Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe, has left the company and is "taking a position at Apple," Adobe has confirmed. Apple spokesman Steve Dowling told AllThingsD that Lynch will join Apple as vice president of technology, reporting to Bob Mansfield, SVP of Technologies.

CNBC was first to report the news. In Adobe's Form 8-K, filed today with the SEC, the company states:

On March 18, 2013, Kevin Lynch resigned from his position as Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, of Adobe Systems Incorporated, effective March 22, 2013, to pursue other opportunities. 

Both Lynch and Philip Schiller, Apple's worldwide marketing head, worked briefly together at Macromedia —which was acquired by Adobe in 2005. Adobe described Lynch's official duties thusly:

Focuses the company's technology innovation across three vectors: multiscreen, cloud and social computing (and) oversees Adobe's Research and Experience Design teams

Each of Lynch's primary areas of focus are directly applicable to Apple's work. Last year, CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg Businessweek that Apple is "marrying hardware, software and services."

In 2010, Steve Jobs famously posted his rationale for why Apple did not and would not enable Adobe's Flash technology on the iPhone and iPad:

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

It was Lynch who was tasked with leading Adobe's public response to Job's post. Lynch referred to the iPhone then as "a recent magical device." Lynch followed that up with a video interview with AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. 

Image of "Flash Shield" courtesy of linkdb. 

Since 2002, when Microsoft launched its Trustworthy Computing initiative, security in the company's products have improved each year. But while the company has increasingly battened down Windows, Office and its other programs, the number of vulnerabilities in harder-to-patch third-party applications has grown dramatically, making overall security on the PC worse than ever.

More Risk In Third-Party Apps

Rather than go through the expense of battling Microsoft directly, many hackers now focus on low-hanging fruit, such as the Java and Adobe Flash browser plug-ins, which are often left un-patched even by users who conscientiously update Windows and Office. This trend was highlighted in a new study by Secunia.

The security vendor found Microsoft's highly effective automatic security updates now address only 8.5% of the vulnerabilities in a PC. The rest have to be patched through updates from various software developers, each with their own unique process. The complexity leads users who are not security savvy to forgo updates, vastly increasing their risk of infection.

"There is, to date, no one fix-it-all solution," warned Morten Stengaard, director of product management and quality assurance at Secunia, in the company's blog.

Theoretically, Microsoft could overhaul Windows to place each third-party application in its own container, making it more difficult for hackers to load malware in the operating system. However, such a massive change would require Windows software vendors to rebuild their own products, which would have a ripple affect on every corporate and consumer customer.

"Microsoft, to some extent, is hamstrung by legacy code and what they've done in the past," Jack Gold, analyst for J. Gold Associates, said. "They can't just rip everything up and start all over again very easily."

Fewer Flaws In Microsoft Apps

Ironically, the third-party threat is blossoming even as Microsoft continues to get its own house in order. In 2012, out of all the known vulnerabilities in the top-50 PC programs, Microsoft products accounted for only 14% of them, the study found. The rest were in other software. And the share of vulnerabilities on a Windows PC coming from third-party applications has been growing. In 2007, they accounted for 57% of the security flaws, compared to 86% last year, Secunia says.

"It's well known that they [Microsoft] have put great efforts into improving security of the operating system and the applications that they provide," Stengaard said in an interview. "What we're seeing is the long-term involvement and dedication is now paying off."

Windows, Office, Silverlight and other Microsoft products are not ironclad, of course. Given enough time, knowledgeable hackers can find their way in through these channels. But in the world of cybercrime, most hackers are not interested in a challenge. Instead, they look for the easiest way to break into as many PCs as possible, to enslave the machines into the many armies of remotely controlled botnets, or to steal credit-card numbers, social-security numbers and corporate intellectual property that will fetch a good price on the underground.

Including both Microsoft and third-party applications, the number of PC vulnerabilities has dropped by 5% since 2011, and by 10% among the top 50 applications. Since 2007, though, overall vulnerabilities are up 15%, Secunia found, and that jumps to a whopping 98% increase among the top 50 applications.

Where The Danger Lies

Applications most likely to provide an easy path into Windows machines include Java, Flash, Adobe Reader and Apple iTunes, according to Secunia. If these applications are not kept up to date, hackers can exploit known vulnerabilities that enable them to load their malware via the PC's system memory.

In addition, all these applications have very large user bases, which makes it easier for hackers to find targets.

Why PCs have so much outdated software varies. Sometimes it's because the update process is too cumbersome, so they don't bother. Other times, the vendor is slow in fixing flaws that hackers are already targeting. Updating Java, an open platform for running software on any operating, system has been a pain for a long time. However, Java steward Oracle is working to improve the process and is getting updates out quicker, most experts agree.

In 2012, Adobe had the worst record for updating applications, according to Secunia. The software maker released patches at a rate 80% slower than in 2011, based on the time it took the vendor to release updates of vulnerabilities reported by Secunia.

Overall, though, patch speed for third-party apps is increasing, Secunia said:

In fact, in 2012, 84% of vulnerabilities had patches available on the day of disclosure. In 2011, the number was only 72%. The most likely explanation for this improvement in ‘time-to-patch’ is that more researchers coordinate their vulnerability reports with vendors.

Patching Is Critical

The vendor based its study on 6 million PCs, mostly in the U.S. and Europe, running its freeware called Personal Software Inspector, which checks for application vulnerabilities. Microsoft products accounted for 35% of the programs on the PCs.

If you take Secunia's study seriously, then the takeaway is clear. Even if patching all your software is getting more complicated,  making sure everything is always up to date is more important than ever.

Image by Fredric Paul.

When future historians look back and try to determine the exact moment when the personal computer and desktop form factor started to decline, there will be a lot of pointing at Jan. 27, 2010 - the day Steve Jobs announced the iPad. In truth, the downward spiral isn't marked by one event, but a lot of little incidents that mark the trail.

On March 13, Adobe unexpectedly added a chapter to the story of the fading of the PC, when it announced that it would be closing down its BrowserLab service effective… March 13.

The closure was as surprising as it was abrupt. BrowserLab enabled developers and web designers to test their work on different desktop browsers and operating systems, to help ensure cross-platform uniformity in look and operation.

In a statement to users on the BrowserLab blog, Bruce Bowman, Sr. Product Manager Edge Tools & Services and the Adobe BrowserLab Team, cited the popularity of mobile platforms as the big reason for BrowserLab's deactivation.

"When we originally launched BrowserLab as a free service back in 2009, our customers were struggling with testing their web content across desktop browsers and platforms. Since then with the growth of the importance of mobile devices and tablets, the landscape has changed dramatically. Because of this shift, we have seen the usage of BrowserLab drop over the past year while at the same time our engineering team has been focusing on solving this new challenge with new solutions.

"Due to this, we will be shutting down the Adobe BrowserLab Service effective immediately," Bowman added.

The resources BrowserLab must have taken up for Adobe must have been significant, for them to want to retask their team to focus on mobile development. Adobe has long been a strong presence in web design, desktop or otherwise, so it seems odd for them to abruptly drop even an ancillary service like this. While no one would argue that desktop is in decline, it's not completely going to go away.

An unspoken reason here may also be the way major browsers use rolling release schemes, where updates happen transparently and rapidly. Keeping up with those many different browser releases may have been too much of a challenge for Adobe, especially if is focused on delivering a similar service for mobile developers with its Edge Inspect product.

BrowserLabs users won't be left in too much of a lurch: Bowman specifically pointed out BrowserStack and Sauce Labs as two viable alternatives to BrowserLab.

In the grand scheme of desktop these days, I suspect the departure of BrowserLabs will create little more than a ripple within the development community. But it is one more signpost on the shift from desktop to mobile, and a potential harbinger to developers focused on the desktop that their tools and services may one day disappear.

Beginning Tuesday, Microsoft is reversing itself and adding Flash back into the Internet Explorer 10 browsers used by Windows 8 and Windows RT. The browser will use a "touch-enabled" version of Flash optimized with Adobe.

Specifically, Flash will be enabled with the Windows 8-style "Metro" environment by default, Microsoft said. It will continue to run, as it previously has, within the Windows 7-like desktop, the alternative user interface still used by some apps. Microsoft has also flip-flopped its security protocols, swapping a "whitelist" of approved Flash sites for a blacklist of sites which are now prohibited.

Usability vs. Security

Microsoft's decision has two key aspects: usability and security. On the usability side, people who use Windows 8 and Windows RT, including those who have purchased the two variants of Microsoft's Surface tablet, will be able to take advantage of the numerous Flash games available online. On the other hand, adding back Flash also opens IE users to Flash vulnerabilities that the browser might have previously weeded out.

Before today's change, Microsoft maintained a so-called "whitelist" of approved sites that could run Flash within the IE10 environment. Now, however, that so-called "Compatibility View List" will block (or "blacklist") those sites that don't meet Microsoft's criteria for usability and reliability, or security. On Windows 8, they'll be banished to the desktop via an ugly error message. On Windows RT, they won't run at all.

"We believe having more sites 'just work' in IE10 improves the experience for consumers, businesses, and developers," Rob Mauceri, the group program manager for Internet Explorer, wrote in a blog post. "As a practical matter, the primary device you walk around with should give you access to all the Web content on the sites you rely on. Otherwise, the device is just a companion to a PC. Because some popular Web sites require Adobe Flash and do not offer HTML5 alternatives, Adobe and Microsoft continue to work together closely to deliver a Flash Player optimized for the Windows experience."

A guide for developers provides some additional guidance - namely, that Microsoft isn't giving up its emphasis on HTML5 over Flash. And just because IE10 now supports Flash doesn't mean Microsoft will bless any old implementation. Any app that requires a double-click, for example, will be frowned upon, as will apps that call Flash for panning, zooming, rotating and swiping. The use of cameras and microphones powered by Flash code will also not be allowed.

Fortunately, fewer than 4% of sites on the Web fall on the CV blacklist, Microsoft said.

Security Headaches?

Microsoft's Mauceri wrote that the new version of Flash has been "optimized for touch, performance, security, reliability, and battery life. Adobe made substantial changes to the Flash player to align with the Windows 8 experience goals."

Unfortunately, that also means that IE10 will require Flash-specific patches, too. While Flash may not be as vulnerable as Java - recall that the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) recommended that Java be disabled in January, even after Oracle issued an out-of-band update - Flash is frequently patched. That's a double-edged sword: It means that Flash is constantly being attacked, even as Adobe and others constantly update it. In May 2012, for example, Adobe discovered and patched a vulnerability that could hijack Windows PCs. Adobe representatives did not respond to requests for comment via a Web form. According to Microsoft, any needed Flash updates will be delivered via Windows Update... no surprise there.

This is a big issue because from a security standpoint, Internet Explorer is a gateway into Windows PCs. And both Flash and Windows. are constantly in dynamic states of security. 

Microsoft should be congratulated for maintaining the CV blacklist as an additional layer of security, simply refusing to access sites that it knows harbor malware. Unfortunately, "innocent" sites that merely display their content in ways that are unfriendly to touch screens or IE10 may also be blocked. Developers can manually request their sites to be unblocked (with the number of visitors being one criteria) and use sites like Microsoft's IE-friendly Modern.ie to facilitate its removal.

A Microsoft spokesperson had this to say: "Adobe and Microsoft have worked closely together for some time to address security and reliability issues, sharing best practices like the SDL and ASLR as well as information on hangs and crashes. We are also working together on accessibility, manageability, and privacy. Flash updates with the Windows Update mechanism to distribute security updates from Adobe to meet expectations of Windows customers with regard to security updates and delivery of those updates."

Flash Is Dead. Long Live Flash?

Flash may not be inherently bad - but it sure has plenty of enemies. Adobe itself pulled the plug on mobile Flash development last year, and groups like OccupyFlash would like to eliminate it from the desktop, as well. (BlackBerry, for some reason, has chosen to cling to Flash in BB10.)

"Flash Player is dead," the site's manifesto reads. "Its time has passed. It's buggy. It crashes a lot. It requires constant security updates. It doesn't work on most mobile devices. It's a fossil, left over from the era of closed standards and unilateral corporate control of web technology."

That analysis is absolutely right. If Flash isn't dead yet, it's surely dying. But just as Windows users gripe about backwards-compatibility with their favorite apps and games, so must the Web hold on to Flash. For now, at least.

Image Source: Robot Unicorn Attack

If you are surfing the Web from a mobile device these days, odds are you are doing it not from a smartphone, but from some type of tablet. According to a study done by Adobe, for the first time tablets have surpassed smartphones for percentage of website views. 

Adobe analyzed more than 1 billion visits for more than 1,000 websites and found that 8% of traffic came from tablets. That ranks ahead of the 7% of visits that came from smartphones. Of course, that leaves 85% or so percent of Web traffic still coming from desktop PCs and laptops. 

The tablet number is significant because there are far, far fewer tablets in circulation in the world compared to the vast proliferation of smartphones. 

Adobe attributes tablets increased Web usage compared to smartphones to users preferance for “more in depth visits” with their tablets. Adobe says that page views and visits are 1.7-times higher on tablets than on smartphones.

Adobe notes that all the regions it tracks tablet traffic saw total traffic double in the last year. The United Kingdom has the highest percentage of tablet traffic, with 12.2% of views, while China had the lowest at 3.1%. 

From an entirely mobile perspective, there are two ways to look at these numbers. Just six years after the launch of the first iPhone (July 2007, the essential start of The Mobile Revolution) and three years since the launch of the iPad, smart mobile devices now garner nearly one out of every six website pageviews. That is not insignificant. On the flip side, though, no matter how much we harp on the notion that the mobile Web is not just the future, but also the present, the vast majority of Web traffic still comes from the legacy that is the PC. 

Who says the iPad wasn't meant for creation? Sure, you can't exactly run Final Cut Pro or Adobe InDesign on Apple's tablet (nor would you really want to), but the device has come a long way since 2010. One category of apps that demonstrates the iPad's creative prowess is its growing selection of photo-editing software.

Indeed, there are now a ton of apps that let you manipulate images on your iPad with no shortage of vintage filters, quirky effects  and single-purpose gimmick apps. Those can be fun, but we wanted to focus on the super-popular, fully-featured editing apps that seem best to supplant desktop options for some users. 

Let's be honest. You're probably not going to walk around town holding up your iPad to take photos. If you do, we assure you that you'll look ridiculous doing it. It's also unnecessary. With syncing options like Photo Stream and Dropbox and the camera-connecting accessories available for iPad, you're free to snap photos on a more appropriate device and then access them on your iPad, where the editing experience keeps getting more and more delightful. 

5. Process 

To anybody who's accustomed to just about any digital photo editing software, Process will seem a bit unconventional. That's because the usual on-screen conventions for editing photos have been abandoned in favor of a system in which changes are made by adding "Processes" to the image. All the standard adjustments you'd likely make to an image – blur, brightness, contrast, curves, highlights, etc. – are each available as a preset called a Process, which once applied, can be adjusted manually. 

Process has its limitations. You can only apply edits, effects and filters to the entire image and can't drill down, use brushes or tweak individual details. It's not the most capable app out there, but it has an incredibly simple interface, making it a breeze for pretty much anyone to use. 

PROS: Super-simple UI, intuitive controls and commonly-needed adjustments.
CONS: Limited functionality. 
PRICE: $14.99 
Download From iTunes

4. Photo Forge 2

If you're looking for a more Photoshop-esque editing experience,  Photoforge 2 is a solid choice. It's popular among professional photographers who need a mobile solution for quick edits. In addition to all the typical photo adjustments like color balance, curves, contrast and the like, Photo Forge lets you add Instagram-style effects and simulate specific lenses, film types and processing techniques. Unlike most iOS photo editing apps, this one supports layers like those popularized by Photoshop on the desktop years ago. 

Photo Forge 2 is rather powerful, but all those features are packed into an interface that's anything but intimidating. It's a cleanly designed interface with intuitive controls. 

PROS: Feature-packed, supports layers, masking and high-res photographs. Upload photos via FTP. 
CONS:  Occasional performance issues reported by some users.
PRICE: $3.99
Download from iTunes

3. SnapSeed

Everybody loves SnapSeed. It has one of the highest ratings among photo apps in iTunes and constantly gets rave reviews. It's very good. Its super-simplified interface and grid of common adjustment options is reminiscent of Process, but with far more capability and granularity packed into each option. 

SnapSeed's touch gesture-based functionality takes full advantage of the iPad's form factor, desktop editing conventions be damned. Swipe your finger up and down to select the type of adjustment you want to make, then slide across the image to the left or right to tweak its intensity. You can even make selective adjustments that target only one part of the photo and blend it seamlessly with the rest of the image. Stuff like this can get pretty tedious to try and pull off in Photoshop. 

Like Process, SnapSeed doesn't give you total control, but what it does give you is enough to generate some stunning images. 

PROS: Intuitive, touch-based editing, selective adjustments and no price tag.
CONS: Not a fully-featured photo-editing app. It has its limitations. 
PRICE: Free
Download from iTunes

2. Adobe Photoshop Touch 

For awhile there, it looked like Adobe had given up on mobile photo editing, as app after app one-upped its underwhelming Photoshop Express app. Then it launched Photoshop Touch. 

Photoshop Touch brings many of the desktop's apps most useful features to a more minimalist, easy-to-learn interface on the iPad. It's no CS6, but Photoshop Touch supports such desktop staples as layers, the magic wand tool, the paint brush, clone stamp, text, gradients and a range of filters. That's all in addition to standard stuff like saturation, brightness/contrast, color balance and noise reduction. 

Realizing how unlikely you are to hold up your iPad to take photos like a goofball, Adobe went beyond the device's local Camera Roll and integrated Photoshop Touch with Google Image Search, Facebook and its own Creative Cloud.  

PROS: Familiar Photoshop interface, but more simplified and intuitive. Integration with Facebook and other photo sources. Built-in tutorials. 
CONS: Typography options could be better. FTP export would be a plus for pros. 
PRICE: $9.99
Download from iTunes

1. Photogene 

Photogene is another app that often gets a nod from professional photographers. It's easy to see why. Like Photoshop Touch and Photo Forge, Photogene is a feature-packed app that supports the kind of workflow that pros need to tone, resize and adjust their photos. And again, like those apps, it's easy to use and reasonably priced. 

Of all the pro-level iPad photo-editing apps, Photogene seems to have packed the most options in. Unlike Photoshop Touch, Photogene doesn't support layers or making granular selections within an image, but it more than makes up for those shortcomings with a huge selection of manual and preset editing options. You can do the one-size-fits-all Instagram-style filter or make modifications manually.  Photogene lets you FTP images to a server, which will allow it to fit into the workflow of pros on the go. 

PROS: A wide range of adjustments, filters, effects, presets and  export options, including FTP. 
CONS: No layers 
PRICE: $2.99
Download from iTunes

Other Noteworthy Options 

There are plenty of other options. Apple's iPhoto and Aviary's iPad app (which is free) both deserve serious consideration by anybody who wants to edit photos on their tablet. Luminance and Gridditor are worthy of the hype they've received recently as well. 

Which iPad photo-editing app is best for you? It depends on how serious of a photographer you are, how much control you want, and how much you're willing to pay for an app.  Photogene, Photoshop Touch and Photo Forge 2 are good enough to work for pros (most of whom will undoubtedly still turn to the desktop for serious editing needs), but all of the above options are accessible enough to be used by beginners.

Lead photo by Flickr user nayukim. 

Despite Oracle Java being ranked among the highest risk vulnerabilities, a startling 72% of Java users are not bothering to update their software to the latest and safest versions.

The results of a new study from Kaspersky Lab, which surveyed 11 million Windows users during the 2012 calendar year, lays out disturbing statistics: 806 unique vulnerabilities were discovered in the survey period. But the "good" news is that only 37 of those security gaps were considered to be truly widespread and dangerous.

Don't get too optimistic, though: those 37 vulnerabilities accounted for over 70% of all detected vulnerable software last year.

Singling Out Java

The Kaspersky study gets a little arbitrary at one point, singling out eight of the 37 vulnerabilities as those "that are actively used by cybercriminals in widespread exploit packs." Not exactly a scientific classification, which should be taken into account when walking through the next set of results.

Of those eight exposed risks used by naughty hackers, five of them were inside Oracle Java, two in Adobe Flash Player, and the remaining loophole in Adobe Reader.

While it would be easy to point at Java's security problems as one more way Oracle breaks everything it bought from Sun Microsystems, the real danger this report highlights is the general apathy on the part of users to get their software updated.

This is how bad it can be: after Java SE 7 Update 9 and SE 6 Update 37 were released on Oct. 16 last year, after six weeks, only 28.2% of users affected by the vulnerabilities of previously released updates had actually bothered to make the upgrade, leaving 71.8% of users still ready to be exploited.

The Kaspersky survey does not include data on the latest Java brouhaha, as Oracle has pushed out two critical updates already this year, the latest (Java SE 7 Update 13) pushed out the door on Super Bowl Sunday. Security experts are especially vehement about getting users' systems updated with this new patch. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has warned all Java users, for instance, to completely disable Java on their PCs and Macs until the vulnerabilities are effectively patched.

Why The Delay?

The report also did not try to ascertain why users are taking their own sweet time updating their systems, but the usual suspects would still seem to apply: lack of information about the problems and their potential impact.

Of course, it doesn't help matters for Oracle when they see fit to partner with companies like Ask.com and McAfee to include extra software in the update installations for Java. ZDNet's Ed Bott posted a thorough investigative report last month analyzing the deceptive practices of an Ask.com toolbar installation within a recent Java update. I myself noted with distain an attempt to install McAfee anti-virus software when I patched my Windows system to the new Java updates this weekend.

Oracle's monetiztion of Java may be squeezing more money out of Java, but it just sets up one more pain-in-the-ass barrier with which users must contend. This added friction might cause all but the most conscientious users to just skip the hassle of a Java update altogether.

Given the slant of the report, it's not entirely fair that Java was singled out as the big bad vulnerability vector on the block. But Java does have exploitable code and it is widely used, so these are not risks that should be ignored regardless.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

The Internet is awash in gift guides. For every imaginable combination of adjectives and people (or pets, for that matter), there's a 20-item list of holiday gift suggestions. 

Those can be quite useful, of course, but what about the people in our lives for whom we are obligated to buy a gift, but may not be overly fond of? That too-chatty coworker. The obnoxious cousin you can't stand. Your mildly racist uncle. They all need gifts too. Fortunately, there's a wide range of less-than-desirable tech gifts, even if you're wrapping up your shopping at the last conceivable minute: 

1. Blackberry Storm 2

"Merry Christmas, I got you a smartphone!" Sounds exciting. Not if it's a Blackberry Storm 2, though. When it came out in 2009, RIM's touchscreen smartphone paled in comparison to Android or iPhone. Today, it looks downright ridiculous. While everybody else is unboxing Apple iPhone 5s and Google Nexus 4s, your not-so-loved one will be embarking on a new relationship with one of the least cool smartphones on the market.   

2. QR Code Blanket 

No offense to the person who worked hard to create this impressively complex tapestry, but QR codes are hideous no matter how skillfully you stitch them together. If you think normal 2D barcodes are cumbersome to scan, try ironing out every lump and wrinkle from a crocheted blanket and hovering over it with your smartphone. 

3. Annoy-a-tron 2.0 

This isn't a gift you wrap and hand to somebody in the traditional fashion. Instead, you hide it. Really well. Then it makes irritating sounds and sends the recipient on a maddening hunt to try and find it. It's tiny and at $11.99, you can afford to buy one for everyone you hate.

4. Windows Vista

Whether they use it or not, this gift sucks. If they install it, they'll have nightmares. If they don't, it's just a useless box that will sit on their shelf and periodically remind them that you don't particularly care for them. 

 5. Adobe Creative Suite 6 - On 5,077 Floppy Disks

I remember installing Photoshop 2.5 using a series of 3.5 inch floppy disks, inserting them into my PC's noisy disk drive and waiting for each one to finish crunching through 1.44 megabytes of data. What a pain. 

All these years later, Adobe is still making some of the most sophisticated design and production software on the planet. If you were to put the Adobe CS6 Master Collection onto floppy disks, you'd need 5,077 of them. That might be a cumbersome task for you, but it's worth it when you consider what a useless and annoying gift this will make. You can even throw in a USB floppy disk drive to save them the trouble of tracking one down themselves. Oh, and since you probably don't want to spend $2,400 on somebody you hate, you can always just download the trial version, which will make the whole thing even more obnoxious. 

Lead photo by jayneandd.

When the Web was still text links and tables, Adobe Flash brought us rollovers, interactive games and kitten videos. But a hard stand by Apple was the begining of the end for the groundbreaking technology, and guess what? We'll be OK without it.

The Backstory

The early years of the Web were pretty barren, multimedia-wise. Browser inconsistencies, bandwidth disparities, perpetually evolving standards and the cowboy coding needed to hack everything together made interactivity beyond text forms a mess.

Quality online multimedia experiences were a joke. To fill the holes, ambitious developers released a slew of plug-in applications users could install to augment their experience. Some of these were specific enhancements, like allowing a browser to display a new image format, while others were entirely new environments that ran inside a browser. Over time, the best plug-ins tended to work their way into the browsers or updated HTML specifications, while lesser ones died on the vine as they became irrelevant.

The biggest exception to this rule was Macromedia Flash, a graphics and animation client plugin with its own design environment. Flash, which began as a Mac and Windows application called FutureSplash Animator, made it simple for designers to bring shrinkwrap-quality, graphically rich interactive media to Web users for the first time.

Over the next decade, Flash's powerful, simple authoring environment attracted legions of developers and designers and its user base exploded. Ad agencies and ambitious businesses jumped on the additional interactivity it added to vanilla HTML, and by 2000, Flash was unavoidable, showing up in interactive ads, pop-up menus and online video players. In some cases, it even replaced entire websites. Adobe's 2005 purchase of Macromedia further consolidated the design tool industry and gave Flash even more support.

While pop-ups and online games were the most noticeable example of the platform's dominance, Flash started creeping into traditional business applications, as well. The broad developer base and cross-platform appeal gave rise to Rich Internet Applications (RIA) like Balsamiq Mockups, a prototyping tool of which I'm both a fan and a paid user. RIAs require installation of a client framework (in Adobe's case, the Adobe Integrated Runtime environment), but developers can push out a single application in a very short time that runs on any compatible client, which is also a big plus for mobile workers.

The Problem

In a word: Apple.

Flash's problems run deeper than any one competitor, but Apple brought down the house. When Apple released the iPhone and iPad without support for Flash, it ended a long history of cooperation between the two companies (Apple actually owned a fifth of Adobe early on) and called into question the validity of Flash's cross-platform claims. Sure, Android supported Flash, as did Windows, Linux and Apple's own Mac OS, but iOS was a glaring hole.

There were a host of other problems with Flash, from serious security flaws to performance problems (many of which Steve Jobs called out in his now-famous 2010 post), but in the end, the lack of an iOS client spelled the doom of mobile Flash.

With iOS off the table, Adobe ceded the Android market, as well. That leaves mobile developers with the task of developing redundant native apps or – as Apple and others have long recommended – apps built in HTML 5.

And there's the issue. By giving up the mobile Web, Adobe has effectively abandoned the rest of the Web, too. Why bother writing a desktop-based browser app in Flash when you can just reuse (or at least tweak and repurpose) the code you've written for mobile platforms? It took 10 years longer than usual, but Apple's refusal to support Flash exposed a truth. Technology has caught up, and we no longer need Adobe's plugin–or at least we're close. Microsoft announced a limited role for Flash in Windows 8's Metro browser. It's an acknowledgement that we're not quite Flash-free yet, but the writing is on the wall.

The Prognosis

With tablets and smartphones outselling PCs, the mobile Web is the Web, so Flash isn't an option. Developers can bridge UI differences between devices (e.g., designing for both mouse-driven and touchscreen interfaces) within HTML 5, so Flash in the browser will all but disappear.

Can This Technology Be Saved?

Flash will never return to the prominence it once had, but it will linger on the desktop for as long as there are skilled developers willing to do the work. Adobe offers solid tools that appeal to a lot of non-traditional developers, and the development environment could continue to serve those users as they build apps for other platforms. However, compared to the juggernaut of an ecosystem Flash used to be, that's a niche market, so Adobe could easily decide to bow out or sell off the product.

Previous Technology Deathwatches

In-House Datacenters: No change

Point-and-Shoot Cameras: No change

Video Game Consoles: The utility of bundles apps like Netflix and Vudu seems to be slipping. An NPD Study showed that one in five consumers who view streaming video on their TVs do so without a peripheral device.

Blu-Ray: The same NPD study reveals that "online video is maturing” as users migrate to watching streaming media on their TVs.

QR Codes: It's been a mixed bag. While Bank of America is testing QR codes for mobile payments (good news for the technology), a security researcher demonstrated how a malicious QR code could be used to wipe a Samsung smartphone.

Company Deathwatches

For an update on our baker's dozen of company Deathwatches, check out our updated ReadWriteWeb DeathWatch Update: The Unlucky 13.

Steve Jobs image by Matthew Yohe.

Out Of Beta & Into Adobe's Edge Suite

Today, Adobe introduced PhoneGap’s latest iteration in an announcement at the first stop of its international Create the Web tour. PhoneGap is part of the company's new Edge tools and services suite. Developers that are members of Adobe’s Creative Cloud program can access its latest features. Specifically, Adobe released PhoneGap Build, a service that compiles HTML5 code in the cloud before deploying it to the native app stores. PhoneGap Build has been in an open beta period since the fall of 2010. Today, it is publically available to all developers. 

“This is exciting because what Adobe is doing for Web technologies and HTML5 will define how the mobile Web will grow in the next few years," said Al Hilwa, program director for application development and software at research firm IDC, in an email. "The mobile device revolution has been huge for consumers, but supporting each mobile ecosystem is a chore that developers at both enterprises and software firms have to work hard to bring their apps to all the major platforms.” 

Adobe's acquisition of Nitobi, publisher of PhoneGap, has not affected the product's core capabilities. The team continues to release new features and updates on a weekly basis. It continues to engage with the open source community and build a free product with paid features, for developers to deploy their HTML5 apps to the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Marketplace and BlackBerry App World. PhoneGap is still agile and useful. 

PhoneGap, which is technically known as Apache Cordova, remains an open source project. According to an Adobe press release, companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Hewlett-Packard have contributed to the project. PhoneGap has been downloaded over a million times and there are 400,000 developers registered to the service. PhoneGap Build has compiled 200,000 apps for the native app stores to date. 

The big news is that PhoneGap Build is finally available to the general public and comes with a new pricing plan. Developers can either become full Adobe Creative Cloud members for $49.99 a month or choose an al a carte option just for PhoneGap Build for $9.99 month. A free option still remains, though it allows only 100 app builds (compilations) a month as opposed to the paid version’s 1,000 per month. 

Developers who keep up with each successive PhoneGap update will not find much different with the new product. PhoneGap Build has a faster debugging and build cycle, called Hydration, and it lets developers test apps directly by pushing the code base to test devices. The PhoneGap interface has also been updated with the goal of improving workflow. 

PhoneGap’s Place In The Development Landscape

PhoneGap was one of the first “wrapper” services for mobile developers, but other companies rushed to create cloud compilation services for HTML5 apps. Companies like Brightcove, Conduit, appMobi and others also offer compilation services that have matched or exceeded PhoneGap’s original products. A Brightcove executive told me not long ago that its App Cloud service was like “a next-generation PhoneGap” with enhancements and features not found in Nitobi’s original product. Adobe is trying to address the notion that PhoneGap has fallen behind the competitors by releasing App Cloud to the public. 

PhoneGap is just one service in Adobe’s new push to be the go-to platform for Web and mobile app development. After shutting down Flash for mobile devices, Adobe has thrown its full weight behind HTML5 and Web development tools like CSS and Javascript.

“The mobile Web offers an important path forward for developers and designers that want to leverage their work productively across the different devices. There is no one doing more than Adobe in advancing the mobile Web and the bunch of tools released today into Adobe’s Creative Cloud show that the company’s transformation is making great strides,” Hilwa said. 

PhoneGap, despite being in limbo on Adobe’s product shelf for the last year, will now benefit from being part of the larger suite of tools that the company offers. On its own, Nitobi would have had trouble competing on a feature-by-feature basis with companies like Brightcove. With Adobe behind PhoneGap, the service is now part of a much more comprehensive, competitive whole. 

Do Not Track, a tool designed to afford users privacy as they browse through the Web, will be active by default when users install or first-run Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8. But in an effort to save Do Not Track, one developer for the popular Apache Web server is trying to to add a feature in Apache that will actively ignore any Do Not Track settings from any future IE 10 users.

The controversial choice was made by Apache HTTP developer Roy Fielding, who actually authored part of the standard that dictates how Do Not Track (DNT) is supposed to work. The patch proposed for the popular Web server would effectively make all websites running Apache servers (about 60% of the world's total sites) blithely ignore IE 10 browser's requests for DNT -precisely because the feature is pretty much turned on by default.

Security By Default Is A BAD Thing?

Confused? It's easy to get lost here, since one would think that a security feature that's turned on by default would be a good thing. But Fielding has taken exception to this practice, taking the extraordinary step to specifically short-circuit Microsoft's plans, which he sees as ultimately trying to bring DNT down.

Here's how DNT should work: a user decides that he or she does not want their information tracked by advertising and marketing sites and vendors as they surf around the Web. So they go into the settings of their browser (IE, Firefox or Chrome, to name the three most popular) and turn on DNT.

After that, every time they visit a new site that would like to track them, the user's browser sends a signal within the HTTP header informing the target website not to track that user. If the website's managers and developers (as well as the advertisers paying to be on that site) choose to honor DNT, then the user will be allowed to go on their way unmolested by cookies and other such tracking measures. Note that participation by websites is voluntary.

Microsoft Turns On Do Not Track in WIndows 8 / IE 10

In late May, Microsoft announced that DNT would essentially be turned on by default in IE 10 when the new browser is released within Windows 8, due out in late October.

"Consumers should be empowered to make an informed choice and, for these reasons, we believe that for IE10 in Windows 8, a privacy-by-default state for online behavioral advertising is the right approach," wrote Microsoft's Chief Privacy Officer Brandon Lynch at the time.

In August, Lynch elaborated on how DNT would work in IE 10 and Windows 8.

"DNT will be enabled in the 'Express Settings' portion of the Windows 8 set-up experience. There, customers will also be given a 'Customize' option, allowing them to easily switch DNT 'off' if they'd like," Lynch indicated.

Do Not Track Only Counts If It's A "Choice"

Not everyone agreed with Lynch's judgement. Certainly not Fielding, and not Microsoft's chief browser competitor Mozilla, makers of the Firefox browser, who believe that DNT should represent the user's wishes, not a default setting from the browser maker.

After Lynch's initial May announcement, Mozilla's Privacy and Data Policy Manager Alex Fowler blogged, "DNT allows for a conversation between the person sitting behind the keyboard and the site that they want to visit. If DNT is on by default, it’s not a conversation. For DNT to be effective, it must actually represent the user’s voice."

Surprise! Advertisers Don't Like The Default Option

That theme was avidly picked up by the Digital Advertising Alliance, which conveniently announced that it would not honor DNT from any user that had the setting turned on by default. Of course, since there's no way a website can tell if DNT was flipped on by the user or set at the factory, the DAA basically washed its hands of having to honor DNT at all. (Or at the very least not honoring it for IE 10 users.)

Fielding's stance falls in line with Mozilla's. In the comments to his patch to the Apache Web server defending his stance, Fielding wrote, "[t]he only reason DNT exists is to express a non-default option. That's all it does. It does not protect anyone's privacy unless the recipients believe it was set by a real human being, with a real preference for privacy over personalization."

What Does "Choice" Really Mean?

Fielding's patch has stirred up a firestorm of protests in the Internet developer and user community, with opponents arguing that Fielding, and by extension Apache, has no business dictating for millions of potential IE 10 users that privacy settings they thought were turned on will now be effectively negated.

"My biggest concern with all of this is the fact that Apache thinks its OK to be the standards police like this," blogged Yammer JavaScript engineer Oscar Godson, "It's making the conscience decision to interpret a spec and give punishment to a vendor for not following it exactly (I think Microsoft did, but that's beside the point). That’s just not how we've all decided to do the whole standards thing. We decided that we were going to stop with with the 'this site looks best viewed in…' banners and instead organically get vendors to follow along, not force them into following it and punishing users while they’re at it."

Questioning Motives?

Since Fielding is also one of the authors of the DNT standard, which is currently in draft form, questions have also been raised about Fielding's motivation. In his day job as a principal scientist with Adobe Systems, Fielding's employers would have a vested interest in keeping tracking from being avoided.

"Do you honestly believe it's coincidence that the patch was submitted by an Adobe employee, given their position in the market? Do you not see how they benefit if the most widely used webserver (Apache) ignores the setting in the most widely used browser (IE)?," commented developer Andy Cadley.

But Fielding contents taht there's conspiracy to be found here, it's coming from Microsoft acting as an agent provocateur.

"Microsoft deliberately violates the standard. They made a big deal about announcing that very fact. Microsoft are members of the Tracking Protection working group and are fully informed of these facts. They are fully capable of requesting a change to the standard, but have chosen not to do so. The decision to set DNT by default in IE 10 has nothing to do with the user's privacy. Microsoft knows full well that the false signal will be ignored, and thus prevent their own users from having an effective option for DNT even if their user's want one. You can figure out why they want that. If you have a problem with it, choose a better browser," Fielding argued.

In that context, Fielding claims to be actually trying to protect the standard as it is exists, and give organizations like the DAA less of an excuse to ignore DNT.

Whatever his reasons, patch may amount to little more than a political statement from Fielding. To date, his patch has not been accepted by the main Apache team, so it isn't yet part of any official Apache release. And even if the patch were accepted, it will be a simple matter for Web masters to turn it off.

Still, the controversy is raising new questions about the very viability of Do Not Track at a time when it is being targeted by advertisers who still want to gather that all-important user data. Fielding's medicine could be worse than the disease, but in yet another irony, that may be exactly what it takes to get the online industry to keep paying attention to their privacy obligations.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Come tomorrow, if you do not already have Flash on your Android smartphone, you will not be able to get it. Adobe has planned to put Flash for Android to rest since fall 2011. The company announced on June 28th that it would un-publish Flash from Google Play on August 15.

Tomorrow will not bring the complete end of Flash support on Android devices. Existing Flash for Android users will continue to receive security updates, but that is the extent to which Adobe will continue to support the plug-in.

Adobe announced last year that mobile Flash would no longer be supported on Android beyond version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Now that Google has released Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, mobile Flash has reached the end of the road. Yet it will take a while to completely root out Flash on Android as it will persist on Android versions 2.1 Éclair through 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. As of the beginning of August, 98.5% of Android users fell within that range, and 60.6% still used version 2.3 Gingerbread. Flash will be weeded out of the Android ecosystem as more smartphones and tablets receive 4.1 Jelly Bean either through updates or pre-installed.

Adobe provides a list of devices in which mobile Flash will continue to work if it has been installed by August 15. Most devices run the Android operating system, but the BlackBerry PlayBook supports versions of mobile Flash. 

Microsoft has stated that it will have limited Flash support in its Windows 8 tablets via Internet Explorer 10. 

The death of mobile Flash follows the rise of HTML5, an open stack of technologies intended to serve as cross-platform standards for media integration on the Internet. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously rejected Flash on iOS devices in favor of HTML5. Android adopted Flash, but the plug-in proved to be problematic, and users often complained of glitchy performance.

Some core Flash technologies will live on in other Adobe products on mobile devices, such as AIR. Some developers use AIR to create media-driven mobile apps, mostly games. Flash as a ubiquitous video standard on the mobile Web will cease to exist, while AIR will live on as a rendering engine in applications built with Adobe.

As of now, the Flash Player update will only be available to users with Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Basically, that means anybody with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which was released through Verizon this week and has already sold out at most stores.

There is nothing to get excited about for Flash Player 11.1. There are no new features, no major system upgrades. The upgrade is more about performance and bug fixes than anything else. There are no security enhancements or fixed issues. What Adobe did take care of were some of the known issues in the Android release.

Here is the list:

• Seeking while video is paused will not update the frame on ICS device
• StageVideo using On2 and Sorenson does not work on ICS devices
• PHDS content plays with audio pops
• OS does not prioritize incoming call - audio remains playing before and after call is received
• Enter key does not work on the multi-line input field

Adobe really has no reason to make any major changes to the mobile Flash Player. The updates for what could be the final version of mobile Flash are simple, really just a matter of getting Flash ready to run on Ice Cream Sandwich. There are no fixes to address battery life, the major problem for mobile Flash. Why tackle big problems like these when the entire product is at the end of its life?

Adobe's mobile solutions will now focus on application development with Flex and Air through its acquisition of Nitobi, the makers of PhoneGap. It is concentrating on creating killer apps and helping developers with tools. The company is going to make a big jump into HTML5 development in 2012 and has laid the groundwork with its app-building tools and acquisitions in the latter half of 2011 for it to be a go-to resources for developers.

Adobe's new tract is what is best for everybody. While mobile Flash had the potential to be one of the standards of the next generation, the company ignored the warning signs until it was too late and innovation outpaced it.

The question becomes: does mobile Flash really matter? For Android in general, the answer is yes, Flash does matter. For Android 4.0? Maybe. It all depends on how many Android Gingerbread users get the ICS push within the next couple of months and how much they rely on Flash. Most Gingerbread devices will eventually see ICS updates. Yet, with HTML5 being pushed by developers, this is a fork that Android users will hardly notice.

What this really comes down to is Old Android verse New Android. New Android devices and applications do not really need Flash. Sure, it is nice to have, but not a necessary piece of software on mobile devices these days. With PhoneGap tools and HTML5, developers have been able to avoid Flash for a while now. Most new applications, even those made with Adobe AIR, do not need Flash specifically to function.

On the other hand, there is a lot of functionality that will be missed without some aspects of Flash for mobile on Android devices. Those using Android 2.3.4-7 have Flash pre-installed without likely realizing that it is there. That was also the first full build of mobile Flash that worked in the way that it was supposed to (even though technically it was available in Froyo 2.2). As of early November, 43.9% of Android users have Gingerbread. That means that they will eventually have ICS. Yet, if Flash is coming out by the end of the year then nearly 95% of those users will probably not miss it since it will take longer than that for the OEMs and carriers to push ICS to those devices (many of which just got Gingerbread in the first place).

For almost all users, the timetable for mobile Flash for Android 4.0 is a non-factor. Even for the next generations of Android (Jelly Bean?), the lack of it will not be a problem as mobile Flash is destined to soon become irrelevant with HTML5. Flash for older Android devices is not going anywhere and, according to Pocket-lint, mobile Flash continue to be support with critical bug fixes and security updates.

Do you really need mobile Flash on your Android Ice Cream Sandwich device? If you do, why? Let us know in the comments.

"They ignored it until it was too late," Icaza said. "They were not looking out for the best interest of developers." According to Icaza, Adobe chose to focus at the time on apps for feature phones. Adobe's lack of foresight put the company in catch up mode and ultimately headaches and ridicule of the mobile industry leading to the news that Flash for mobile will soon die.

Icaza started with Adobe in 1997 before moving to Macromedia, which was later acquired by Adobe for $3.1 billion, mostly for Flash. In an interview with ReadWriteWeb he said that half the mobile Flash team at Adobe carried iPhones in 2007. The writing was on the wall but Adobe ultimately thought that the iPhone would be a niche, which was popular stance among many executives and tech pundits at the time.

Flash forward more than four years later and Adobe finally has got the message.

"They dragged it on for months and months and three years down the line they finally kill it," Icaza said.

When Adobe finally did figure out that touch screen smartphones were the future and not just a fad, it created a glut of tools (like Adobe AIR and the AIR Marketplace) that tried to do a little bit for everyone. AIR has been built into the toolset for creating BlackBerry apps, especially for the QNX/BBX platform and Flash has been given Android compatibility since the release of Frozen Yogurt. What really makes little sense is how Adobe was not able to develop Flash to actually work well on mobile devices. The focus has long been on making sure that Flash can do more, more, more and be something for everybody. Adobe never took a step back and said that to do more, Flash may have to do less.

"It became too much of a tangle," Icaza said. "At the end of the day the focus on what was important was lost and what is important are the developers."

Icaza said that Adobe wanted to recreate the success of Flash mobile for feature phones in the same way that it succeeded in Japan, where there is a large commuter society that spends a lot of time on their phones while in transit to and from work. Icaza implied that it was this focus on trying to replicate this process was what blinded Adobe from the early stages of the most important evolution in computing since the advent of the World Wide Web.

"Adobe said that smartphones were going to be a niche," Icaza said.

In a blog post earlier this year, Icaza said that Flash ultimately became a second-class citizen within Adobe, taking a backseat to the developer tools that the company makes money from as opposed to the standard that many of them were built on.

"We were the darlings of the company," Icaza said. "And we were ignored."

And now, Adobe is going to focus on HTML5. To a certain extent, the cycle starts all over again. Adobe released EDGE and now FlashPro that will turn Flash into HTML5. Icaza said that Adobe will have a PR nightmare on its hands trying to convince its three million Flash developers to scrap projects in Flash and move to HTML5. If you read the Adobe Twitter account today, that push is well under way.

What do you think of the death of mobile Flash? Take our poll on the subject or let us let us know in the comments.

There could be several books written about the battle for Flash against mobile. "Steve Jobs' Last Laugh" could probably be finished in time for the holiday shopping season. "How To Kill Flash For Dummies" would be an enlightening title as well. It is a bittersweet day for many. We want to know: how are you reacting to the passing of Flash for mobile? Take the poll below.

The Fall Of One, The Rise of Another

The fall of one platform is often correlated to the rise of another. Look at Android vs. Blackberry or Chrome vs. Firefox, Google vs. Yahoo, Internet Explorer vs. Netscape. The death of mobile Flash is seen as the ultimate validation of HTML5. The evolution of this battle on mobile will take place with native apps vs. Web apps though there is no clear indication yet what will ultimately be the winner in that sweepstakes.

Adobe will now focus on HTML5 development and tools that can be used to help developers. The company's recent acquisition of PhoneGap maker Nitobi will help ease the pain in Adobe's mobile development cycles and should not be overlooked as a major factor in this decision to kill mobile Flash.

The pages of ReadWriteWeb have been filled with Flash news for the last four years. Like so many things in the last decade, the argument was created by our generation's largest tech luminary, Steve Jobs. A lot of pundits and tech insiders took Jobs' words for gospel and that fueled the bashing of Flash that has led to this point. On the other hand, there have been a lot of hardworking people (with a lot of money) that have tried to fix the problems Flash had on mobile devices for the last several years. This cannot be a good day for them as something they have been working on for years has been obsoleted overnight.

Take a look at some of the highlights of our Flash coverage from the last couple of years and take the poll below to let us know how you feel.

ReadWriteWeb's Notable Flash Coverage:

• Steve Jobs Wins: Adobe to Give Up Mobile Flash for HTML5
• Steve Jobs Speaks: Why We Don't Allow Flash on iPhones and iPads
• On Mobile Flash, Apple Stands Alone
• Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash? The Surprising Results of New Tests
• EU May Force Flash Onto Apple Products
• Adobe Releases Flash to HTML5 Conversion Tool
• HTML5 Scores a Point as SlideShare Ditches Flash Entirely
• Adobe: Flash is an Exception to Windows 8's 'Plug-in Free' Rule
• Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Ready For Honeycomb; Honeycomb Not Ready For Anything
• Farewell Flash? Adobe Launches HTML5 Web Animations Tool "Adobe Edge"
• Google Swiffy Converts Flash to HTML5
• B&N's Nook Color Gets Apps, Flash & More in Major Update
• Flash Video Comes to the iPhone, iPad with Skyfire
• How to Install Flash on your iPhone (The Easy Way)
• Apple Approved: iSwifter Lets You Play Popular Flash Games on the iPad
• Worried About Flash on the iPad? Apple Tries to Ease Your Fears
• No Flash? No Worries: Majority of Online Video Now Available in HTML5
• YouTube: Flash Still Beats HTML5
• Flash Now Importable to HTML5 Canvas
• Death to Flash: 3 Great HTML 5 Demos
• Adobe Celebrates, But Will Flash Developers Return to Apple?
• Proof of Concept Brings Flash to the iPhone
• MobiUs Accelerates Mobile HTML5 Development, Aims to Kill Mobile Flash

For those who aren't thrilled with Photo Stream, Adobe launched an alternative today called Carousel. The new applications for Mac and iOS allow users to centralize their photo library in the cloud, making them accessible across devices. The software also syncs edits that are made regardless of which device they were made on, and also keeps a back-up copy of the original.

Carousel also supports sharing and collaboration with other users, something that makes maintaining digital family photo albums easier. The applications themselves are free, but the service requires a paid storage subscription plan. That normally costs $10 but Adobe is offering it at a discount to coincide with the launch of the new service.

Photo Stream's Limitations

When iCloud launched, I eagerly turned it on for just about everything but photos. My iPad (first generation, so it doesn't have a camera) mostly contains screen shots of apps I've taken for work. My iPhone almost entirely contains Instagram shots. On the desktop, I don't use iPhoto, but rather edit photos from my SLR using Photoshop and back them up on an external hard drive. I personally have no reason to merge all of these images together.

Some users who did activate Photo Stream have complained about some of its limitations. It only keeps photos online for 30 days and so far Apple hasn't provided users a way to delete individual photos from iCloud or single out images to be excluded from it. It's all or nothing with Photo Stream.

For now, Carousel is only available on Mac OS X (Lion only) and iOS, but apps for Android and Windows are reportedly on the way.

Adobe is making big news on the first day of its Adobe MAX conference. First they announced that they are buying Web font pioneerTypeKit. Then came the news that they have acquired framework provider Nitobi and its powerful PhoneGap code. In keeping with the theme of mobile innovation, the company has announced Adobe Touch Apps, a family of six applications to enable creative professionals to produce dynamic work that will run anywhere.

Touch Apps will be part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. That includes Photoshop, which Adobe will release as a mobile app that will work with a finger or a stylus. The six Adobe Touch Apps will be able to run across devices and be transferred into the company's Creative Suite CS5.5. Check out what Adobe has in store after the jump.

Stylus? What Stylus?

An interesting note in Adobe's press release, "With stylus capabilities expected to become a key feature on some next generation tablets, Adobe Touch Apps are designed to work with both finger and stylus input."

Honestly, I am not sure where Adobe is getting their stylus expectations. The only tablets that have integrated any decent stylus-based apps are from HTC in the Flyer and EVO View. The iPad certainly is not nor probably will be a stylus-based operating system and no other Android tablet features a stylus.

The six apps in Adobe new touch-based creative suite all look to be powerful additions to tablet creativity software. They are: Photoshop, Collage, Debut, Ideas, Kuler and Proto. Each will cost $9.99 and Android compatibility is coming in November. Adobe expects to make an announcement on iOS availability in early 2012, except for Ideas, which is already available on the iPad. Let's take a look at each of them.

At $9.99 A Piece, Are They All Worth It?

Photoshop Touch: This is what users have been clamoring for. Not just a great photo editor on a tablet, but Photoshop itself in all of its geeky glory, come to the tablet. It features a tablet-exclusive feature called Scribble Selection Tool that allows users to easily extract objects in an image what using their finger to highlight what they want to keep and what they want to remove. It also has Facebook integration for easy sharing and Google Search and can sync to Adobe's Creative Cloud.

Collage: Combine images, drawings, text and Creative Suite files. Can import images, draw, add text and apply color themes. Files can be accessed through Photoshop later.

Debut: Once you create in Collage or Photoshop, users can then show their work anywhere with Debut. The app opens Creative Suite files and then can be given feedback with a markup tool.

Ideas: This is the drawing tool used for vector-based projects. Want to create a t-shirt while on the road? Can bring in images that can be edited with Ideas and then exported to Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.

Kuler: Color. This is the app that can dynamically create color schemes that can be used in other projects. There is an odd social engagement layer (I am not a designer, do they vote on colors?) where partners can share their color themes. Swatches can then be exported to other Creative Suite files.

Proto: Interactive wireframes and prototypes for websites and mobile apps. The prototypes can be exported as industry standard HTML, CSS and Javascript.

While Photoshop, Collage and Proto are obvious for the designer on the go at $9.99, are Kuler, Ideas and Debut worth that much? They seem secondary to the main Adobe experience and likely could be packaged together for $9.99 for the set.

Designers - Is this the best set of tools available for creative projects on a tablet? Are they something you are likely to use? Let us know in the comments.

Not content to settle for what's possible, Adobe has recommended some specifications to the W3C that will allow CSS to create much more fluid, flexible layouts.

CSS Regions is a module that builds on the column-based layout options now available in CSS3 to enable front-end developers to flow text across different columns (or "regions") on a page. This allows for more dynamic page designs, which can shapeshift to fit different devices and device orientations on-the-fly.

The CSS Regions standard recently made its way into both the WebKit browser engine project and latest Chromium release, and will also be supported by Internet Explorer 10.

Another improvement to CSS proposed by Adobe is called Exclusions, which lets developers flow text into a non-rectangluar shape, or to wrap it around graphics on the screen, much like what's been possible in desktop publishing for decades. Check out the video below for examples of these new standards at work.

Adobe announced today that its Digital Publishing Suite will be ready when iOS 5 and Newsstand go live. Using DPS, media companies will now be able to publish directly into Newsstand, just as they can now publish stand-alone apps for iPads and other tablet devices.

Currently, media organizations that have published an iPad version of their publication run the risk of having it buried amongst thousands of apps in the traditional iTunes App Store. This includes not only other publications but a massive selection of apps across 20 categories, including everything from games to productivity tools. Apple's Newsstand gives publishers their own marketplace, much like iBooks provides a storefront exclusively for e-books. The result will be increased exposure for publishers.

This should, in theory, help them better monetize their content, although publishers already have mixed feelings about the 30% revenue cut Apple insists on taking from content sales.

The Future of Publishing or Print 2.0?

Adobe touts its DPS product as "a complete solution for both traditional media and business publishers," who can use it to export tablet-friendly versions of their print publications. The system essentially serves as an extension the print workflow, allowing publishers to enhance layouts built with Adobe InDesign with digital bells and whistles. It also offers tools for collecting subscription payments and analyzing basic user behavior. For more detailed analytics, publishers can plug in Adobe's Omniture service, so long as they are paying customers.

The system can be used to overlay interactive elements like slideshows, videos and rich, animated graphics. The end result is an experience akin to Wired's iPad edition, which was built using DPS. Other publishers using Adobe's digital publishing solution include Readers Digest, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and India's Hindustan Times.

Presumably these publications, along with others, will find their way into Apple's Newsstand, which appears to be designed to support an issue-by-issue release of periodicals.

These digitally-enhanced magazines and newspapers may be neat to look at, but are they really the future of publishing? Some argue that this model hinges too heavily on the print paradigm of releasing content in periodical chunks rather than letting information flow in a real-time stream as it does on the Web.

Most iPad editions of magazines are "bloated, user-unfriendly and map to a tired pattern of mass media brands trying vainly to establish beachheads on new platforms without really understanding the platforms at all," wrote Khoi Vinh, former New York Times Design Director, in a blog post last year. "The fact of the matter is that the mode of reading that a magazine represents is a mode that people are decreasingly interested in, that is making less and less sense as we forge further into this century, and that makes almost no sense on a tablet."

Taking Better Advantage of the Tablet Form Factor

Indeed, digital magazines and newspapers that mimic print have not exactly wowed consumers. But that doesn't mean people aren't excited about reading news on tablets. Three of the most popular iPad apps in the "News" category of the App Store are Flipboard, Pulse and Zite, all personalized news reading and aggregation apps that have won their fair share of praise from users. Flipboard in particular was named "App of the Year" by Apple and made Time magazine's list of last year's best inventions.

Rather than bolt on an extension to their print workflow, which should already have some kind of pipeline to the Web, shouldn't publishers logically pick the workflow up from there and build a channel from the Web to tablets?

That's what disruptive news reading apps like Flipboard do and that's how many traditional newspapers publishers like The New York Times, USA Today and the BBC are doing. Their apps update as new pieces of content become available, not in regular chunks.

Of course, there's something to be said for the packaged reading experience that magazines offer, which can offer a respite from the real-time barrage of information that inundates us all each day. And if publishers have print editions, there's no reason they can't offer that experience on a tablet, perhaps as its own tab on an app that is otherwise dynamic, social, sharable and deeply interactive.