Adobe Releases Flash Player 11, AIR 3

By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 10/4/2011

Los Angeles - Adobe Systems revealed at its MAX 2011 technology conference, here, Monday that LG and TiVo will add Flash-based applications via Adobe AIR to connected TVs and digital home devices.

Samsung had previously announced support for AIR in its smart TVs.

AIR delivers Flash-based console-quality gaming and premium video across TVs, Blu-ray Disc players and set-top boxes.

Adobe also announced that the latest versions -- Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 --are now available.

More than 100 digital home devices are now certified to support Adobe Flash and AIR, which the company expects will lead to rapid growth for Flash-based applications across connected televisions and other devices.

New gaming apps like Frima Studio's Zombie Tycoon, VH1's "I Love the 80's" Trivia or Raider from PlayJam, as well as premium video experiences from SnagFilms, Flingo, Epix and others are just a few of the applications that are enabled by AIR.

"TVs and other connected devices in the digital living room are the next frontier for rich entertainment apps," stated Danny Winokur, Adobe platform general manager and VP. "Flash-based applications are transforming content consumption on TVs as developers embrace new opportunities to deliver beautiful HD content to increasingly powerful digital home devices connected to a big screen."

With the AIR SDK, Flash Builder and Flash Professional CS5.5 software, developers can build new applications for connected digital home devices or extend existing Flash-based experiences from desktops and mobile devices to TVs.

AIR 3 adds a series of advancements to TVs including full hardware-accelerated rendering for 2D and 3D graphics to enable console-quality gaming applications, the company said.

The platform also supports HD videos with Dolby and DTS 7.1-channel surround sound. The new game input API enables developers to also build in support for a range of devices in the gaming experience, from TV screens, to joysticks, smartphones and tablets.

Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 enable the next generation of immersive application experiences across devices and platforms including Android, Apple iOS (via AIR), BlackBerry Tablet OS, Mac OS, Windows, connected TVs and other platforms.

The platforms allow developers to deliver a new class of gaming and premium video experiences, as well as data-driven applications with back-end systems integration across devices, including the iPhone and iPad via AIR.