ConceptMind

Adobe Labs on Monday released test versions of two closely related foundations for Net-based applications, Flash Player 10.1 and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) 2. Flash is widely used to bring streaming video, interactive graphics, and games to browsers; AIR, with Flash built in, is a foundation for other desktop applications. Both are instrumental to Adobe's effort to stay ahead of the gradually broadening feature set of HTML and...

With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft showed Wednesday it's trying to retake the browser initiative. IE remains the Net's dominant browser. But perversely, it became something of a technology underdog after Microsoft vanquished Netscape in the browser wars of the 1990s and scaled back its browser effort. That left an opportunity for rivals to blossom--most notably Firefox, which now is used by a quarter of Web surfers, but also Apple's...

Last week, Microsoft showed off some browser technology that could help Internet Explorer leapfrog the competition. But if Mozilla succeeds in its hope, Microsoft could be playing catch-up instead. The technology in question is hardware-accelerated graphics and text using interfaces called Direct2D and DirectWrite that provide an easy way to use graphics cards' computing power. They're built into Windows 7, and Microsoft is bringing...

Google has opened up its gallery for developers to share Chrome extensions, a step that soon should make it easier for people to customize the open-source browser. Aaron Boodman, a leader of the Chrome extensions effort, announced the move on a mailing list posting Monday, and programmer and "gallery master" Lei Zheng shared details in a blog post. So far, only uploads are permitted. Google plans to let some testers use the gallery...

Gmail users now can attach files to messages with the offline version of Google's Web-based e-mail service. "Starting today, attachments work just the way you would expect them to whether you are online or offline," said programmer Andy Palay in a blog post Tuesday. "If you have Offline Gmail enabled, you'll notice that all your mail now goes through the outbox, regardless of whether you're online or offline. This allows Gmail to capture...

Google's new open source Chrome operating system won't be officially available until dedicated devices hit the market next year. Developers have tinkered with the code, which was released last week, to make a version of the OS that can be downloaded and installed on existing machines, but Chrome's true colors -- and speed -- won't be evident, maintains Google. ...

Google has rolled out a new version of its free Google Maps Navigation application that's compatible with smartphones running the Android 1.6 operating system, such as T-Mobile's myTouch 3G and its G1. When the app was introduced last month in beta, it could only be used by smartphones running Android 2.0, the latest version of the OS, such as Verizon's Droid...