Flash technology is ten years old

    The history of Flash began when the small company Future Wave released a simple editor for vector graphics on graphic tablets. In 1996, the possibility of animation was added, and the program itself was renamed FutureSplash Animator . Along with the program, a special plug-in was also released, with which it was possible to view created cartoons in a web browser.

    Vector animation through a plug-in in the browser was a rather interesting technical solution that immediately attracted the attention of large players. The most daring and generous of them was Macromedia, which released tools for creating web applications. She bought Future Wave in December 1996 and immediately renamed the program to Flash 1.

    Ten years later, the Flash Player plugin is installed almost universally. According to NPD Online statistics , it works on 98% of all computers connected to the Internet. Not so long ago, a version of Flash Player for Linux was released (this version is actively developing ), so now the plugin is available on all popular platforms.

    At the end of last year, Adobe acquired Macromedia. In honor of the decade of remarkable technology, Adobe has opened a special microsite dedicated to the anniversary.

    Mike Downey, Adobe's Flash Product Manager, InterviewWired discusses the history and prospects of this technology. Mike Downey considers the release of the fourth version of Flash with scripting support to be the first turning point on the way of turning Flash from an animation package into a universal platform for web applications. This allowed developers to create games, interactive presentations and full-fledged programs based on Flash for the first time.

    In the fifth version, the scripting engine was rewritten and renamed to ActionScript. Until now, it remains the main, most important function of the program.

    Another important moment in the history of Flash was the support of video in the sixth version. Thanks to this Flash today has become the main platform for video broadcasting on the Web. The largest Internet video sites such as YouTube , Google Video andMySpace .

    In June 2006, Flash Player 9 was released with a new version of the scripting engine, as well as the Adobe Flex 2 web development environment , which largely duplicates Ajax functionality.

    Looking to the future, Adobe is confident that web developers will create more and more interactive specialized sites for which the Flash platform is the best suited. For six years now, Adobe has been trying to port Flash to mobile devices, and finally has made significant progress here. An agreement has recently been signed with Qualcomm, according to which content providers are entitled to install Flash Player on any portable BREW device.

    The company continues to work for the future. Now about halfway there is the process of creating the next-generation designer package, codenamed Adobe Blaze. The main task in its creation is close integration with other Adobe programs. The company recently conducted a study and found that 90% of Flash developers use Adobe Photoshop at the same time. In addition, Blaze will also integrate with Flash, Illustrator and After Effects. As Mike Downey assures, it will be something amazing.

    Also popular now: