WebSocket is a web technology providing for bi-directional, full-duplex communications channels over a single TCP connection, and WebSocket support is new in ColdFusion 10. Awdhesh Kumar has posted an article entitled HTML5 WebSockets and ColdFusion – Part 1: An overview and first steps, and Kunal Saini continues the discussion in HTML5 WebSockets and ColdFusion - Part 2: Coding a Hello World sample and extending it into a chat application.

Edge Preview 6 is now available for download, along with a new site at edge.adobe.com. New features in Preview 6 include built-in tutorials, a new code panel, additional language support, and more.

Check out the new Adobe & HTML site to learn what we're doing with HTML and web standards.

At the beginning of March, the Adobe Web Platform team hosted a 3 day internal WebKit hackathon, which focused on prototyping new features, fixing bugs and adding tests. Multiple product teams participated and delved into all sorts of WebKit feature areas. Check out the Adobe WebKit Hackathon Summary

"Smartphones and tablets are everywhere. If you need to reach your customers or employees on these devices, now's the time to start developing mobile apps. We provide essential information to help you get started, including development basics for Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows. We also look at the pros and cons of cross-platform development and discuss how to build secure apps from the get-go."

Thus starts InformationWeek Reports' new report on Mobile App Development, for which I was interviewed, and which includes coverage of building apps with Flash/AIR and PhoneGap.

Fellow evangelist Andy Trice has written a great article explaining how to get started building Android apps with Eclipse and PhoneGap.

impress.js is a stunningly impressive framework for building web browser based presentations. And fellow evangelist Harish Sivaramakrishnan has posted a preview of Impressionist, his visual editor for impress.js.

whichElement? (created by fellow Adobe evangelists Terry Ryan and Ray Camden) is trying trying to answer that age old question: "Should that be a div, a span, or something else?" Terry has posted an intriguing read on how the site implements search, without using an app server.

Mark Anders introduces Edge Preview 5 in this Adobe TV video:

Adobe Edge preview 5 is now available. This new release introduces significant improvements to speed up the animation creation process, new on-stage tools, as well as publishing and optimization features for older browsers and lighter code output.

Adobe Shadow is a new inspection and preview tool that allows mobile web developers and designers to work faster and more efficiently by streamlining the preview process, making it easier to create and optimize content for mobile devices. Shadow allows device pairing, synchronized browsing and refreshing in sync with your computer, and remote inspection and debugging so you can see HTML/CSS/JavaScript changes instantly on your device. Shadow is now on Adobe Labs, and the Shadow team is also blogging.

Flash Pro remains the best tool for creating web based expressive interactive content. But, especially on mobile devices, there is real (and growing) need for a browser only web standards solution to animation and expressive content creation. In addition to projects like Edge, we've also got several other tricks up our development sleeves, including work in the ability to export from Flash Pro to HTML as introduced last week at FITC.

Everyone's favorite Goddess of All Things Web, Stephanie Sullivan Rewis, has just posted her 3rd article in an ADC series on HTML5 Semantics:

• Part 1: New elements
• Part 2: Document structure and global attributes
• Part 3: Changed and absent elements

Title says it all. A new update to Muse public beta is now available for download, with over 80 updates and enhancements, changes to the installer, and a top-requested feature based on feedback from the Muse user community.

Fellow Adobe evangelist Christophe Coenraets recently posted a three part article on building a CRUD application using HTML and the Backbone.js framework. He has now followed it up with a post on building a mobile app using Backbone.js And PhoneGap.

The latest Inspire Magazine is out, and it includes an article by our own Ray Camden on Combining your web skills with PhoneGap to build mobile apps.

I mentioned Adobe Edge Preview 4 last week. The father of Edge, Mark Anders, has recorded a video for Adove TV that highlights some of what is new in Preview 4, including symbols (which allow you to create reusable objects that are independent of the main composition), web fonts, and more.

Adobe Edge Preview 4 is now available! Preview 4 introduces significant new features like Symbols, Web Fonts, and Element Display, as well as a number of usability and performance enhancements.

Fellow Adobe evangelist Harish Sivaramakrishnan has posted a Demo of Data visualization inspired by Google Zeitgeist 2011, and as he notes, "it's almost Flash like, but built in HTML, CSS and JavaScript".

The upcoming version 4.6 of Data Services includes an HTML5 / JavaScript client SDK, and this post contains useful links to presentations on the subject.

Adobe's Bernd Paradies started a series of blog posts on FalconJS and Cross-compiling ActionScript to JavaScript, and has since been posting away on the subject.

Adobe is in the midst of a fundamental transformation. We are transforming from software in boxes to solutions in the cloud, and to a world of touch interfaces on devices, and social connections everywhere. This is a time of both innovation and change for Adobe and for the Adobe community. And this article on ADC explains Adobe's strategic transformation and the Flash Platform, and summarizes the recent announcements.

Flash has always had an interestingly evolving job. It wasn't that long ago when if your web site needed a cool drop down menu you'd use Flash, until HTML and web browser improvements made that unnecessary. And it wasn't that long ago that developers who wanted pop-up calendars or controls in our web forms used Flash, until DHTML made that just as unnecessary. Then Flash powered the in-browser video revolution, and Flash remains the dominant web browser video player, but now there are alternatives there as well. Even transitions and visual effects, once exclusively the realm of Flash, now have alternatives.

You see, Flash's job has always been to pick up where the browser left off, with the understanding that the line between them was a grey and moving one. As HTML and web browsers have evolved and improved, Flash gets to back-off from specific use cases, handing them off to the web browser itself, and thereby freeing itself up to tackle the next challenge.

Or another way to look at it is this, Flash exists because browsers didn't do enough, and as they do more Flash willingly cedes responsibilities to the browser.

Where things get interesting is on devices. Unlike on desktops, where older browsers still reign supreme and where browser innovation has faced slower adoption, device browsers are actually really good and really current. The fact that there are fewer browsers and better browsers, ones that support HTML5 innovation and standards and specifications, in many ways makes Flash far less critical for an optimum web browsing experience. That coupled with the fact that Flash is excluded from the browser on many devices means that web developers already need to code for a non-Flash experience, and that then makes Flash even less compelling for in-browser uses on devices.

Which is why we announced today that we will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser on mobile devices. For in-browser experiences on devices, browsers can finally do what they really should do, and we have HTML5 to thank for that. So that's where we are doubling down, and we're hard at work on making HTML5 better (as we showed at MAX) as well as on tooling to support HTML5 development.

But just to be clear, this announcement pertains to the browser plug-in on mobile devices only.

The Flash browser plug-in on the desktop remains important and viable and even critical for many use cases, and we've publicly committed to adding value and features and functionality to better address just these use cases, primarily gaming and video. (And at the same time we're aggressively driving in-browser HTML5 enhancements, including web motion and interaction design, another area where Flash used to be the only game in town).

Similarly, Flash based apps on mobile devices remain highly compelling, and AIR thus remains a great way to use Flash to build apps for Android, iOS, and RIM PlayBook. And with the recently released support for native extensions, the scope of what is possible in Flash based app has grown incredibly.

So, yes, in-browser Flash on mobile devices is reaching the end of the line. Flash on desktops continues to deliver in ways the browser can't (yet). Flash is one way to build apps, and HTML5 (using PhoneGap) is another. You, as a developer, have options.

While the delivery mechanism changes as technology and platforms change, our commitment to providing the right tools and services does not. Our job has always been to empower developers and designers to create the most engaging and compelling experiences. That's one thing that does not change at all.

Danny Winokur (who many of you met at MAX where he hosted the Day 2 keynote) has posted an explanation on the future focus of Flash.

Our new designer-oriented visual HTML authoring tool, Muse, has been downloaded by more than 330,000 designers since it debuted less than three months ago. And now Adobe Muse Beta 4 has been released, with more than 40 product enhancements and bug fixes, and with support for five additional languages (French, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Dutch).