We're not going to twist your arm, but if you're sitting on some beachfront property that you're willing to deed over to your favorite Engadget writers, the folks at Adobe are making the process all too easy. The company is delivering a free app for iOS that enables EchoSign subscribers to attach legally binding signatures to virtually any document, all from the comfort of their preferred fruit-filled device. What's more, the software also allows users to send documents to others for a one-click stroke of the pen and track the status of said agreements with real-time updates. Now, please excuse us. We've got some aboveboard contracts to draft.

Adobe releases EchoSign app for iOS, enables legally binding contracts to be signed with a 'click' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 07:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink 9to5Mac  |  Adobe  | Email this | Comments

RIM, with a finger in each ear and a third, cybernetic arm poking out its own eyeballs, has decided to license Flash from Adobe and keep it alive for PlayBook, AllThingsD reports. Nothing says the future like supporting dead technology! More »

RIM, with a finger in each ear and a third, cybernetic arm poking out its own eyeballs, has decided to license Flash from Adobe and keep it alive for PlayBook, AllThingsD reports. Nothing says the future like supporting dead technology! More »

Adobe is stopping development of its Flash Player for mobile browsers, according to an exclusive report from ZDNet. The company will continue to support existing Android and BlackBerry Playbook configurations of the player, but future development will be focused on developing HTML5 and apps. More »

Adobe will soon discontinue development of Flash Player for mobile devices according to a recent report. Citing sources with knowledge of Adobe’s future plans, ZDNet’s Tech Broiler blog claims that Adobe will no longer develop Flash Player for mobile browsers, instead focusing on mobile apps, “expressive” desktop content and increasing the company’s investment in HTML5. “Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores,” Adobe reportedly wrote in a memo. “We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.” The purported memo adds that Adobe will continue to support mobile Flash on Android and the BlackBerry PlayBook, supplying critical bug fixes and security updates as required.

Read

Even though Adobe just mentioned it was planning to invest further in HTML5 after restructuring, a rumor from ZDNet suggests the changes could go even further by dropping development for Flash Player on mobiles entirely. According to an email reportedly received by the company's partners, its future work on Flash for cellphones and tablets will focus on enabling developers to "package apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores." After years of battling with Apple and Steve Jobs over the place of Flash on mobiles it appears the company is ready to lay down its sword, with existing platforms like Android receiving only security updates going forward. If the rumors are true, we'll probably hear an official announcement later today, along with a few huge belly laughs from the folks in Cupertino.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Adobe reportedly will announce the end of Flash Player for mobile devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Nov 2011 02:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  ZDNet  | Email this | Comments

This hard drive contains software like Adobe's Font Collection, a 124GB music collection, tons of games, books and more. All the files were downloaded illegally and is supposed to represent, I'm assuming here, the freedom and/or piracy of art. More »

from Adobe surrendering to Apple and the good HTML5 fight, Adobe's Edge web creator is simply a little shrug and acknowledgment that HTML5, CSS and JavaScript will get them on more mobile devices than Flash will. More »

Speaking during the D9 conference in California on Thursday, Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen said that his company’s feud with Apple, which was a result of Cupertino’s decision to omit support for Flash in its products, has come to an end. “Yes, the argument is over from our point of view,” Narayen said. “We are so excited about opportunities we have. We’re focused on that.â€� He added that Adobe welcomes, and is contributing to, the new HTML5 standard. Apple’s argument, which has been backed by many developers, is that HTML5 is a more efficient than Flash — particularly when it comes to battery consumption — for presenting and viewing streaming video and other multimedia content. “At the end of the day, where Adobe makes its money is through our application tools, as well as our solutions, (and) being able to make that content and measure that content and manage that content,” Narayen told The Wall Street Journal.
Read

Being number one is usually an honor, but not when it comes to Kaspersky Lab's top ten PC vulnerabilities list. Unfortunately for the software giant, Adobe took top dishonors for Q1 this year, pulling in five total spots on the list, including the top three. According to the security firm, all of the vulnerabilities appearing on the list allowed cyber-criminals to control computers at the system level. The number one spot was occupied by a vulnerability in Acrobat Reader that was reportedly detected on 40 percent of machines running the application, while Flash Player flaws took second and third. Other dishonorees included the Java Virtual Machine, coming in at fourth and fifth place, Apple QuickTime, Winamp, and Microsoft Office. That ain't bad, considering Microsoft ruled the vulnerabilities roost in 2010.

Adobe dominates Kaspersky Lab's top ten PC vulnerabilites list originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 21:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Inquirer  |  Kaspersky Lab  | Email this | Comments

It's been saying that it was coming "soon" since March, and Adobe has now finally delivered Flash Player 10.3 to compatible Android devices. As expected, it brings mostly bug fixes and optimizations, the biggest of which appears to be NEON optimizations for OMAP4 (or Cortex A-9) processors, which should be good news for BlackBerry PlayBook owners (and those that eventually get their hands on an Optimus 3D). Otherwise, you can expect to find the usual batch of security improvements, and a few fixes for specific problems on Galaxy S phones, the HTC Evo, and various Morotola devices.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Flash Player 10.3 hits Android with optimizations, bug fixes aplenty originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 May 2011 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Adobe  | Email this | Comments

Oh, here we go again. Adobe's kicked out a security bulletin for users of its Flash Player on "all platforms" -- that'll be the entire population of the internet, then -- warning them that a new critical vulnerability has been discovered that may cause crashes and potentially permit the hijacking of systems. The issue also affects the company's Reader and Acrobat software products. Even better news is that Adobe has found it's being actively exploited "in the wild" via a .swf file embedded in an Excel spreadsheet, but a fix won't be forthcoming until the beginning of next week. So, erm, enjoy your full web experience until then!

Adobe finds 'critical' security hole in Flash Player, won't fix it before next week originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PC World (Yahoo! News)  |  Adobe  | Email this | Comments

Via a brief blog post, software giant Adobe has announced a preview of its “Wallaby” Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool. The company is describing Wallaby as “experimental technology,” but notes that it will facilitate the viewing of FLA files on iOS devices. “This [Wallaby] allows you to reuse and extend the reach of your content to devices that do not support the Flash runtimes,” writes Adobe. “Once these files are converted to HTML, you can edit them with an HTML editing tool, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, or by hand if desired.” Not all Flash features are supported by the conversion utility and Adobe does warn of a handful of documented, known issues. Hit the jump to see a video of the utility in action.

[Via 9t05 Mac]

Read

We've already heard that the Federal Trade Commission is pushing for a "do not track" button of sorts to stop cookies from watching your every move, but it looks like it isn't stopping at the usual, non-edible definiton of a "cookie." Speaking at a press conference on Friday, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz also dropped the rather interesting tidbit that it's been talking with Adobe about what it describes as "the Flash problem." As Paid Content reports, newly-appointed FTC Chief Technologist Ed Felten later clarified that the problem in question is actually so-called "Flash cookies," or what Adobe describes as "local shared objects." As Felten explained, those can also be used for tracking purposes, but they usually aren't affected by the privacy controls in web browsers -- Chrome is one notable exception. For it's part, Adobe says that Flash's local shared objects were never designed for tracking purposes, and that it has repeatedly condemned such practices -- the company also added that it would support "any industry initiative to foster clear, meaningful and persistent choice regarding online tracking."

[Image courtesy dopefly dot com]

FTC says its talking to Adobe about the problem with 'Flash cookies' originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Dec 2010 23:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Paid Content  | Email this | Comments

Hey, Adobe's finally figured out how to make Flash secure -- have Google do it! The guys behind your favorite search engine have updated their latest Dev channel release of Chrome to include a new sandboxing facility for Flash Player content. It'll serve to limit access to sensitive system resources and make Flash's operation a generally less threatening proposition than it currently is. This also marks the fulfillment of a longstanding promise from Google to give Flash the same treatment it's afforded to JavaScript and HTML rendering for a while, and should be welcome news to Windows users eager to minimize "the potential attack surface" of their browser. Sorry, Mac fans, you're out in the unsecured cold for now. Of course, the Dev channel itself is one step less refined than beta software, so even if you're on Windows it might be advisable to wait it out a little bit.

Chrome sandboxes Flash Player in latest Dev channel release for Windows originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Download Squad  |  Chromium Blog  | Email this | Comments

Let's be honest, Apple's claim that it neglected to preload Flash on the new MacBook Airs so that users themselves could download and install the latest (and safest) version was a bit of a red herring. Behind that thin veil of corporate courtesy, we're now seeing a pretty potent cause for Apple's dumping of Adobe's wares. Ars Technica's review of the 11-inch Air discovered that the machine could crank its way through six hours of web browsing when Flash was nowhere near it, but only four hours with Flash installed and giving it "the full web experience." The primary culprit was Adobe's penchant for using CPU cycles to display animated ads, which were typically replaced by static imagery in the absence of the requisite software. So yeah, it's not a surprise that a "richer" web would require more resources, but it doesn't speak well for Flash's efficiency to find a laptop loses a third of its longevity when running it.

MacBook Air battery shown to last two hours longer when browsing the web sans Flash originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink AppleInsider  |  Ars Technica  | Email this | Comments

Sure, you might have to be at Adobe's MAX conference to actually hold a PlayBook in your hand... but RIM's offering us all the next best thing by turning a beta version of its PlayBook simulator loose on devs way, way in advance of the tablet's release -- ostensibly in the hopes of drumming up a beefy third-party app catalog in time for retail. On that note, we've spent a few minutes playing with the simulator today, which is delivered in the form of an ISO that can be loaded as an operating system installer for a VMWare virtual machine on either Windows or Mac. There's seriously very little to see here so far, but you can play with the on-screen landscape keyboard, confirm the presence of inertial scrolling in text areas, and get a quick look at how the status and app bars work. Speaking of apps, there aren't any -- not a single one -- but it's way early, and that's obviously where RIM hopes you come into play with that million-dollar software idea of yours. Follow the break for a video walkthrough!

Continue reading BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator Beta hands-on

BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator Beta hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments