

The latest stable release of Google Chrome comes with Adobe Flash built-in. To highlight the addition, Google has created Google Chrome FastBall, a Flash-based game for YouTube.

The FastBall game tasks users to complete a series of web-oriented challenges that integrate with APIs from a combination of Google and social services like Last.fm and Twitter in a series of YouTube videos. The idea behind the game is to both demonstrate Chrome's Flash capabilities and the underlying speed of the browser.

The game itself requires a tad too much thought for this early riser, but the more rested among us should try their hand at completing each of the five challenges as fast as possible. If you're super speedy, try and get the ball from one end of the obstacle course to the other in 66 seconds — the current record — or less.

The YouTube video game hails from Google Creative Lab and BBH Labs, who tells us that, "the video player for the experience is built on top of the YouTube API with six separate video players loaded on the page – each featuring a different piece of a handmade track. All games are loaded at the beginning, but are made invisible. As the current video comes to its stopping point, we pause it and cue the window to expand to show the game."

We should note, that though the game is meant to highlight Google Chrome with Flash, the game appears to play quite well in other browsers too. At the very least, FastBall is a fun distraction that demonstrates how Flash can enhance the YouTube experience.

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Reviews: Google, Google Chrome, Twitter, YouTube

More About: browser, Google, google chrome

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YouTube Weighs In On Flash vs HTML5 Video

 

 

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YouTube Weighs In On Flash vs HTML5 Video

via TechCrunch by Jason Kincaid on 6/29/10

Between the iPad's blocking of Flash earlier this year and the huge wave of ad campaigns, open letters, and debates that followed, it seems that everyone has an opinion on the merits (or lack thereof) of Flash on the modern web. Today, YouTube software engineer John Harding took to the site's official blog to weigh on the current status of HTML5 video support. The gist of it: while HTML5 is great, it can't do everything YouTube (or most mainstream video sites) need.

Harding explains his thesis point by point, beginning with the need for a standard video format for HTML5. Politics, codec quality, and patent disputes have kept HTML5 from adopting a single standard for video content (H.264, the industry standard, has licensing issues). Google hopes to remedy this with the WebM project and VP8, which were unveiled last month. But VP8 is still a long way from becoming the industry standard.

Next, Harding spells out issues with video streaming — namely, the fact that HTML5 doesn't really have anything that matches Flash when it comes to dynamically adjusting quality control and buffering. There's also the fact that HTML5 can't offer protect copyrighted content from being copied (Flash can through RTMPE). And there isn't a way to take an HTML5 video and embed it on another site, at least not the way YouTube does with annotations and other associated data. Other issues include the inability to play HTML5 full-screen, and no standard for Camera and Microphone access from the browser.

Of course, this doesn't come as a big surprise. YouTube started offering an HTML5 video player earlier this year, but the default player is still in Flash. And Google has made it quite clear that despite its general advocacy of open standards, it believes there's still quite a bit of life left in Flash. In fact, it's even baking it into its Chrome browser.

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JobOp: Web Graphic Interface designer - No Coding

"We are a very large company in Central PA with websites that serve 4mil + pageviews a week to roughly 500k people. We are in need of a top end Web Graphic Interface designer to take our sites visually to the next level. Must have experience putting together professional frontends with self service components. This person will not be coding, but will be designing and putting the final touches on wireframes that are already built. Think a visual edge.

If interested please respond to the thread at this link: http://www.meetup.com/New-Tech-Meetup-of-Central-PA/messages/boards/thread/9315559/. 

The position can be either as a consultant or a hire."

Google Voice Now Available to Everyone

Google Voice Now Available to Everyone

Google Voice is now available for everyone (provided you have a U.S. phone number).

The service, which started life out as GrandCentral, acts as a unified phone number. It can be used to make free calls to the U.S. and Canada, to send free text messages and more. Its voicemail system can even be checked by e-mail.

Now, after more than fifteen months of testing with invite-only accounts, Google Voice is ready for the masses.

As great as the service is, it hasn't existed without controversy. Last summer, Apple was criticized when the company barred the Google Voice iPhone app from its App Store. The battle over Google Voice was arguably the first shot in the current Apple-Google war.

And earlier today, Business Week reported that Frontier Communications is suing Google over alleged patent violations within the Google Voice service.

For many users however, Google Voice is a wonderful solution to the increasingly complex web of communication profiles. Instead of having to try to maint...

June Meeting: Photoshop Actions and CS5 Suite Raffle

Date and Time:  June 21, 2010 from 6:00pm - 7:30pm

RSVP: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHo4NTNJX29ZaTFRX3EyLUEwbVJMY2c6MQ

Address: 

Kline Branch - Dauphin County Library

530 South 29th Street, Harrisburg, PA 17104

Google Map

Speakers:

Rich Hauck is director at Hauck Interactive and teaches digital photo imaging at Harrisburg Area Community College. He has been designing interfaces and using Photoshop for personal and professional photography since 1998.

 

Agenda:
Photoshop Actions
We’ll hold a discussion on using Photoshop to bring out the best in one’s photos. Topics will include removing color casts, improving contrast, sharpening, and harnessing the power of Photoshop actions.

CS5 Suite Raffle

One lucky CPAUG member will be randomly selected from a raffle to win their choice of one of the CS5 Suites! Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 delivers tightly integrated software and services that measurably improve productivity and enable you to produce richly expressive work in print, web, interactive, video, audio, and mobile. Other lucky CPAUG members could win CS5-branded items such as a laptop sleeve, t-shirt, screen cloth, and more!

Everyone who is present will get a raffle ticket but the raffle will include bonus tickets for CPAUG members and a better chance to win:

A) 1 extra ticket for every meeting you've attended and signed-in for since January 2010.

B) 5 extra tickets for bringing a new person to this meeting.

C) 5 extra tickets if you were a presenter at one of our meetings since January 2010.

The fine print: You must be a CPAUG member and you must be present to win and this must not be your first attended meeting. Approximate retail value of the prize is up to $1900.00. CS5 Master Collection is excluded. Maximum 16 total tickets per person. Winner must not have won a CS Suite in the past 12 months.

Meetings are always free of charge and open to the public. Please note that this Library branch does not have free WiFi nor do they allow food or drink.

Congrats to our three O'Reilly eBook sweepstakes winners!

Congratulations to the Central Penn Adobe User Group (CPAUG) and O'Reilly Media ebook sweepstakes  winners Rich H., Harris T., and Jeff S.!  They've won their choice of one (1) ebook from the O'Reilly Ebook Bundles at http://oreilly.com/ 

Winners:  You should have received an email with prize claim instructions from "CPAUG" with the subject "CPAUG - eBook Winner".   Since this may end up in your spam folder, please let me know if you haven't received the email after checking your junk folder at cpaugmanager(at)gmail(dot)com.   

Thanks to O'Reilly for sponsoring this sweepstakes and to everyone who entered and good luck next time if you didn't win! 

O'Reilly e-books for $4.99

Found it on fatwallet.com today:

 

Add code "MB499" at checkout.  Looks like it worth with all of the e-books.  There are even 3 new CS5 books in there that it works with (Dreamweaver/Flash/Photoshop).

CPAUG and O'Reilly Media eBook Sweepstakes

CPAUG and O'Reilly Media eBook Sweepstakes

Complete the form for a chance to win your choice of one (1) ebook from the O'Reilly Ebook Bundles at http://oreilly.com/ from Central Penn Adobe User Group (CPAUG) and O'Reilly. When you buy ebooks through oreilly.com, you get lifetime access to the book, and whenever possible they provide it to you in four, DRM-free file formats — PDF, .epub, Kindle-compatible .mobi, and Android .apk — that you can use on the devices of your choice including iPhone and iPad. O'Reilly's ebook files are fully searchable, and you can cut-and-paste and print them. O'Reilly also alerts you when they've updated the files with corrections and additions.
ENTER THE SWEEPSTAKES USING THIS FORM: http://bit.ly/cpu5m2

SWEEPSTAKES RULES AND INFORMATION: There will be three (3) winners. You do not have to be a Central Penn Adobe User Group (CPAUG) member to win.  One entry per email address. Sweepstakes begins Friday, June 4, 2010 at 1:45PM EST and ends Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 6PM EST. Winners will be announced on Friday, June 18, 2010 on http://cenpennaug.blogspot.com/ and contacted by the email address provided in the form. Winners will be required to sign up for an O'Reilly "My Account" (http://bit.ly/9ktRCP) in order to receive and view their ebook prize. For complete rules, please go to http://bit.ly/cn8Xsr

LAST DAY TO ENTER! CPAUG & O'Reilly eBook Sweepstakes

CPAUG and O'Reilly Media eBook Sweepstakes

LAST DAY TO ENTER!

Complete the form for a chance to win your choice of one (1) ebook from the O'Reilly Ebook Bundles at http://oreilly.com/ from Central Penn Adobe User Group (CPAUG) and O'Reilly. When you buy ebooks through oreilly.com, you get lifetime access to the book, and whenever possible they provide it to you in four, DRM-free file formats — PDF, .epub, Kindle-compatible .mobi, and Android .apk — that you can use on the devices of your choice including iPhone and iPad. O'Reilly's ebook files are fully searchable, and you can cut-and-paste and print them. O'Reilly also alerts you when they've updated the files with corrections and additions.
ENTER THE SWEEPSTAKES USING THIS FORM: http://bit.ly/cpu5m2

SWEEPSTAKES RULES AND INFORMATION: There will be three (3) winners. You do not have to be a Central Penn Adobe User Group (CPAUG) member to win.  One entry per email address. Sweepstakes begins Friday, June 4, 2010 at 1:45PM EST and ends Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 6PM EST. Winners will be announced on Friday, June 18, 2010 on http://cenpennaug.blogspot.com/ and contacted by the email address provided in the form. Winners will be required to sign up for an O'Reilly "My Account" (http://bit.ly/9ktRCP) in order to receive and view their ebook prize. For complete rules, please go to http://bit.ly/cn8Xsr

D2W designer/developer workflow conference - online

So how is this different than the normal registration?

It is online. So you are free to watch any of the presentations live, but when you register, you also get access to the recorded presentations. That is 33 sessions from some of the biggest and best names in the business, including the keynote by Adobe's Doug Winnie.

After you register, you'll get an email back telling you the live room recordings. You'll be sent where to view the recordings after the conference.

What is D2W?

Kansas City's first Designer/Developer Workflow Conference. June 19-20 in downtown Kansas City, MO near the Power & Light District. We have some of the best speakers both locally and internationally coming to talk on all things workflow. If you are a designer, developer or both, this conference is for you.

Why Workflow?

What’s the big deal about workflow? Workflow is something we all do, day in and day out - although you may not even think about it. Do you work with multiple applications during the day? Do you work with team members, departments, clients, etc.? Improving those workflows is what D2W is all about. We have 3 tracks, with 60-minute sessions. Sign up as a designer, developer, or as a hybrid of both. In addition to the sessions centering around workflow, there'll be several biz-type sessions for Web professionals.

Who is speaking?

We have an amazing speaker list. Doug Winnie, Flash Catalyst Product Manager and Workflow Manager, Paul Trani - Flash Platform Evangelist, Pariah Burke - Adobe Instructor and workflow is his middle name, Rob Huddleston - Adobe Instructor and author extraordinaire as well as Tom Green who is a legend in the Flash world. We have many more amazing speakers, check out the speakers page and find out more.

Details

When:
June 19-20 2010 Registration and badge pick-up will be from 8:30-9am Saturday June 19th.

Details:

3 main tracks – Designer, developer, and hybrid, with some business/management sessions as well.

REGISTER and INFORMATION: http://d2w-online.eventbrite.com/

onOne Software Adds Adobe® Photoshop® CS5 Support to Free Products

News from our Sponsor, OnOne Software...

We are pleased to announce that onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative, timesaving solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers, today announced that PhotoFrame 4.5.1 Free Edition and PhotoTools 2.5.3 Free Edition now include support for the new Adobe® Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended software.  

onOne Software's free plug-ins for Photoshop are based on the award winning versions of PhotoTools 2.5 Standard Edition and PhotoFrame 4.5 Standard Edition and are compatible with Photoshop CS2, CS3 and CS4 and now Photoshop CS5.  PhotoTools 2.5 Free and PhotoFrame 4.5 Free provide photographers with select content from the Standard Editions of each product, while maintaining full-functionality, unlike the traditional restrictions of 30 day timed trials or watermarked images.  Free video tutorials are available at onOne University to help photographers quickly learn how to use and get the most of the products.  

Both PhotoTools 2.5.3 Free and PhotoFrame 4.5.1 Free are available immediately at no cost as downloads from onOne Software at http://www.ononesoftware.com/free/.   Users of previous versions of the free products should download and reinstall the newest versions.

I am happy to say that the team worked hard to offer CS5 support as quickly as possible.  We announced that all of our commercially available plug-ins now support Photoshop CS5 last week.  You can find information about the update on our blog at http://www.ononesoftware.com/blog/2010/06/01/photoshop-cs5-compatible-updates-now-available/.  The free update is available as a free download and is located at: http://www.ononesoftware.com/support/software_updates.php.

3rd Annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk is being held in Harrisburg, PA!

The 3^rd Annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk is being held in Harrisburg this year on Saturday, July 24 from 9-11am.  Michael Dunmire will be your walk leader on a 1.8 mile tour of Downtown Harrisburg and Riverfront Park.  Registration is limited to 50 people and there is no cost to participate.  They plan to meet up at Ceolta’s on 2^nd St after the walk for food, drinks, photo sharing, etc.

To view the walk-route and register:

http://worldwidephotowalk.com/walk/harrisburg-pa-downtown/

FAQ:

http://worldwidephotowalk.com/faq

Prizes:

http://worldwidephotowalk.com/prizes

Lightroom 3 is now available!

Lightroom 3 is available on Adobe’s site for immediate download

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

$299 full version

$99 upgrade if you already own version 2

NAPP discount gets you 15% off either price. ($30 or $15 savings)  Go through the NAPP site at www.photoshopuser.com if you’re a member, then Discounts/Software/Adobe to claim the discount.

Newegg.com also has LR3 for $274 today, although showing as pre-order for 6/1 which obviously already passed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832105807&cm_re=lightroom-_-32-105-807-_-Product

New UG Library Book: Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers

Be the first to read our latest book in the CPAUG library, Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: a professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC from Focal Press. This book is available currently so if you're interested, please reserve it now by filling out our Library Book Request Form.


Additionally, we'll be raffling off a copy of this book at our June 2010 meeting courtesy of our friends at Focal Press.

FREE Book—Reviewers Wanted for New USING Series

FREE Book—Reviewers Wanted for New USING Series
Que Publishing is excited to announce the new USING series! It's the fastest, easiest way to gain the technology skills you're looking for. Simply complete the online registration form, let us know what topics you're most interested in learning about, and Que will contact you regarding approval and next steps. Approved reviewers will receive up to two free USING books for review. The number of reviewers are limited, so don't delay.