Robert Scoble dropped by our San Francisco office, and chatted with execs from the Flash team. His thoughts (and videos) on Flash and Apple devices are a worthwhile read.

Lately, some (okay, someone) have accused Flash of being a resource hog. And lots of others have jumped on the bandwagon, without actually having performed any real tests or gathered any real data. But Jan Ozer has been doing just that, and has posted all of the details online. Streaming Media has posted their summary as well.

Title says it all. Some really nice Flash charting examples. Check it out.

FlashCamp is coming to Boston next week on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 5:00pm. This is a free event with limited space, and the speaker lineup is pretty phenomenal, and includes Deepa Subramaniam, Heidi Williams, Doug Winnie, Chet Haase, ColdFusion's own Alison Huselid, as well as presenters from Zend and more. Registration required, so sign up now.

Who says you can't have it all? Check out this YouTube video showing the web, Flash and AIR on an upcoming HP slate device:

Also, see this Wired story.

HTML5 includes geolocation APIs that work even on devices without GPS support. And Serge Jespers has posted a demo showing how HTML5 and Flash can work together to use HTML5 geolocation to power a Flash app.

I'm a long time TiVo fan, and so I've been paying attention since TiVo announced that a new device was on the way. And the newly announced TiVo Premiere looks really impressive - everything that TiVo owners so love and then some. And, to top it all off, the UI is our very own Flash (and rumor has it that TiVo will open the box to 3rd party Flash apps, too).

In case you missed it, Adobe Flash has been in the news lately. Seems some don't care much for it. But, a PC Magazine columnist has just weighed in on the subject in a post entitled In Defense Of Flash.

Google Australia team member Pamela Fox explains HTML5 vs Flex for rich internet applications in this O'Reilly video from Ignite Sydney. She compares openness, UI components, vector graphics, 3D, bitmap manipulation, video, file system access, development environments, testing options, compatibility, and more - all in 5 minutes or so. Nice job, Pamela!

There's been lots of discussion about the upcoming Flash Player 10.1 and its phenomenal performance on the 1GHz processor Google Nexus One. But what about battery life? Fellow Adobe evangelist Mark Doherty weighs in on this one in a post entitled Battery Performance with Flash Player 10.1 on Nexus One.

The Creative Suite Developer Summit will take place at the Adobe offices in Seattle, WA from May 3rd to the 6th, 2010. I am scheduled to present a session entitled Flex and Flash Builder 101. Registration is now open.

Check out the Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 mobile preview videos showing off Flash (on the HTC HD2 and Nexus One, Dell Mini 5 tablet, Palm Pre, and Motorola Droid) and AIR (on NVIDIA Tegra-powered tablet, and Droid).

TechCrunch weighs in on Apple, Jobs, iPad, Flash, etc. in a provocative piece entitled Jobs: Flash would murder the iPad. Really now, let's be realistic.

I've done it. I've officially retired my iPhone 3GS, and have made the Google Nexus One my primary phone. Actually, I made the switch a week ago, but carried both devices until now, just in case. But no more. And having spent a week on the road with the Android powered Google Nexus One, here are some initial thoughts:

Pros

• My biggest gripe against iPhone has always been the virtual keyboard. I've been told repeatedly to just wait, give it a few months, get used to it ... And I gave it many months, and never got used to it. Between e-mail, text messaging, web browsing, I think I have yet to type a single sentence on the iPhone that did not require that I retype something. iPhone auto-correction is pathetic (one suggestion? and only after you've typed most of the word? and not if you hit the shift key by mistake?). Heck, even my old Windows Mobile 5.x and 6.x devices did a better job at suggestions! The Google Nexus One also has a virtual keyboard, and it is actually a little cramped when compared to the iPhone's. But, the suggestions work perfectly, with multiple listed, starting with the first character typed, and adapting as you go. As a result, I rarely have to type more than 3 or 4 letters to get the word I want, so less typing, and higher accuracy. Add an editable user dictionary, and faster access to commas and hyphens and more, and the Google Nexus One (well, Android) easily wins the virtual keyboard battle for me.
• The other big iPhone gripe for me is Apple's refusal to support replaceable batteries. I still need to buy a second battery for the Google Nexus One, but the fact that I can do so is reassuring.
• The Google Nexus One's screen is sharper, brighter, and much easier to read in daylight than the iPhone's.
• The Google Nexus One is really comfortable to hold. Form factor is actually very similar to iPhone's, but I find it more comfortable over extended periods, both in the hand and against the ear.
• The Google Nexus One is fast. Make that blazing fast! Really. You've got to try it to experience the difference. That 1GHz processor does the trick.
• Multitasking.
• Flash. Enough said.

Cons

• As much as I like the Google Nexus One hardware, Android itself still leaves much to be desired. The software often feels half baked, and not quite as polished as iPhone. It feels more like v0.x software, not v2.x.
• Lousy Exchange support! I've solved the problem for now by using a 3rd party tool (I'd not have been able to switch otherwise), but it's a sub-par solution at best. Really Google, Android can't succeed as a corporate smartphone without solid Exchange support. iPhone lacked Exchange support in v1, and when it was added to v2 suddenly the device became a viable corporate phone. Android had better do the same, and quickly.
• While the Google Nexus One is fast, its responsiveness can be iffy. Every once in a while it feels jerky and lagging, and then it quickly catches up, and in doing so launches the wrong app or sends you to an unintended screen. (Could this be a side effect of multitasking?).
• The apps are not quite there yet. Many of the important ones are missing. And those that do exist are usually not as clean and as polished as their iPhone counterparts.
• Google Marketplace is pathetic. There are lots of apps out there, but finding them is a pain, the marketplace UI is feeble at best, account setup to Google Checkout is horribly buggy, you get the picture.

All that said, I'm enjoying the phone, and the pros outweigh the cons. While the Android running Google Nexus One feels like it's not quite baked as a mass consumer device yet, it's definitely a lot of fun as a techie's device.

So, goodbye iPhone, and hello Flash enabled Android!

The Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher interviews Kevin Lynch and chats about Flash, Apple, HTML5, and more.

Yesterday I noted that Google had confirmed the inclusion of Flash on their mobile platform. And now, the keynote video has been posted on YouTube:

To share the love, feel free to use this link: http://bit.ly/Flash_Google_MWC.

You've got to love this quote (and not so subtle dig) from Google's keynote today at Mobile World Congress:

"The line is blurring between mobile phones and desktop computing ... one of our main goals when we embarked on smartphones at Google was to really mirror the desktop web browsing experience - but for many of you and you know who you are - there's been a critical component missing - Flash!"

The Wall Street Journal is running an opinion piece entitled The Microsofting of Apple?. This one is a must read!

I visited China several times last year, and am planning multiple trips this year, too. China is home to the second largest population of Flash and Flex developers, and it's high time those developers had the opportunity to take part in a full-blown Flash Platform conference of their own. So I am excited that we're hosting a 2-day Adobe Flash Platform Summit, a mini-MAX of sorts, in Beijing on April 21st - 22nd, 2010. The exact agenda and speaker list is still being worked out, but I do plan on attending, and am really looking forward to the event!

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch has posted his thoughts on Open Access to Content and Applications.

I'm spending a lot of time in Europe right now. I was in London a week ago, am heading back there this week, and will be back in the area in March to discuss Flash Builder 4, ColdFusion 9, and ColdFusion Builder with customers, partners, and at the following public events:

• London, UK - March 4th, 2010
• Paris, France - March 8th, 2010
• Cologne, Germany - March 9th, 2010
• Liege, Belgium - March 9th, 2010
• Amsterdam, Netherlands - March 10th, 2010

Registration for these events is now open. (And it appears as though London sold out completely, within 20 minutes of registration opening)!

Lee Brimelow has a way with words. I mean pictures.

Flash and gaming boast a long and thriving relationship. Indeed, the Flash Platform is the leading platform in the world for developing games on the web. And the just launched Flash Platform Game Technology Center is a great place to start learning how to develop your very own Flash games. You'll find example games, articles, tutorials, as well as demos highlighting various aspects of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on mobile platforms, including the Palm Pre, Motorola Droid, and Google Nexus One.

I'm still waiting for an unlocked GSM version of the Palm Pre. And here's one more reason to like it, Palm has announced that Flash Player 10.1 is coming to WebOS within the next few months.

Adrian Ludwig demos the upcoming Flash Player 10.1 running on the new Android powered Google Nexus One phone: