Adobe to Release Flash 10.2 for Android March 18

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Today Adobe announced that Adobe Flash 10.2 will be available via the Android Market on March 18th. More importantly a system update to the Motorola XOOM started last night (version 3.0.1) that will finally bring the XOOM Adobe Flash capable. On March 18 Motorola Xoom users will be able to download Adobe 10.2 as long as they have updated their device to 3.0.1.

This release is considered a Production GA (general availability) for all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices. It will be considered a beta release for Google Gingerbread 3.0.1.

Adobe and Google worked closely together to get both of their respective releases out at the same time. It is expected that after subsequent updates it will be up to Production GA for Google Honeycomb.

According to Adobe the new capabilities for 10.2 for Andoird include:

Hardware accelerated video presentation for H.264 (Android 3.0.1+ only)

Flash Player 10.2 leverages the Stage Video rendering pipeline to enable users of Android 3.0 tablets, like the MOTOROLA XOOM™, to enjoy smooth playback of high-definition Flash video content on the web.   Users will experience reduced CPU usage and higher frame rates for existing H.264 video content.

Deeper integration with the Android browser rendering engine (Android 3.0.1+ only)

Deeper integration of Flash Player and the enhanced Android 3.0 browser delivers faster and better rendering of rich, interactive web content resulting in a browsing experience similar to the desktop.

Flash Player can now render content as part of the web page along with other components such as HTML, images and gif animation. As a result, users will experience:

• Improved scrolling of web pages;

• Uncompromised viewing of rich, immersive content in the way intended by the page designer, including support for instances where HTML and other web content is composited over Flash Player rendered content.  Flash Player rendered content will continue to be placed in a separate window on top of HTML in the Android 2.2 and 2.3 browsers, as these browsers do not support the new Android 3.0 browser rendering model.

Enhanced performance for the latest smartphones and tablets

Experience performance improvements designed to take advantage of the current generation of multi-core, GPU-enabled processors to deliver Flash videos, games and other interactive Web content on the latest smartphones and tablets.  For a list of upcoming Flash-enabled devices which show off the latest performance improvements, including the MOTOROLA ATRIX™ 4G, MOTOROLA XOOM™ and LG Optimus 2X, please click here.

Automatic soft keyboard support

Users of touch screen devices will enjoy a more optimized experience interacting with rich content that requires keyboard input.  This feature simplifies the development of multiscreen applications that require keyboard input, making it easier for developers to optimize desktop applications for mobile devices. A new ActionScript API enables developers to automatically launch and display the soft keyboard.

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