Pretty cool
Funky flash:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40255643/
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Funky flash:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40255643/
Adobe made a couple of announcements today around our LiveCycle Policy Server product.
The announcements can be seen here and here, but as a brief summary:
Adobe Delivers New Cross-Format Rights Management Solution for More Secure Documents - essentially we have announced that LiveCycle Policy Server can now be used to protect naitive Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and CATIA formats, as well as PDF (of course!). Policy server is (I think) pretty cool - I know people have many different points of view on "rights management" or "control" (or information assurance as we like to call it!), but being able to update or revoke usage rights, confidently share information inside and outside the firewall and insure authorised usage only certainly has its uses!
Adobe also announced today Adobe Document Center, a hosted service that allows individuals to protect, control and track PDF, Word and Excel documents via the web.
Adobe Delivers New Hosted Service for Document Protection and Control Inside and Outside the Firewall -from the release..."this new, easy-to-use, web-based service gives business professionals the power to grant and dynamically revoke access to documents distributed inside or outside the firewall, as well as audit actions such as opening, adding comments to, or printing those documents". I think it is worth pointing out that Adobe Document Center isn't intended to be a web-based/hosted document storage service. It's designed as a way to securely share documents and information beween individuals and organisations, without fear of the document content or IP from getting into "the wrong hands."
I can see multiple uses for these technologies for the target audience of this blog. As analysts, you are all sending information, IP, analysis and reports outside the firewall - some of it paid for, some of it for review. How cool to be able to set some controls over these documents to ensure that only autorised individuals can see draft reports, that drafts can be revoked when the final report is published and to guarantee that reports (your IP) aren't emailed and printed-out once they are outside your firewall and your control!
For more information, visit http://dc.adobe.com. If you want to learn more these release then drop me an email.
A bunch of new EMEA-based customer success stories have just been posted on Adobe.com.
Quick summary:
Bundessortenamt - Innovative German government agency uses Adobe LiveCycle solutions to streamline completion, submission, and processing of registration forms for new plant varieties.
The Bundessortenamt (BSA) is an independent senior federal authority under the supervision of the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection. It is responsible for the granting of plant breeders’ rights, which protect new varieties of plants as intellectual property, as well as managing the National Listing of new plant varieties. all request forms were filled out by hand, which took about an hour per form, and then signed and mailed to the agency. Upon arrival, they were manually processed, audited, and archived. Once fully rolled-out, the new system will replace the paper-based process. BSA have now implemented an Adobe LiveCycle based solution saving 840 data entry hours annually and reduced data entry errors by more than 95%!
ÖBB-Infrastruktur Bau AG - Using Adobe LiveCycle solutions, hundreds of contractors, engineers, and architects share live railway infrastructure designs reducing costs, mistakes, and product overrun.
The Österreichische Bundesbahn (ÖBB) is the federal authority responsible for all aspects of the state-owned National Railway in Austria. Within ÖBB, the ÖBB-Infrastruktur Bau AG (ÖBB-IB) is responsible for all under-the-wheels construction, including all related structures, such as bridges, stations, and platforms. OBB-IB controls a budget of €1,400 million per year! Until 2005 ÖBB-IB handled all construction plans manually. A physical plan, which can be as large as 11 meters in length, could be copied 15 to 80 times during a project for review and editing by engineers, architects, and project managers. A team of three to five staff managed the collecting, consolidating, copying, packaging, and dispatching to all relevant parties—equating to one full-time person per year.ÖBB have now implemented a PDF workflow, utilizing Adobe Reader and LiveCycle Reader Extensions, in order to "digitize" the process.
The Department of Trade and Industry - Using Adobe LiveCycle solutions, hundreds of contractors, engineers, and architects share live railway infrastructure designs reducing costs, mistakes, and product overrun.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is the UK Government department responsible for trade, business, employees, consumers, science, and energy. To enhance productivity, the DTI implemented an electronic forms workflow built around Adobe LiveCycle software. The solution improves operations and efficiencies in Human Resources (HR) and other forms-based processes.
Ministry of Justice of the Generalitat de Catalunya - Using Adobe LiveCycle solutions to streamline the process of capturing data from the citizen
To simplify managing the large volume of paper received by the Ministry of Justice they have recently implemented a solution that uses forms in PDF in combination Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions and Barcoded Forms. Citizens with free Adobe Reader software can complete the form offline, automatically capturing data into a built-in barcode. As data is entered into the Adobe PDF form fields, the barcode instantly captures it. Citizens can print, sign, and return the completed forms to the Ministry, where staff can instantly capture form data by scanning the barcode, eliminating the need to rekey information into systems.
DAKOSY AG - Leading solution provider to ports and shipping professionals uses Adobe LiveCycle solution to improve and accelerate document workflows.
Historically, the port logistics and shipping industry has relied on error-prone, inefficient paper processes to manage its complex administrative process. However, increasing pressures from rising shipping volumes, expanding globalization, and more government and international regulation on importers and exporters are forcing the industry to find smarter ways of working. DAKOSY's eDoc solution, based on LiveCycle software, provides PDFs that exactly simulate paper-based documentation; built-in business logic in document workflows, including support for electronic signatures, automated time restrictions and reminders, different permission levels, and automatic 2D barcode generation; and support for industry standards, such as XML, streamline the exchange of data to and from databases.
Being from the UK, I wasn't actually aware that Emmy's were awarded for "Streaming Media Architecture & Components", but it seems they are. Which is lucky for Adobe as we have has just been awarded one for our Flash technology "in recognition of the software’s pivotal role in bringing television content to the Internet"
In the UK it seems that if you're not "Ant or Dec" or Dr Who you don't get a look-in for TV-based awards!
More information can be found here.
Also, it's worth checking out some of the award categories that come under the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards - Science, Engineering & Technology Awards for Broadcast Television. For me, the award for most descriptive title has to go to......
The Emmy Award for Technology Advances in Serial Digital Interface Solutions, Enabling Over 20 Years of Seamless Studio and Broadcast Infrastructure migration!!
I'm just back from Adobe MAX in Las Vegas. Over 3000 designers and developers spending 3 days indoors learning about the current - and future - plans and products from Adobe. It was a great event - lots of buzz, lots of interest and lots of "WOW's" from the audience when the speakers demo'd how Adobe technology was going to make a real difference to their day-to-day lives.
I even won $50 in the slot machine at the airport as I was leaving - so I came out of Vegas about even!!
Anyway, as with all these sorts of events there were a raft of releases and news released over the last few days. I won't go into a huge amount of detail on the event as you can read that here and here.
One of the things we did show at MAX were some very early Apollo* applications - built both by Adobe and others. We have talked a lot about Apollo over the last 9 months, so to see real - albeit alpha - applications was great.
From a news point of view Adobe announced some pretty interesting things: Soundbooth beta; partnerships with Teleca and Verizon; Digital Editions beta; and some great news around RIA development platforms for Mac and Linux.
All of these stories are interesting, but I think for me the Digital Editions news is the coolest. Very basically, Digital Editions is a Rich Interactive Application - built in Flex -that offers a great solution for "e-books". The technology essentially takes PDF as well as an XHTML-based reflow-centric publication format, and delivers a great "engaging" way to acquire, read, and manage content, including eBooks, digital magazines, digital newspapers and other digital publications.
I sat in on a briefing about Digital Editions and whilst I may not be replacing my books with bytes (I still buy CDs and convert them to MP3!), I do see a time when I will be happy to read sections of books or magazines on my PC or PDA - especially when the experience draws you in. The beta also includes some great books (classics) that you can download for free to test it out.
* Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being created by Adobe that will allow developers to leverage existing web technologies, such as Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax, and PDF to easily create and deploy desktop applications.