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Although only currently likely to prick the ears of online developers and Web site owners looking to assess compatibility levels, Adobe Systems Inc. has officially opened up the pre-release version of its Adobe Flash Player 10 for public download.
Adobe opens pre-release Flash Player 10 for beta download. Image: Adobe Systems.
With new features included specifically to assist Web developers and designers with the creation of special effects and cinematic experiences, Flash Player 10 (a.k.a. Astro) also offers up custom filters and support for effects crafted by Adobe’s Pixel Bender, which, while a part of Adobe’s popular After Effects CS3 suite, is also available for free via Adobe Labs.
“One of the best things about the creative features now available in Adobe Flash Player 10 beta is that they won’t slow down performance,” enthused Grant Skinner, CEO and chief architect of gskinner.com about the emergence of Flash Player 10.
“With Flash Player 10 beta, developers can enable SWF content to render through the memory bandwidth and computational horsepower of the GPU hardware processor, freeing up the CPU to do more -- such as render 3D content and intricate effects, and process complex business logic. No other browser runtime has these capabilities,” he added.
Adobe is also keen to point out that the pre-release player download also delivers native 3D transformation and animation capabilities, extensible rich-text layout, and graphics processing unit hardware acceleration. Also, new video link bit-rate streaming between Flash Player 10 and future versions of Adobe’s Flash Media Server will provide seamless playback by automatically adjusting video quality according to fluctuations in bandwidth -- without ever needing to wait for the stream to buffer and catch up.
Other additions include a new text engine that enables designers and developers to wield more creative influence across font attributes such as style and rotation. Flash Player 10 also provides enhanced choice when it comes to text layouts, including vertical and bidirectional offerings that support rich Internet applications (RIAs) such as e-books and online publications.
Compatible with Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, Mac OS X and the open-source Linux operating system, the beta Flash Player 10 download can be grabbed by clicking HERE.
The full and finished version of Flash Player 10 is expected to arrive before the close of 2008.
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