It was fun being on stage at MAX with David Wadhwani to share a few of the projects that we have been working on in XD. The team has been exploring how new form factor displays, new interactions (like touch and gesture), cloud connections and even new hardware might change how you all create and in turn how it might impact what software we need to build. And we have been having a serious amount of fun.

Although there are many explorations going on, we chose three to highlight. The first, Mighty, is our connected pen:

The Adobe “Project Mighty” Connected Pen

We actually started project Mighty, our “cloud pen” to help us focus on the future of drawing. I’ve always been a little obsessed with drawing. An early mentor of mine said: “If you can’t draw, you can’t think. I guess I took that to heart. The good news is that absolutely anyone can train himself or herself to draw. With the right tools to support you it’s a little bit like learning to ride a bike – you just have to keep doing it until you tease out your own style of drawing.

Mighty is pressure sensitive, which helps it draw a natural and expressive line. It is also connected to the Creative Cloud through the software and a local Bluetooth LE connection. We have used this connection to pull up Kuler themes and enable a “cloud clipboard” which gives you access to assets you have saved to the cloud for reuse.

Mighty was created with the help of Ammunition, the industrial design firm founded by Robert Brunner. They landed on a three-sided, twisted form that is inspired by the ergonomics of holding a pen. When a child struggles with writing, he or she is given a triangular grip that fits over the pencil. Our design takes that one step further by twisting the pen’s triangular form so that it also rests gently on the hand. It also yields a sculptural object that is both beautiful and distinct. There’s a lot of hardware technology involved in bringing a high tech pen like this to life, so we’ve been working with San Francisco-based MindTribe on the electrical and mechanical engineering.

Although we spend many hours a day behind the keyboard and mouse, we still often start the creative process as we did thousands of years ago with pen and paper. But with tablets and new input methods like Mighty, this is going to change – I am confident. Over the last year, my tablet has replaced my sketchbook. I never thought I would give up drawing in a moleskin sketchbook.

Our second exploration, code named Napoleon is complementary to Mighty. This digital ruler is designed to bring back some of the feeling of drawing with analog tools like the t-square and triangle. Adobe has been talking about building a physical drawing aid like this ever since we built our first digital drafting table, almost two years ago.

Adobe “Project Mighty” Connected Pen & Project Napoleon” Digital Ruler Working on iPad

I was originally trained as an architect, and still find great comfort and confidence drawing with these tools. There is something about the confidence of drawing a line aided by a physical device – the tactile feedback you get as you move the straightedge around – as well as the fluidity and accuracy of drawing that comes from interacting with physical objects. Our little ruler (Napoleon, get it?) creates a digitally projected edge that you can use to accurately draw shapes and lines. It just feels right.

The Adobe “Project Napoleon” Digital Ruler

We are looking at a lot of potential features for Napoleon, but a favorite of mine is snapping to vanishing points. Imagine how easy it will be to sketch in perspective, when you can use the ruler to quickly create and then snap to perspective vanishing points that are well off screen.

Finally, Project Context is the most ambitious of the three explorations. I like to think of it as our answer to “big content.” You know, just like big data, but with images and text and video and the like. Most of us have experience with printing hundreds of images and trying to pin them all on the wall or spreading them on the floor just to try to figure out the big picture. This is another good example of how something was lost when we went from physical to digital. Somehow file folders full of assets, or tiled displays of images don’t quite cut it. We think that large screens with touch and gesture interaction paired with the appropriate software design are a way to not only get back what was lost, but to take the organizing and producing experience to a whole new level.

When combined with InDesign and the Digital Publishing Suite, Context creates an ideal editorial and publishing environment for Wired and other publishers. Context offers a powerful and intuitive way to grab assets from just about anywhere, and to collaboratively organize and eventually even edit and publish them. These exploratory projects stand a much better chance of becoming real shipping products when we work with a customer to build them. We have the good fortune to be working with WIRED to build out the first version of Context as a system to support the editorial and layout process for their magazine.

Digitally enabled, cloud connected physical devices leverage the best from both the digital and the analog worlds. They could enable whole new levels of creative productivity and artistic confidence – and one of the many innovation milestones that makes an Adobe incredible place to work.

Adobe MAX, The Creativity Conference, opened today in Los Angeles and we announced some big news: a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, including fully integrated cross-device collaboration, community and publishing capabilities; and the next generation of Adobe’s pro creative desktop applications.

Here are some of the details:

Adobe Unveils Major Update to Creative Cloud

A milestone update to Adobe Creative Cloud simplifies the entire creative process with new versions of desktop tools; services that take publishing content to the next level; and capabilities that make it easier than ever to collaborate and share work on a worldwide basis. Behance, the world’s leading online creative community with over 1.4 million creatives in the network, is now central to the Creative Cloud experience.

Adobe’s desktop tools, previously known as Creative Suite (CS) are now branded CC to reflect that they are an integral part of Creative Cloud and have been reinvented to support a more intuitive, connected way of creating.  All of Adobe’s fan-favorite desktop apps have been updated: InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Dreamweaver CC, Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Muse CC and more.  Indeed our most iconic application, a powerful new version of Photoshop – Adobe Photoshop CC – will anchor this update to Creative Cloud.  In all, Creative Cloud will now consist of more than 30 tools and services that enable professional grade content creation and delivery across print, web, mobile apps, video and photography.

This major update is expected to be available, around the globe, in June.

Adobe Accelerates Shift to the Cloud

Moving forward, the company also announced that it will focus creative software development efforts on Creative Cloud.  While Adobe Creative Suite 6 products will continue to be supported and available for purchase, there are no plans for future releases of Creative Suite or other CS products. By focusing development on Creative Cloud, Adobe can accelerate the rate of innovation that it can deliver to creatives worldwide.

We thought long and hard before doing this, and we understand that this transition may be hard for some people.  As our teams work to deliver a constant stream of innovation for Creative Cloud members, we are actively engaging with customers to answer their questions — in forums like Creative Cloud community. And attractive pricing plans and promotions for individuals, teams and enterprise customers are being offered to make the transition to Creative Cloud really easy.  More information can be found at on our Creative Cloud plans page.

More detailed information about today’s major Creative Cloud update can be found in the full press release here.

And if you have specific questions, chances are you’ll find an answer in our comprehensive FAQ.

With conflicting research on how classrooms can and should change to better support student learning, it can be challenging for education reformers to know where to focus.

Recently, the Carnegie Corporation announced a $15M grant program to seed the creation of innovative models for new high schools in the U.S. To qualify, applicants must demonstrate how their school plans to leverage Carnegie’s 10 integrated design principles for a high performing secondary school. In their report, Opportunity by Design: New High School Models for Student Success, Carnegie notes that “Instead of retooling individual elements such as teacher preparation, learning time, or technology in isolation, all the elements that we know work and some emerging tools must be integrated into comprehensive school designs that will truly meet the needs of every student.” In essence, we need a complete redesign of how schools work and what schooling means.

There is a lot to be done, but for starters, we’ve seen how integrating technology into a school’s fundamental design can create new avenues for learning and teaching. New tools for visualizing data enable teachers to explain complex material, while helping students better understand complicated math or science concepts. Technology unlocks access to ideas and resources that have value and application beyond the walls of a computer lab; the power of technology impacts classrooms long after the laptop has been powered down for the night.

Most importantly, technology fosters creative thinking by expanding the tools we have to be creative. By incorporating digital storytelling or mobile game design into the classroom, we allow students to explore and think outside the box. And, as we’ve said here before, companies want employees who can do more than specific tasks – they want people who can think creatively, who innovate and who have the right skills for tomorrow’s workplace. To better prepare our students for success, we should integrate lessons and assignments that promote creative and innovative thinking. Technology is just one tool that will help educators achieve these goals.

The opportunity to innovate is here. What do you think it will take to create the high school of tomorrow?

Today, the world needs creative thinkers to help solve the big challenges we face — in our global economy, in our environment, and in social issues. And we need people who are fluent in the latest digital tools that fuel creativity and self-expression. To inspire young women and help them develop skills they will need to become future problem solvers and innovators, Adobe Education hosted a special Tech Girls event at Presentation High School in San Jose, CA. A group of girls, ages 11 to 14, came from all over Silicon Valley to learn how to use Adobe tools including Adobe Edge Animate and Adobe Muse in a series of workshops. Mala Sharma, vice president of GTM and strategy for Creative Pro and Education at Adobe, spoke to these young women about her background and encouraged them to consider careers in technology.

The workshops were led by Adobe Education Leaders; Deila Caballero of Presentation High School, Jeff Larson of Balboa High School in San Francisco and Kevin McMahon of Bellarmine College Prep. All of the presenters were impressed by the knowledge and talent of these young women and praised Tech Girls for providing youth with such amazing opportunities:

“Workshops like this one directly impact the future of STEM fields by planting the seeds of technological inspiration in the minds of today’s young women. By encouraging each generation of girls to be fearless and confident technology users we give them a chance to explore educational opportunities which they may not otherwise have in the standard education model. The best part of this event was watching each student explore a new technology with excitement, creativity and success.” Deila Caballero, Presentation High School, San Jose, CA

“Having the chance to teach Adobe Edge to the young ladies involved in the Tech Girls workshop was a delightful reminder of the capacity of young people to rapidly learn and work with technology. The girls were quick to pick up on the general workflow and then quickly move into discovering things about the software I wasn’t even sure we’d have time to cover. I hope my daughter has a chance to participate in something like the Tech Girls program at some point, as the program is a beacon for encouraging girls pursuit of STEM related interests.” Jeff Larson, Balboa High School, San Francisco, CA

“The Tech Girls Workshop was a great experience. When teaching new apps such as Muse and Edge, students usually require some adjustment period. But these bright young girls were almost finishing my sentences by the time we were done. Moreover, their website and animation work was quite impressive. As a father of a daughter, the Tech Girls program gives me great hope for the future.” Kevin McMahon of Bellarmine College Prep, San Jose, CA

This is just one way Adobe is getting involved in helping youth explore new opportunities through technology and innovation. Share with us how your work inspires kids in new and creative ways.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Adobe Primetime (formerly “Project Primetime”) is now available, offering the industry’s most advanced TV publishing and monetization platform for programmers and pay-TV service providers. Comcast Cable and NBC Sports Group have signed on as first Adobe Primetime customers and we’re collaborating with dozens of industry leaders to pave the way for TV content across every connected screen. Ecosystem partners include Akamai, Amazon Web Services, Cisco Systems, Elemental Technologies, Envivio, Harmonic, iStreamPlanet, RGB Networks, thePlatform and others.

Adobe Primetime integrates Adobe’s video publishing, player, DRM, advertising and analytics solutions to help eliminate the complexity of reaching audiences across screens and to create great digital video experiences while also offering new monetization opportunities for programmers and pay TV service providers. The seamless tie-in with ecosystem partners offers an unprecedented, highly scalable and reliable solution that can be implemented consistently across devices and platforms.

The Adobe Primetime Player is available for Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS, and will support connected TVs as well as gaming platforms such as Roku and Xbox in 2013. To learn more about Adobe Primetime and how we’re helping content owners and distributors more efficiently bring more content to more devices, see our press release and blog post.

Additionally, given the rise in digital video consumption, we also published The U.S. Digital Video Benchmark report. The Adobe Digital Index team looked at 19.6 billion video starts on media websites from 2012 to confirm the growth of broadcast video consumption across connected devices. A few key findings include:

• TV Everywhere adoption increased 12-fold
• Mobile video viewing grew by 300%
• Facebook users are seeing twice the level of engagement with video over non-video content

Check out our animated infographic below and see the full report on the latest video trends for device use, ad placement, social media, and more.

Technology is changing the way we teach and the classroom is no longer defined by paper, pencils and chalkboards. Thanks to technology, traditional ways of learning are evolving toward a more creative platform. In fact, educators and students alike are redefining the way they share and gain knowledge.

Last month, we had the pleasure of hosting 125 delegates from 12 countries across Asia Pacific at the Adobe Education Leadership Forum 2013. Many education leaders and institutions such as Strathcona Baptist Girls’ Grammar School in Australia, Institute of Technical Education in Singapore, Learning Links Foundation in India and Korea Education Research Information Service, came together to share their experiences and discuss changes they see in education today.

Trevor Bailey, director of worldwide education at Adobe, addressed the importance of fostering creativity, highlighting that it should no longer be an elective in the classroom – it is the future. He also shared how technology enables teachers and students to tap into new streams of learning.

Bruce Dixon, co-founder of Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation and the founding director at ideasLAB Australia took the stage as well, stressing that educators shouldn’t underestimate the power of technology as it can help students through their learning journey. In fact, contemporary pedagogical insight comes from a better understanding of the realities of the modern learner’s world and how they gain knowledge. More specifically, today’s modern learner can be looked at in three different ways:

• The Social Learner, who moves from ‘me’ to ‘we’
• The Self-Directed Learner, who moves from dependency to autonomy
• The Inquiry-Based Learner, who moves from the known into the unknown

Today, technology caters to the different learning styles, providing educators with a great opportunity to not only embrace the new tools but to continue the evolution of the way we teach and learn. By incorporating technology and creativity into the classroom we are teaching our modern learners in a language that is native to them. This is what they are used to and the best way to prepare them for future success!

Check out more photos from Adobe Education Leadership Forum 2013 here:

Next week kicks off the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, the largest broadcast tradeshow in the US.  Adobe is heading to the show with a lot to talk about.  Today, we announced a sneak peak at the next generation of Adobe’s flagship video tools including Adobe® Premiere® Pro, Adobe After Effects® SpeedGrade™, Adobe Audition®, Adobe Prelude™, Adobe Media Encoder and Adobe Story before their official release.

The next version of Adobe video tools has been developed with features created in direct response to the needs of filmmakers, broadcasters and video professionals. In fact, the multiple Academy Award winning Coen brothers have been working directly with the Adobe Premiere Pro product team and are switching to Adobe Premiere Pro for their next feature film slated for late 2013. More on that here.

In addition to our tools, we announced Adobe Anywhere for video – a modern, collaborative workflow platform that empowers teams using Adobe professional video tools, to work together accessing and managing centralized media and assets across virtually any network. Adobe Anywhere was revealed as a technology preview in 2012, and will be showcased at NAB this year, and is expected to be available in May 2013.

At NAB, we are discussing the fusion of new media and filmmaking. On Sunday, April 7, at 10:30 a.m. in room N250, Adobe will lead the Post|Production World keynote titled, “From Concept to Delivery: The Fusion of New Media and Storytelling.” The panel will feature Adam Pertofsky, editor and partner at Rock Paper Scissors, Bayan Joonam of Soul Pancake, Rainn Wilson’s production and media company, and Patrick F. X. Murphy, Visual Effects  Supervisor and Animation Director for “Annoying Orange” on Cartoon Network, who will join moderator Mark Randall, chief strategist for Adobe, to discuss how creativity and technology work together. Watch the panel next week here.

Note: This post is cross-posted from Mike Dillon’s personal blog. 

Silicon Valley. It’s a place emulated around the world as a continuous source of innovative thought spawning new products, companies and industries. More importantly, this innovation is a powerful economic and job-creation engine for the Digital Age.

Unfortunately, there are a group of individuals and entities that are constantly siphoning fuel from this engine. They go by a variety of names. Some people describe them with polite terms like “non-practicing entities” or “NPEs”; others refer to them with more subtly negative names like “patent trolls”. I prefer to be more blunt: they are leeches; leeches that divert capital investment and innovative energy away from job creation and, instead, to litigation.

Much has been written on this subject, but in general this is what is happening. An individual or small group of investors purchases a patent on the open market. Often it is a weak patent that shouldn’t have been issued by an overworked examiner at the U.S. Patent Office or it could be a strong patent that may have been interpreted incorrectly in the judicial process. The owners of these patents then file lawsuits against any company where they can even remotely make a claim of patent infringement. In years past, the focus of these suits was primarily technology companies, but that is no longer the case. Recently, on a single day, more than twenty retail companies, including J.C. Penny, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Men’s Wearhouse, Walgreens and Pier 1 Imports were all sued for patent infringement in this type of case.

Every company that I have worked for has been on the receiving end of these lawsuits.  Most of these cases begin with a demand letter in which the plaintiff doesn’t even bother to specify the allegedly infringing feature of the product, or the precise part of the patent that is claimed to infringed. The letters just list one of many patents, refer nebulously to a company’s products, and say “pay up.” And, when you don’t, your company finds itself receiving a visit from a process server, delivering a similarly vaguely worded complaint and lawsuit.

Recently, for example, one of these entities filed suit against comedian Adam Carolla, alleging infringement of a patent that appears to describe a way of disseminating episodes of content in a serialized fashion. First question: Really? You can patent that? Second question: Why are they suing Carolla, a comedian who is best known for his free podcast?

The answer is that it’s all about economics.  In the U.S. we have a judicial system in which each party pays its own legal costs and attorney fees.  The plaintiffs in this type of case uses this to their advantage. They know that when faced with even a specious patent infringement lawsuit, a company will be inclined to settle because if it wins the case, it loses from a financial standpoint. On average it cancost between $3 – $5 million to defend a patent infringement lawsuit. So, if a company wins at trial, it gets nothing other than a large legal bill and a verdict of non-infringement. Thus, it’s a financially rational decision to raise the white flag as long as the settlement amount is less than the anticipated legal cost of going to trial. Knowing this many companies elect to settle as soon as they face one of these lawsuits and incur significant costs in defending it.

Now, you may ask, why don’t companies use their own patents and sue these entities as a form of deterence? Good question. This intellectual property equivalent of “mutually assured destruction” is the reason that patent litigation between competitors across all industries is relatively rare. If you intend to sue a competitor over a patent, you had better be prepared that your company will face the downside risk of being sued for infringement in response. What’s different in these cases is that the entities that file them don’t actually make anything. They are instead, just litigation shell companies. Because of this, their tactics can’t be used against them – i.e. they have no products that a company can claim are infringing.

This all plays to the plaintiff’s benefit because if they file enough cases, some percentage of companies will settle. The proceeds from these settlements are then used to fund litigation against other companies and the purchase of additional patents to be used in future lawsuits. In order to obtain an ROI, plaintiffs only have to cast a broad net and manage their legal costs efficiently.

Often the plaintiffs defend their actions by saying that they are “standing up for the sole inventor.” Well, we like sole inventors. Adobe was founded by two guys in a garage. (The name of the company originated from a creek near where they lived.) But the plaintiffs in these cases are not standing up for quality patents, and getting meaningful value for these patents. They are, instead,  just holding companies up for the cost of litigation. It doesn’t even matter what the patent is about. The only people getting wealthy from this system are the lawyers (and that’s coming from one).

At Adobe the vast majority of the litigation against our company are patent infringement cases of this type. We fight all of them because, quite frankly, they’re bullshit.

But this doesn’t mean it’s an easy decision because we don’t measure our defense costs in dollars; we measure them in jobs. When we fight a case through trial it is the equivalent of 15 to 20 forgone engineering positions. Positions that could be creating additional innovation and job growth.

Now, what if in this area of litigation only, we changed the economics? What if instead of each side paying their own fees and costs, we changed to a “loser pays” system as it is in much of the rest of the world? This wouldn’t prevent anyone from bringing a patent infringement suit, they would just have to be very confident that they would prevail at trial.

Last year, Congressmen Peter Defazio and Jason Chaffetz introduced a piece of bipartisan legislation called the SHIELD Act (Saving High-tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act). Although various business, legal and government constituencies are still negotiating the details, in concept it is as I have described above – a shifting of economic incentives so that in this type of patent litigation, the losing party would be required to pay the prevailing party’s fees and costs. Under this system, the true “garage” inventors would still be able to use the courts to enforce their patents,  but plaintiffs would face more risk when they bring a poorly founded lawsuit.

While not a perfect solution, the SHIELD Act would go a long way to helping companies spend more on creating jobs, rather than fighting litigation. It’s legislation that matters to employers, shareholders and consumers.  For more information and to show your support contact Congressman Defazio here.

You probably heard back in December that Adobe acquired Behance, the leading online social media platform that enables creative professionals to showcase and share their work with millions. We wanted to share some great news for our Creative Cloud complete members.

The best part of my job is hitting the road to hear about what’s on the minds of our customers, partners and employees.  In the past two months I’ve clocked more than 34,000 air miles doing just that.   From the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to the World Economic Forum in Davos, from London to Sydney to New York, Digital Marketing has been on the mind of every CEO I meet. It has definitely gone broadly into the mainstream and into the boardroom, well beyond the confines of the web team.

Most recently, we had three terrific days in Utah at the annual Adobe Digital Marketing Summit where 5,000 people gathered to hear about the latest innovations in digital marketing solutions. Every company needs to become a digital-first organization and I spoke about the three marketing mandates that I believe all companies need to focus on:

1)      Engage everywhere – Gone are the days when your digital strategy is just about driving customers to your website and converting them. Whether it’s app stores or retail stores; on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest; on a PC, phone, or laptop; you have to go to your customers or they won’t come to you.  Successful marketers are integrating all channels to engage their customers wherever they are.

2)      Embrace rocket science – Every business is swimming in data, and many are struggling just to get backward-looking reports.  But the real value of data is predictive, harnessing math and machine learning to take marketers’ intuition to a whole new level.  Many of our customers are already doing this with Media Optimizer today, where you can predict the optimal media mix and automate the buying across display and search advertising. The next frontier is to take all of your marketing – across social, mobile, web, real-time, historic, qualitative, quantitative – and reliably predict and execute the perfect campaign to maximize sales.  That is rocket science becoming real.

3)      Connect the dots – Organizational change needs to happen internal to every company in order to thrive in this new digital age.  I live this every Monday morning at 9 am when I have the team report to me on their metrics. The product organization, marketing organization and sales and finance are working together to drive the results in a way that never used to happen.

Thanks to everyone who made Summit such a great event.  Next up: Adobe MAX in LA.  I’m excited to hear what our community has to say about the future of creativity!