InstantStorm is a Windows freeware tool for creating Flash based screensavers with many advanced features. Unlike many other flash screensavers conversion tools, InstantStorm allows you to fully customize your screensaver’s about box, installer and uninstaller including all texts. InstantStorm is really easy to use. If you’re a beginner, the New Project Wizard will help you make a professional screensaver in simple steps. Learn more about InstantStrom’s features here. You can also get your hands on a free copy of this application from its offcial site’s download section here.

[Via Downloadsquad]

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.

Adobe released yesterday the developer edition of the latest version of the Flash Lite player. Developers from all around the world can now download and try the Flash Lite 3 player on any Nokia S60 3rd edition mobile phone. This latest update brings Flash video playback support to mobile devices and enhances the performance of the player up to 30%, but it does not however bring ActionScript 3.0 support yet and uses ActionScript 2.0 instead. Authoring Flash Lite 3 content requires the latest updates to both Flash CS3 authoring tool and Device Central CS3 for managing the creation of mobile content and the emulation of mobile devices. You can download the player from Adobe Labs here.

Adobe released yesterday device profile update #4 for Device Central CS3 , the mobile phone emulation tool for testing and debugging Flash Lite content on your computer. 49 new mobile device profiles are added in this update bringing the total number of model profiles in Device Central to 364.

Device Central provides a database of mobile phones specifications and supported Flash Lite featured, it also allows the user to emulate these device and test created Flash Lite games and movies on the computer itself.

You can learn more about this latest update for Device Central from its online portal here.

[via Flash Devices]

A new advertising network that could be of great interest to Flash game developers is MochiAds. This advertisement network provides developers with the opportunity to monetize their games with online advertisement easily. In the past, game developers had to look for and negotiate sponsorship deals with advertisers in order to be able to make money out of their games and that was not easy at all. Using MochiAds anybody can implement the advertisement code within his Flash game and generate money depending on how much traffic his game receives. MochiAds directly deals with the advertisers and takes a share of the profit with performing games on the network.

The interesting thing about Mochi is that it offers three different kinds of advertisement including one in-game solution for showing the advertisement while the game is played. MochAds also offers free hosting and traffic analysis services for game developers using the MochiAds network. However, currently MochiAds makes its payment for game publishers through paypal only.

You can learn more about MochiAds by visiting its official website.

Mike Chambers, Adobe AIR Product Manager, unveiled on his blog the final logo of Adobe AIR, the cross-platform runtime environment for creating desktop based rich internet applications using web technologies. The three corners of the logo are meant to represent each of the three technologies used in AIR, namely HTML, Flash, and PDF.

Several beta applications illustrating the possibilities of AIR have been released such as the Adobe Media Player, Gas (an offline application for accessing Google Analytics data), and AirPress (an desktop blog publishing application). It is possible to create similar applications using Flash, Flex, or simply HTML and Ajax.

AIR is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2008. You can learn more about it via this link.

Playyoo is a new Flash Lite game social network that aims to provide Flash Lite game developers with a platform to promote and share their Flash Lite games on the internet. Playyoo is currently in public beta and anyone can try out their mobile portal for downloading free Flash Lite game by registering online for the sneak preview.

It is worth noting that Playyoo is currently accepting entries for its Flash Lite game launch contest, the top ten winners will win prizes ranging from $10,000 to $500. The deadline for submitting Flash Lite games for this competition is the 15th of February 2008. It is worth noting that submissions for the Playyoo game contest must make use of the Playyoo Flash extension to export their games in conformity with the Playyoo platform and must use Playyoo’s servers for any online features such as a highscore board.

Learn more about Playyoo from its official website.

Adobe announced last week its intentions to make Flex Blender, the tool for creating rich internet applications using ActionScript 3.0, free to students and faculty staff of qualifying educational institutes. The open source version of Flex has been available for a while, and now the full fledged version will also be available for free to many. It is clear that Adobe is experimenting with different strategies to expand the usage of Flex and its AIR platform in order to compete with the several new technologies such as AJAX, Google Gears, and Silverlight for bridging the gap between desktop and web based applications.

This free version of Flex to be released next month will probably be available only for students in North America and Europe.

The Chumby Store has started receiving preoders for Chumby, the Flash Lite powered Internet widget device. Chumby is equipped with a 320×240 pixel touch screen, WIFI, squeeze sensor, motion sensor, 350 MHz ARM processor, 64 MB SDRAM, 64 MB NAND flash ROM, and stereo speakers. It is the first consumer device to be released with the Flash Lite 3 player preinstalled, the latest update to the mobile version of the Flash player that is capable of delivering high quality video in the FLV video format. Chumby could be preordered for $180 from the Cumby Store. You can view some new pictures of Chumby at Scott Janousek’s blog.

[via Engadget]

Adobe recently announced the official release of Flash Lite 3, the latest version of the player for mobile devices brings support to FLV video similar to the experience we currently have on the web. Unfortunately, the new Flash Lite 3 does not support ActionScript 3 though features 15-20% improved ActionScript performance and 20-30% rendering performance over Flash Lite 2.1. You can view the launch press release at Adobe or view the Feature Comparison table.

The first Flash Lite 3 supported device is expected to be Chumby, the widget powered internet gadget.