Adobe on Wednesday shipped its latest update to what has now become nearly the de-facto standard for multimedia on the web, Flash Player 10. One of the most noticeable enhancements here would be 3D support, which would add a whole new layer of interactivity to Flash-enabled applications.

Using 3D would be easy, Adobe says — it would allow for easy manipulation of 2D images within a 3D space. Another enhancement is custom filters and effects, which would bring in transitions and the like into flash animations.

Enhancements to text layout would give designers more freedom and control over how fonts are displayed. Designers would also have more control over sound generation and drawing of objects through more complex APIs.

In a hat tip to the dramatic uptick in use of Flash to stream multimedia, Adobe has included with Flash 10 a system where the stream will automatically adapt to bandwidth conditions. This would allow for smoother video and audio playback.

Adobe has included some demonstrations of the new features on its website, which you can check out by clicking here.

We should see these features in use fairly quickly. As Adobe’s John Dowdell notes, Flash Player 9 saw 80 percent adoption within a single year. With the leap forward the company has taken with Flash 10, and the public’s willingness to upgrade their players, it shouldn’t be long before we see these new features in use.

You can download the new player on Adobe’s website.

One problem so far: WordPress’ flash-based file uploader seems to be incompatible with Flash 10. One good thing: I was getting a lot of choppy video playback in Flash on my MacBook Pro, that seems to be doing better with this version, although its not completely gone.

Are you experiencing any hiccups? Let us know.

 
1 Comment


Read more: Adobe, Flash