Adobe recently released in Labs the new version of the Flex framework codenamed Hero. Originally there was an intention to develop a special version of the framework dedicated to mobile devices under the codename Slider, but all the proposed features are now merged into a single framework that will make it easy to develop once and deploy the same application for different screens and devices on the desktop and mobile. You can learn more about this new update to the framework on Hero’s page on the Adobe Open Source portal and Hero’s page on Adobe Labs.

Google uncovered a lot of details yesterday about its upcoming operating system Chrome OS. This operating system is based on the the Google Chrome browser and will not have any native applications at all, and even though Adobe is an official partner of Google Chrome OS, this means that Adobe AIR will NOT be supported.

However, in its demo, Google showed how Flash for delivering the gaming experience on Chrome OS – which can obviously be done on any other browser as well. That is not to say that Flash will be the ONLY solution for creating applications and games on Google Chrome as many rich web applications, including these made by Google, are written in AJAX (which may or may not include Flash elements).

You can learn more about Google Chrome OS from Google’s official blog.

Google unveiled in an short FAQ the list of partners working with Google on the Chrome OS and this list includes a some hardware manufacturers and Adobe. Though no explanation of the nature of partnership between Adobe and Google has been provided, it is most likely to be related to the integration of Adobe AIR into the Chrome OS. Adobe AIR is one of the most popular technologies for creating lightweight desktop applications with web functionality and has become the de facto technology for creating desktop based Twitter clients such as TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop. Its inclusion in the Google OS would ensure the availability of all AIR applications for the users of Chrome.

It is very unlikely for the partnership of Adobe with Google to involve the development of a CS suite or any other professional Adobe product for Chrome as this OS is currently targeted only for netbooks which are unlikely to be able to handle processor intensive programs or 3D graphics.

You can read the Chrome OS FAQ here.

Google announced yesterday it’s intention to release an operating system focused around its browser Chrome and web technologies. The Chrome OS will be built on top of the Linux kernel and will be targeted at netbooks. The OS will enable native use of web applications and will enable developers to create applications for the OS using web technologies. Google announced that the OS will be available to consumers in the second half of 2010.

The Google Chrome OS will probably not be for everyone as it will focus on web based applications which have yet not reached the stage at which they can replace specialist applications such as Photoshop CS4 or Flash CS4. It will be very unlikely for these applications to be ported to this OS, however the OS is clearly targeted at the mass consumer market through netbooks and not professional users.

In terms of project deployment, Flash developers should not worry about having their web based projects run on Chrome OS as the Chrome browser supports Flash, but the same could not be said about Adobe AIR projects which require the installation of the AIR runtime at the OS level. However, AIR is currently available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. As Chrome OS will open source and based on Linux, it is very likely for Adobe to release AIR for the Chrome OS as Adobe has supported other similar Google projects (i.e. Android).

You can learn more about the Chrome OS by checking the announcement at the Google Blog and TechCrunch.

Adobe recently release a public preview of BrowserLab - its upcoming online tool for testing websites on multiple browsers and platforms. Using the tool you can simply input the URL of any website to view the way that webpage would appear on a number of browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari on Windows and Mac.

The screenshots of the webpage take a short while to be generated, and then they can compared on side by side preview or an ‘onion skin view’ for which two versions of the page can be directly placed over each other.

The tool could also be used on Dreamweaver CS4 after installing a number of BrowserLab Extensions to test local and active content before publishing it on the web.

This service should be helpful to web developers as the difference in rendering between browsers could be massive. The list of supported browsers does not currently include Chrome, but as Chrome is based on the WebKit rendering engine it should have a very similar output to Safari.

This service will probably not be of great importance to Flash developers as the display of Flash content is not affected by the type of browser or its version as long as the same Flash Player version is installed.

You can test this service free of charge now by visiting its online portal.

Adobe released yesterday the public betas for Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst. Flash Builder 4 is the new version of Flex Builder which got renamed as Flash Builder recently, it is the tool to use to create rich internet applications using MXML and ActionScript.

Flash Catalyst on the hand is a new tool aimed at designers to allow them to transform Photoshop and Illustrator file documents into rich internet applications using a number of actions and user interface elements.

You can download both betas from Adobe Labs. You can get a quick start with these tools by checking the introductory tutorials for Flash Builder 4 from Adobe and the new video tutorials on both Catalyst and Builder from gotoAndLearn.

 A video demo of the new mobile version of Firefox, Fennec, came out yesterday and showed, among other things, the capability of this very interesting browser to play Flash content on mobile devices. The demo was made on a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, on which Flash animation ran at a horrifying low speed, probably due to the low processing power of the device. 

Apple has recently changed its developer policies allowing 3rd party developers to make web browsers for the iPhone, it is unknown if Apple would allow a 3rd party browser to run Flash as it does not allow it on its main browser. Of course, Fennec will probably also appear on other mobile platforms such as Android.

Check out the video demo of Fennec which, though in early beta, already looks like a decent competitor to the mobile version of Safari on the iPhone.

Fennec Beta 1 walkthrough from Madhava Enros on Vimeo.

You can test the Fennec demo on your desktop by downloading it for Windows, Mac or Linux from Fennec’s homepage.

[video via TechCrunch]

 The 1.0 version of Internet Explorer 8 was made available for public download today. It is important for anyone in the web business to download and test that your websites do not break on IE8, whether or not you personally use it, because the majority of web users still use IE.

IE8 is only available on the Windows. Highlights of the release include a new address bar, WebSlices, and a feature called “Accelerators”. IE8 also improves its compliance with CSS and has a number of Ajax enhancements. You can download it from this link.

 Pretty Loaded is an archive of the most awesome Flash preloaders: from fancy movie preloaders, to high tech preloaders by Sony and the like, and ending up withe smart numeric ones. The website nicely rolls out one preloader after the other. Sit back and watch the site get “pretty loaded“.

[Thanks to Rimp for the tip]

 Aviary web based creative application suite finally came out of beta minutes ago. Aviary for those who do not know about it is a web based application suite built on the Flash platform that lets you carry out various creative tasks such as image editing, drawing, color palette creation, and filter editing without the need to install any special software on your machine by using their web applications.

Aviary has also uncovered its paid Pro service which lets users have unlimited storage space and access to additional applications such as Raven (Vector drawing tool).

I have tried Aviary in the past, but I thought that was too much of a hassle for doing simple tasks such as cropping an image and adding some text to it to use for a blog post (I prefer Picnik) , yet it was not powerful or fast enough to replace my beloved offline Fireworks application. However, some of your might still have a place for it in your workflow. You can try out Aviary and use its basic service free of charge by visiting their official website at Aviary.com.