ARena

Four year-old Madeleine McCann went missing from the resort of Praia da Luz in Portugal on the 3rd May 2007.

Madeleine McCann’s family believe these pictures of the missing
four-year-old could play a vital role in the search for her.
The photo of the youngster shows clearly the her distinctive right eye,
where the pupil runs into the blue-green iris.

It is this distinguishing mark that will identify Madeleine to those on
the lookout for her.

IF YOU HAVE A BLOG AND YOU’RE READING THIS, THEN PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.

IF YOU’RE READING THIS AND HAVE ANY INFORMATION THAT MIGHT HELP IN LOCATING THIS LITTLE GIRL THEN PLEASE CALL CRIMESTOPPERS ON:

INTERNATIONAL: +44 1883 731 336

UK:
0800 555 111

Let’s help find her!

Adobe and salesfoce.com today announced the availability of the Flex toolkit for Apex. You can read the details here, and download the toolkit here!

Apparently – "Using the new Flex Toolkit for Apex, developers can create richer application experiences for their salesforce.com deployments and Apex applications. Developers can also make their Flex-based applications available on the AppExchange directory, and deploy them on-demand and with no additional software required."

El Reg puts the announcement in context here and here.

I was in NYC last week at Adobe’s Financial and Industry Analyst Meetings. These events coincided with the launch of Adobe Creative Suite 3 AND CTIA (mobile jamboree in Orlando) – so a busy old week from a press release point of view.

Even from an internal point of view, I think it is amazing that in a single blog post I can write about news from one company (Adobe) that encompasses engineering 3D CAD, Mobile technology and partnerships, world-leading creative tools,electronic mortgages and digital signatures, and true business issues.

Any other software vendor out there who can do that??

He’s a bit of a round-up for you….

3D: at the end of last week Adobe announced here the public preview of Acrobat 3D Version 8, allowing users to download the beta version here and test it out. I’ve seen some demo’s of Acrobat 3D and it’s very impressive to see very complex 3D CAD models converted into PDF and viewable in Reader! Adding the ability to measure, comment and make cross-sections of the models is truly amazing!

According to the press release…Acrobat 3D Version 8 will deliver enhanced capabilities for producing compressed PDF documents with precise geometry from large, complex CAD assemblies. The product supports conversion to 3D PDF from over 40 formats, including those for Autodesk Inventor, Dassault Systemes CATIA, PTC Pro/ENGINEER, SolidWorks, and UGS NX and I-deas. The latest version also will enable users to distribute product manufacturing information—used to convey geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, annotations, and dimensions directly on a 3D model—in PDF. In addition, Acrobat 3D Version 8 users will have the option of exporting precise manufacturing CAD data from PDF into neutral file formats such as STEP, IGES and Parasolid for downstream processes such as machining operations and tool and mold design.

CTIA: Adobe was present at CTIA in Orlando last week showing the mobile world some of the great technology currently (and soon to be) driving the way people use their mobile devices.

First up is a release on the quite outstanding success that NTT DoCoMo has been seeing with its (FlashCast based) i-channel service. In less that 2 years, DoCoMo has seen it’s i-channel server go from zero to 10million subscribers (that’s an average of about 14,000 new subscribers to the service every, single day!!) I think the DoCoMo quote sums it up.."With 10 million subscribers in less than two years, i-channel has surpassed our most optimistic projections. With Flash Lite and FlashCast, Adobe has dramatically impacted the mobile experience for our subscribers.”

But it’s not only Japan where Adobe is seeing success in the mobile space. In the USA, Verizon customers will be the first to experience the FlashCast service with Verizon Wireless being the first wireless operator in North America to bring Adobe FlashCast based data services to mobile subscribers, in the second half of 2007.

And on the other side of the world in Taiwan Adobe announced a similar partnership with
Chunghwa Telecom to deliver FlashCast technology to more than eight million subscribers in Taiwan. The new offering is expected to deliver rich data services across the Chunghwa Telecom network before the end of 2007.

For the more "enterprisey" out there, this might be of interest. According to a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) for Adobe "
more than eight in 10 executives believe their companies lose sales each year because of failure to create engaged customers, and one in 10 estimates insufficient engagement accounts for 50 to 75 percent of lost sales." Interestingly, "
The report notes that while most executives believe that the ability to engage customers is increasingly critical to business success, few think their companies are doing it well, and executives believe this failure has an impact on the bottom line. They also view technology as having an increasingly vital role in their customer engagement strategies." You can see the release here, and a full copy of the report can be downloaded here.

Still on the "enterprisey" focus, Adobe announced with MISMO in Florida last week
guidelines for the standardization of electronically signed PDF documents in the mortgage process! Might not sound quite as "cool" as mobile data services or 3D CAD in Reader, but if you consider the stress involved in buying a house, anything that can make the process less painful has got to be good news!  As Eugene Lee says "
“Now, mortgage professionals can electronically integrate two of the most crucial steps of the mortgage process – signature gathering and verification – into the electronic mortgage workflow using PDF. With today’s announcement, we are one step closer to streamlining the entire electronic mortgage workflow, from application to fulfillment, with PDF.” Amen!

Finally, the really BIG news from last week was the launch of Adobe Creative Suite 3.This was the largest software release in Adobe’s 25 year history -
13 point products, 6 suites, 9 key technologies, 2 services and 7 press releases! Check out JohnnyL’s blog for more details and links to demos that will blow you away!

For the press releases, here’s the full list:

Adobe Unleashes Creative Suite 3 Product Line

Adobe Debuts Creative Suite 3 Web Premium

Adobe Unveils Creative Suite 3 Design Premium

Adobe Reveals Creative Suite 3 Production Premium

Adobe Delivers Two Editions of Photoshop CS3

Adobe Introduces Powerful InDesign CS3 Release

Adobe Device Central CS3 Mobilizes Creative Pros

Massively overused "space" reference in the title – but this is pretty major.

Earlier this week Adobe announced here the availability of the public alpha of Apollo for developers as a free download on Adobe Labs

For those of you unaware of Apollo, it is: the code name for a cross-operating system application runtime that allows web developers to leverage their existing web skills to build and deploy RIAs to the desktop, that work across operating systems and outside the browser to deliver a more consistent and engaging user experience. Apollo is an important element of Adobe’s strategy to provide technologies and product workflows for developers and designers to create and deliver new kinds of high-impact, rich applications, content and experiences to engage people virtually anywhere at anytime.

According to Kevin Lynch: “RIAs have become a core element of today’s web computing experience. We’re working to enable this new generation of innovative applications to bridge the chasm between the web and the personal computer. Apollo will empower millions of web developers to make their RIAs first-class citizens on the desktop using the tools they already know. With this alpha release, we’re continuing our collaborative effort with the community of developers and designers to further evolve how the world engages with ideas and information. We can’t wait to see what the community will create in this new medium.

Check it out at www.adobe.com/go/apollo- it’s going to be huge!!.

Creative Suite 3 Launch Event – everyone is invited!

At 3:30pm EST on the 27th March, Adobe will be celebrating the company’s highly-anticipated milestone launch of Adobe Creative Suite 3. The event will be webcast live from New York City – and you are all invited to catch it live here.

Themed “Creative License,” the event will showcase how the new Creative Suite 3 empowers customers to expand creative expression. Adobe executives Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer, Shantanu Narayen, president and chief operating officer and John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions will present the company’s vision for creative markets and offer event guests and online viewers firsthand looks at the new product offerings.

Out of order from the monthly customer round-up – but this was to good to hold on to!

Basically, Renault are one of the first manjor manufacturers to (publically) announce a move to Acrobat 3D to assist with 3D visualization and collaboration.

You can read the press release here, but in summary:

Renault Group, one of the world’s leading carmakers, has adopted Adobe Acrobat 3D software to extend 3D visualization and design collaboration capabilities across its extended enterprise of employees and supply chain partners. Renault plans to deploy the product throughout its engine and body organizations, and expects to harness PDF to more reliably and securely share 3D designs via widely available, free Adobe Reader® software. The agreement involves 5,000 seats of Acrobat 3D.

Acrobat 3D allows Renault teams to convert 3D models from a wide variety of major CAD formats and embed them into PDF files through a simple drag-and-drop process or by capturing the OpenGL displays—regardless of whether they have the specific CAD application. Three-dimensional objects can be combined in a single PDF document with relevant product development information, such as spreadsheets, presentations, images, and even dynamic XML data extracted from the company’s PDM system. Engineers can then quickly share the PDF file with other departments or external partners in an immediate, iterative feedback process alongside more structured design reviews. When enabled by Acrobat 3D, Renault’s extended team members using Adobe Reader can interact with the 3D content in PDF, view product structure, apply digital signatures, and leverage commenting, measurement and cross-section tools directly on 3D objects.

VIDEO

WEB

February round-up of customer stories. Enjoy.

Bilprovningen – the Swedish Vehicle Inspection Company – has the job of improving road safety, vehicle performance, and reducing the impacts of traffic across Sweden, with one of the principal activities being the regular inspection of the nation’s vehicles, primarily at 180 stations throughout Sweden. Each year, Bilprovningen handles more than 5.5 million customer interactions and completes millions of inspection reports.

With over five million reports a year and a requirement to archive reports for as long as ten years, Bilprovningen faced several problems, including managing such a large volume of archives and retrieving reports if questions arose from car owners, companies, or government officials.

To address the problem, the company wanted to replace its paper-based processes with more streamlined, automated workflows for capturing inspection data and generating required reports. After evaluating solutions for automating forms processes, Bilprovningen selected Adobe software to aid the solution.

INSEAD – the number one business school outside the United States – and number four in the world – was looking to optimize the long and arduous acceptance process that it’s 800 MBA students annual need to endure.

Etheryl, a Paris-based an application service provider for academic institutions, devised a solution that could support the lengthy application document and the proper submission procedures. Prospective students applying to INSEAD must fill out the 30-page application that covers their profile, reasons for applying, and personal achievements.

The sheer size of the application file, along with the variety of information it contains and the information exchange processes, prompted Etheryl to integrate a number of Adobe technologies – including Designer and Reader Extensions – into the the INSEAD acceptance and registration platform to create a 100% digital application process and student file.

Nike -very cool, just check out the site:http://www.nike.com/nikeair/us/

Cuatrecasas – With 800 attorneys, 12 offices nationwide, and an international presence in Lisbon, Porto, Brussels, Paris, New York, and Sao Paulo, Cuatrecasas is the second largest law firm in Spain, and well-known as a technology innovator in the legal profession. Cuatrecasas was looking to implement a new and technologically innovative project to automate its invoice processes to reduce costs, as well to enhance the efficiency of internal operations and ensuring data integrity and confidentiality.

After evaluating a number of options, Cuatrecasas realized that electronic documents in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) were the market standard and the best solution to their problem.

Adobe ran a short unconference/eventlet earlier this week in our office in downtown San Francisco called AdobeEngage. The idea behind the event is to unveil a bunch of cool apps based on Adobe’s latest technologies, and to bring some smart people – bloggers, thinkers, developers – together to talk about them.

Rather than try to summarize the event – actually fairly tricky as I didn’t get to go – here is a link list to what some of the attendees saw, thought and wrote.

Ryan Stewart:

http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=694

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/27/talking-apollo-with-kevin-lynch-at-adobe-engage/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=292

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=290

Tim O’Reilly:

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/creating_engagi.html

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/the_medical_moo_1.html

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/the_first_real.html

Cote:

http://www.redmonk.com/cote/2007/02/27/adobe-engage-good-morning-apollo/

The Governor:

http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/02/27/adobe-engage-fighting-against-the-architecture-of-the-space/

http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/02/27/acesis-simply-powerful-point-of-care-information-management-health-20/

http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/02/28/brightcove-towards-a-media-we-distribution-model/

Robert Scoble:

http://scobleizer.com/2007/02/27/killer-demo-listen-to-the-keyboards/

http://scobleizer.com/2007/02/27/drinking-the-adobe-coffee/

David Berlind:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=361

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=362

Richard Ziade:

http://www.basement.org/archives/2007/02/orbiting_the_user_at_adobe_eng.html

Chafic Kazoun:

http://rewindlife.com/2007/02/26/in-san-francisco-for-adobes-engage-event/

http://rewindlife.com/2007/02/27/from-enagage-apollo-new-flex-new-flash-media-server-and-stand-alone-flash-video-player-this-year/

I’m back in the UK now – didn’t get a chance to blog about the great and good at the show.  Anyway, I’ve decided to show off a few pictures from the show – and a little bit of comment!

The venue: I went to 3GSM in Cannes a few times before it moved to Barcelona.  Whilst Cannes was great – every thing and everyone right on-top of each other in a small space, I think the 3GSM event location in the Fira Barcelona is stunning – especially when the sun comes out and the fountains kick-in:

Adobe Flash Cast and Flash Home: Adobe were showing off a number of things at 3GSM including Flash cast (our client/server technology that delivers compelling and engaging data services on mobiles) and Flash home

|Flash home takes the concept of an active homescreen and adds the "richness" that Flash brings to the mobile experience.  Basically, it would allow a phone user to have all the information they need – both phone info (battery life, signal, call logs etc) and data services (weather, news channels etc) – promoted to the very first screen when you pick-up or turn on your phone.  Thing of a mobile portal that’s always on, always up-to-date and always relevant!

Demo screens of Flash home – if you look carefully you can see the phone info (signal and battery strength) alongside "live" info (weather).  You can allow see the tabs along the top – news, call log, whatever the user, carrier or handset manufacturer wants.

Demo screens of Flash cast

Best "experience": I said in my blog from the show that the LG Prada phone was probably the prettiest (and most popular) item at the show.  It may be flashy, targeted at the "fashionita" and (likely) to retail for about 600euro, but it really shows what is possible in terms of both hardware AND software design – did I mention that the LG Prada (as well as the LG Chocolate range) use Adobe Flash to build and run the UI?

Anyway, not only did LG pull out all the stops with the phone, there stand at 3GSM was amazing.  Imagine a cross between an Apple Store and a really high-end jewelry store. The handsets were displayed like tiny pieces of sculpture and the somehow LG managed to provide a retail experience at an industry tradeshow. Well done LG.

Finally:

…End of a long day, Stefan??