Adobe has added support for InPrivate browsing in Adobe Flash Player 10.1. Most modern browsers including Internet Explorer 8.0+,Mozilla Firefox 3.5+,Apple Safari 2.0+ and Google Chrome 1.0 supports InPrivate browsing. Integrating with your web browser, Flash Player 10.1 will automatically clear stored data in accordance with your browser’s private browsing settings. Prior to Flash Player 10.1, the player behaved the same whether the browser was in private browsing or not. Browsers could clear browser data temporarily stored during a private browsing session, such as cookies and history, but they were unaware of the data stored in Flash Player local storage (also known as local shared objects or LSOs). To keep your information safe, information in Flash Player local storage is stored on a site-by-site basis—so that one website can never see information from another website. However, storing information on a site-by-site basis can leave a history of previously visited sites that have used local storage.

Starting with Flash Player 10.1, Flash Player actively supports the browser’s private browsing mode, managing data in local storage so that it is consistent with private browsing. So when a private browsing session ends, Flash Player will automatically clear any corresponding data in local storage.

Additionally, Flash Player separates the local storage used in normal browsing from the local storage used during private browsing. So when you enter private browsing mode, sites that you previously visited will not be able to see information they saved on your computer during normal browsing. For example, if you saved your login and password in a web application powered by Flash during normal browsing, the site won’t remember that information when you visit the site under private browsing, keeping your identity private.

The Settings panel lets you change settings for a specific piece of content running in Flash Player (also known as a SWF file) or the site where that content came from.

Source : Adobe

In June 2009 Adobe has announced a limited developer preview of BrowserLab. BrowserLab is online hosted service by Adobe that enable web designers exact renderings of their web pages in multiple browsers and operating systems, on demand. BrowserLab is a powerful solution for cross-browser compatibility testing, featuring multiple viewing and comparison tools, as well as customizable preferences. Since BrowserLab is an online service, it can be accessed from virtually any computer connected to the web.

New Features

• Save Locally: Save screenshots generated by BrowserLab in either 1-Up or 2-Up views. This lets you capture renderings of your web pages in different browsers, to save for easy reference or sharing with clients and colleagues. Added January 14, 2010
• Additional browser support: Preview web pages in more browsers: Internet Explorer 8, Safari 4, Chrome 3.0 (XP) and Firefox 3.5 (XP and OS X). Each of these additional browsers can be added to existing Browser Sets.
• Rulers and Guides: Pinpoint the exact location of any area within a screenshot. Rulers on the X and Y axes show you precise pixel dimensions, with optional guidelines for added accuracy.
• Move and Pan: Move to any area of a screenshot by simply clicking and dragging your mouse, or using the arrow keys.
• Onion Skin Registration: Tackle precise layout issues within specific areas of your designs, with custom registration of the screenshots in BrowserLab’s Onion Skin view.
• Screenshot Delay: Pause the rendering of a screenshot by up to 10 seconds, so you can preview content that needs time to generate.

Supported Browsers and Operating Systems

• Firefox 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 (Windows XP and Mac OS X) .
• Internet Explorer 6.X, 7.X, and 8.X (Windows XP) .
• Safari 3.X and 4.X (Mac OS X) .
• Chrome 3.0 (Windows XP).

Viewing and Diagnostics Tools

Screenshots can be viewed in a single view, side by side view, or as an overlay view with variable transparency. Each viewing option features a zoom function. We’ve also added measurement tools like Rulers and Guides, custom Onion Skin Registration, as well as the ability to move quickly to specific areas of a screenshot. You can also save screenshots in 1-Up or 2-Up views.

Browser Sets

Browser Sets allow designers to customize, edit, and save a combination of browsers to test.

The BrowserLab free preview is available to a limited number of users, while we monitor its performance. Please visit our service status page for updates.

Adobe Pixel Bender is a technology that delivers a common image and video processing infrastructure with an automatic runtime optimization on heterogeneous hardware. Pixel bender kernel language can used for implementing image processing algorithms in a hardware independent manner. The Pixel Bender graph language is an XML-based language for combining individual pixel-processing operations (kernels) into more complex Pixel Bender filters. The Pixel Bender Toolkit includes the Pixel Bender kernel language and graph language, the Pixel Bender Toolkit IDE (an integrated development environment for Pixel Bender), sample filters, and documentation.Pixel Bender is best suited for the kind of algorithms in which processing of any pixel has minimum dependence on the values of other pixels. For example, you can efficiently write a kernel to manipulate brightness of the image because brightness of each pixel can be changed independently. You would not want to use Pixel Bender to compute a histogram, because a histogram requires the values of all the pixels in an image.

Tutorial: Effects with the Pixel Bender Toolkit

Get an overview of what you can do with the Pixel Bender Toolkit by following this tutorial series by Kevin Goldsmith, engineering manager for the Adobe Image Foundation team in the Core Technology group:

• Part 1: Creating a new filter
• Part 2: Creating a vintage tone filter
• Part 3: Adding parameters to filters
• Part 4: Sampling multiple pixels
• Part 5: Applying a filter to an image in Flash
• Part 6: Modifying Pixel Bender parameters in Flash
• Part 7: Improving the displacement filter
• Part 8: Controlling the displacement filter with mouse positioning
• Part 9: Integrating multiple image sources with a Pixel Bender kernel
• Part 10: Using a multiple-input filter as a blend shader.

Instructional presentations

In these tutorial presentations, Lee Brimelow shows you the basics of creating and exporting filters, and animating parameters of a filter:

• Introduction to Pixel Bender: Part 1 (basics of creating Pixel Bender filters)
• Introduction to Pixel Bender: Part 2 (exporting a Pixel Bender filter, loading it into Flash, and applying it to an image)
• Animating Pixel Bender filters (animating filter parameters using a tweening library)

Adobe TV also features some informative instructional videos on using Pixel Bender:

• Pixel Bender custom filters (Lee Brimelow, ADC Presents)
• Pixel Bender filters (Paul Burnett, Flash Downunder)
• Pixel Bender unleashed (Ryan Taylor, MAX 2008

Adobe started two new open source framework projects to help media companies and publishers to build rich Adobe flash Applications. On Tuesday Adobe announced the availability of  Open Source Media Framework and Text Layout Framework.

Open Source Media Framework

Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) is an open software framework for building robust, feature rich video players and applications based on the Adobe® Flash® Platform.

OSMF reduces the complexity of player development, allowing the developer more time to focus on the overall user experience. OSMF’s flexible architecture allows the developer to easily customize their player for the browser or the desktop, incorporating plug-ins for advertising, reporting and content delivery along with standard player features such as playback controls, video navigation, buffering, and Dynamic Streaming. The OSMF media framework can be integrated into your own custom applications using the simple API, or you can deploy the ready-to-run dynamic SWF player without compiling or writing custom scripts.

Open Source Media Framework version 0.3 is now available.

Please review the Downloads page for an explanation of the different downloads available.

More downloads

Text Layout Framework

The Text Layout Framework is an extensible ActionScript library, built on the new text engine in Adobe® Flash® Player 10 and Adobe AIR 1.5, which delivers advanced, easy-to-integrate typographic and text layout features for rich, sophisticated and innovative typography on the web. The framework is designed to be used with Adobe Flex® or Adobe Flash Professional and is included in Flex 4, code named “Gumbo”. Developers can use or extend existing components, or use the framework to create their own text components.

The Text Layout Framework and source are bundled with the Flex 4 SDK. See the Flex SDK page

Today adobe released flash player update to address security vulnerabilities found in Adobe Flash player that can allow an attacker to take complete control of victims computer.

A malicious SWF must be loaded in Flash Player by the user for an attacker to exploit this potential vulnerability. Additional vulnerabilities have been addressed in this update. Adobe recommends users update to the most current version of Flash Player available for their platform.

read more at Adobe Security Bulletin

Adobe is offering a free limited preview of BrowserLab. BrowserLab is a online service that help you to test your web application on different browsers and  also on different operating systems. Designers can compare a site in two browsers side by side as well as use an “onion skin” mode that shows a site in multiple browsers overlaid one on top of the other. With BrowserLab extension to  Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Dreamweaver users have access to additional functionality such as testing local and active content.

Supported Browsers and Operating Systems

• Firefox 2.X and 3.X (Windows XP and Mac OS X)
• Internet Explorer 6.X and 7.X (Windows XP)
• Safari 3.X (Mac OS X)

Viewing and Diagnostics Tools

Screenshots can be viewed in a single view, side by side view, or as an overlay view with variable transparency. Each viewing option features a zoom function.

Browser Sets

Browser Sets allow designers to customize, edit, and save a combination of browsers to test.

Adobe Flash Catalyst is a new product from Adobe labs for converting Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files in interactive flash (SWF) without coding. With Adobe Flash Catalyst designers can create user experience and make it functional without coding. Designers will be able to show functional design instead of  static screenshots. Adobe Catalyst output files in Adobe Air and SWF format means you can easily publish these file over internet also or designers can pass the SWF files to developers who use Flash Builder to add functionality and integrate with servers and services.

Video demo of Adobe Flash Catalyst

Download the Flash Catalyst beta

Learn How to Use Flash Catalyst