Aviary is a set of web based applications for creating all sorts of media. The concept of this suite of creative content creation tools is similar to Picnik, Google Docs, and Adobe Kuler, all of which are rich internet applications (RIAs) to be used within your browser. RIAs provide the possibility to run the application on any machine that has a proper browser and an internet connection without the need to carry your data along with you or even install the applications on the computer you work on. The nature of web applications creates unlimited opportunities for collaboration at real time as featured in Google Docs.

Aviary takes RIAs one step further by providing relatively more powerful applications than what we have seen before, these applications include an image editor, a vector editor, a 3D modeling tool, a video editor, a music generator and other creative tools that make up its 14 application-suite. The video below illustrates the capability of Phoenix, Aviary’s image editor:

I personally use many web applications and Google Docs and Picnik are some of my favourites. I find Aviary’s project very interesting and think that it shows us a glimpse of how the future should be.Aviary is currently in private beta and invitations are floating around the internet. You can submit your email to the invitation queue and learn more about Aviary from their official website.

Just in time for the holidays, Adobe released new updates to AIR and Flex along with a first time release of a new technology called BlazeDS. Adobe AIR Beta 3 is the latest update to Adobe’s cross-platform runtime for deploying web-enabled desktop applications created using Flash, HTML, and Ajax. The latest update includes various features such as the functionality to run applications at start-up and the detection and launch of installed AIR applications from a web browser. The first application made by AIR Beta 3 is Adobe’s new desktop version of Kuler, Adobe’s color theme creation tool.

Adobe also released the new update to its open-source framework for creating rich internet applications, the new Beta 3 of Flex includes updates to the Flex SDK and the Flex Builder.

The last major release by Adobe this week is BlazeDS, a new technology for pushing information live from a server to Flex and AIR applications without the need for the client-side application to request a data update. This new technology is distributed under the LGPL vs3 making it available to developers free of charge. The source code of BlazeDS will be available for download early in 2008.

Color Oracle applies a full screen color filter to art you are designing – independently of the software that you are using. And it takes the guesswork out of designing for color blindness by showing you in real time what people with common color vision impairments will see.. Eight percent of all males are affected by color vision impairement – make sure that your graphical work is readable by the widest possible audience. Download Color Oracle 1.1 beta for Windows. Click here to read more.

[via DownloadSquad]

Another flash web application similar to Color Blend is Kuler from the Adobe Labs. This application could be used to create and share color schemes to be used in general projects or be exported as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file for Creative Suite components. The colours schemes could be created in various modes including analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound, and shades mode. You can use Kuler for free at the Adobe Labs.

Color Blender is a free web-based tool for creating color palettes. The tool creates a unique blend of 6 matching colors after choosing one color as a “base” color. It is a very easy tool to create color schemes for websites or any other artistic work.

Color Blender Website

Via: CGchannel.com