Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0 Betas Released

Adobe has released a pre-release version of Flash Player 10.1 and a beta release of Air 2.0 on it’s pre-release site, Abobe Labs. The two net enabling technologies are closely related. Flash is used by many sites for gaming, streaming video and interactive graphics. AIR, used for offline running of web-based applications, and has Flash built-in, currently runs only on the desktop, but Flash Player is moving into mobile devices.

"As we are bringing Flash Player to multiple devices, this is the first beta release," said Tom Barclay, Adobe Flash marketing manager. "What we're announcing now is really the full Flash Player. Everything that the full Flash Player can do on the desktop we trying to take over to a mobile device," Justin Everett-Church, senior product manager added.

Flash Player 10.1 wil support Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, plus many smartphones, although mobile support isn't yet included. Hardware-based decoding of H.264 video, and support for HTTP streaming with content protection are also included. The version of Flash Player 10.1 for the Palm Pre platform is due later this year, according to Adobe; the final version for all environments is expected in the first half of 2010.

AIR 2.0, containing Flash Player 10.1, now has support for native code integration, APIs for access to audio microphone data, UPD networking capabilities, multitouch monitor interfaces, and HTML 5 & CSS 3 support, for better desktop integration.

AIR 2’s final version is due in the first half of 2010, Adobe said, but the beta version of the AIR 2 SDK and AIR 2 runtime can be downloaded at the Abobe Labs site now.

Flash Player 10.1 Pre-release: Download