Newsletter — July 2009
Articles in this issue
Adobe Flash Platform for the digital home
As consumer devices get smaller, the vision of the Open Screen Project is to develop rich content that will run seamlessly across devices, operating systems, and browsers. But it’s not simply about extending desktop content to work on the smallest mobile phone screens — it’s also about bringing that content to bigger screens in the home: televisions.
Adobe’s® Flash® Platform for the digital home is poised to give consumers a new way to receive and interact with rich content, applications, and services on their televisions. It will dramatically change the nature of TV viewing, and it's beginning to open a new world of opportunity for Flash developers, OEMs, and content providers.
An unfolding market
The market for Flash based content on televisions is huge: In fact, close to 420 million televisions, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, and other connected digital home devices are expected to ship within the next three years, according to Strategy Analytics.
TV content delivered via Flash is one way for content providers, service providers, and advertisers to better target their services and messages via a medium that people are using more than ever. A recent Nielsen report found that Americans are watching an average of 153 hours of TV at home every month. A whopping 40% percent increase in time-shifted viewing since last year, made possible by DVRs and online video delivery, points to a growing desire of consumers to watch TV on their own terms.
The market for rich content delivered via TV is also ripe for development because it simply didn’t exist until now. That means there’s no industry leader, and developers who get an early start have a tremendous opportunity to shape an entire area of content delivery that will explode over the next few years.
Learn more about developing for the digital home today
How it works
The Adobe Flash Platform for the digital home is based on Flash Lite® 3.1. Why not the full version of Flash? Today, home devices aren’t nearly as powerful as the average desktop or even many mobile phones. In terms of processing power and memory, home devices have more in common with the latest mobile phones than with desktops. Flash Lite 3.1 is ideal for these devices because it’s optimized for embedded systems that have less powerful CPUs and memory. Over time and as these home devices evolve in capabilities, the goal of the Open Screen Project is to align with a consistent runtime across device platforms — from computers to mobile phones to televisions and other digital home devices.
Most digital home content will be delivered in one of three forms:
- Streaming HD video — Content providers can deliver HD video content via FLV to TV screens. Although no one is doing this today, you can imagine sites like YouTube, Hulu, and others taking advantage of this ability.
- Standalone interactive applications — Users can run applications such as weather, stocks, sports scores, social networking, photo sharing, casual games, and music.
- Rich user interfaces — TV user interfaces — menus, navigation, and device menus — may utilize Flash.
Content and OEM partners line up
The digital home has already moved from concept to practice, with several big content providers partnering with Adobe to support the initiative and get time-to-market advantage over competitors: Atlantic Records, Broadcom, Comcast, Disney Interactive Media Group, and The New York Times Company. OEMs and System-on-Chip (SoC) vendors — including Broadcom, Intel, Netflix, STMicroelectronics, NXP Semiconductors, and Sigma Designs — are already integrating the Adobe Flash Platform for the digital home into next-generation, Internet-connected TV sets, Blu-ray Disc players, game consoles, set-top boxes, and digital media adapters. Those devices should begin shipping in late 2009.
Start developing today
Developers can start creating content and services for digital home devices today by using Adobe Flash CS3 or CS4 Professional software to build to the Flash Lite 3.1 profile. Adobe aims to add digital home device profiles to Adobe Device Central by late 2009 and provide an emulation environment for performance testing and quality assurance.
Developers should also consider applying for the Open Screen Project Fund, a US$10 million market development fund that provides grants to developers in order to accelerate the creation of applications, content, and services that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform and run across mobile, desktop, and consumer electronics devices.
Learn how to apply for the Open Screen Project Fund
Read the Adobe Flash Platform for the Digital Home FAQ
Partner spotlight: Nokia
Open Screen Project News:
At this time, Nokia and Adobe have identified 23 applications for funding. What qualities made the successful applications stand out?
Matt Collins, director of Strategic Marketing, Forum Nokia:
The best submissions all have one thing in common: The winning developers clearly have thought through everything. The best ideas exploit some Nokia feature or key selling proposition, make a strong case for using Flash, and do something different or better than other apps. I also want to point out that the winners don’t just innovate for innovation’s sake. These ideas all have a great chance of being widely adopted by end consumers. For example, My Festival, a location-based service that integrates with the Roskilde Music Festival by Little Big Ideas, targets Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic, so right away we see a developer aligning its app with a device and an event for music lovers. We also liked that the app is location-aware, so it can tell you where friends and event attractions are. It’s the perfect festival companion, and once event goers learn about it, they’ll want to get it. FlyCast is another well-aligned application. It aggregates online radio stations and streams the music through its player. This appeals to Nokia’s music-loving audience and is a great use case for Flash.
Open Screen Project News:
Now that you’ve seen many fund submissions, what’s missing? What are you not seeing that you would like to see?
Matt Collins:
I’ve been amazed at the diversity of submissions we’ve received. They have targeted S60 and Series 40 devices as well as global and regional markets, represented a range of genres, and come in numbers greater than I could have imagined. We are grateful for the outpouring of ideas we have received. Having said that, I’d like to see more submissions that focus on a few areas. First, health and wellness. I think consumers are trying to be more mindful of their personal health needs. Also, business travelers want applications that help them stay connected to the people and things that matter while on the road for work, even as they put in more hours than ever before. We would also like to see apps in the gaming and productivity categories. While Flash has been a prevalent platform for mobile gaming, we see an opportunity for game developers to take their game experiences to multiple devices and screens and deepen engagement with gamers.
As mobile devices and televisions get more open and online, we see more of the productivity and utility apps of the desktop move to these screens, and these experiences becoming inherently multiscreen. We are specifically looking for apps that make daily activities and tasks, whether business or personal, more manageable through easy-to-navigate experiences.
Open Screen Project News:
From Nokia’s perspective, why is this kind of fund the optimal way to seed the marketplace with mobile content, applications, and services?
Matt Collins:
The Open Screen Project Fund signals the perfect time to be a Flash developer. Nokia has more than 300 million Flash enabled devices on the market, the Ovi Store as a unified channel to reach millions of consumers around the world, and the Open Screen Project Fund to provide money to bring their brilliant ideas to life. Based on the enormous response we’ve seen thus far from developers, there are many developers who would agree.
Open Screen Project News:
Does a developer or content creator who gets funded need to give up any intellectual property or equity investment in return for the grant money?
Matt Collins:
No, developers retain all intellectual property rights and equity in their project or company. Adobe and Nokia require only the right to market and promote the applications that receive funding. Specific details are in the statement of work contracts that all of the developers must sign before receiving money from the fund.
Open Screen Project News:
The goal of the Open Screen Project is to enable content and applications that deliver consistent, seamless, and integrated experiences across devices of any screen size. "Consistent experiences" does not mean exactly the same experience on all devices. What are some unique ways in which a mobile version of an application might exploit the nature of a mobile phone?
Matt Collins:
Each experience should offer something unique to the mobile screen. For example, we’re working with Eros Entertainment, an Open Screen Project Fund winner that will let users stream Bollywood movie trailers and tag them so they can be watched later on a larger screen. The mobile screen presents compelling entertainment in a small screen size, perhaps while the user is traveling, and enables a richer experience later. In this way, the mobile screen enhances the larger screen. I can envision so many other opportunities in which something like this might happen: video and PC games, including MMOs; cooking shows and websites; sports; banking; schooling. The sky is the limit.
Open Screen Project News:
Why does Nokia believe in the Open Screen Project vision and how does it see it as a critical industry initiative to be a part of?
Matt Collins:
Nokia has long been a leader in the integration of Flash in mobile devices. Nokia literally has hundreds of millions of Flash enabled devices in the hands of consumers all over the world. The Open Screen Project promises to extend the reach of Flash, not just on mobile, but on other devices, too. Making it easier for Flash developers to innovate and connect their great ideas to more customers is extremely important to Nokia. The Open Screen Project is a vital to making that happen.
Apply for the Open Screen Project Fund