FlashCamp Manchester

Tech TalkTags: Adobe, demo, FDT, Flash, FlashCamp, FlashMidlands, July 2010, Manchester, MMU, PowerFlasher, Presentation, Ribot, Seb Lee-Delisle, Talk

FlashMidlands organised a great day long conference event last week here in Manchester. Thursday 8th July saw Flash Platform designers and developers meet up at MMU’s Business School for presentations, discussions and demonstrations of Flash Platform technologies. It was a good chance for Apple fans to fly the flag too – there were a lot of MacBook Pros and iPads in use at the event, even though the latter doesn’t support Flash.

Mike Jones and Mark Doherty from Adobe kicked things off with an interesting look at how rich Internet applications are leading to changing experiences for end users. An informative session on the Open Source Media Framework (osmf.org) followed and demonstrated an alternative platform for sharing media which would have particular interest for those looking for an alternative solution for video to the likes of streaming.co.uk. I’d argue a bit more work is needed to deliver comparable functionality, but it’s not far off it.

If you haven’t heard of PowerFlasher’s FDT product then it could make a big difference to how you code ActionScript. The demo that Michael Plank gave wowwed a lot of people. The dude can code under pressure, but although his choice of music wasn’t David Hasslehoff bad, it would have emptied the mosh pit at most Rock clubs equally quickly

The second half of the day made event worth going to for me. The talk from Antony and Jerome from Ribot really delivered some great insights into the mobile platform world. They highlighted the findings of the Vision Mobile research that demonstrates that the majority of development work being undertaken is now for the Android Platform. They had a lot of praise for the new Windows 7 Mobile environment and highlighted that it’s a massive step forward from Microsoft and has laid out some excellent guidelines on building good user interfaces. Here’s some of the interested sound bites from their presentation:

• By 2020 over half the UK population will be older than 65.
• 65% of Americans have lost interest due to complexity
• 1 in 3 Europeans can benefit from an inclusive approach
• Most information and use of mobile technology comes from Data Snacking, small snippet of information, taken in between 30-6-0 seconds of use, via tasks that are simple but repeated at regular intervals.
• Four times more money is generated through the eBay App for iPad than the App for iPhone.
• The top device used for uploading photos to flickr are not cameras but smartphones

The final presentation of the day from Seb Lee-Delisle was terrific as am insight into what is now being achieved with interactive Flash Content, particularly games. If anyone needs any insight into how to give great presentations, you could pick up some tips from watching Seb, who seems to be totally wired on caffiene and at the same time very relaxed (maybe that’s a lie…). The free prize draw for those who stuck it out to the end was a great way to end a great day.

Written by Cris Bloomfield,
posted July 13th, 2010