Flash Apps to Come to the iPhone, But Not to Safari [IPhone]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/o4JdpfYDL4o/flash-apps-to-come-to-the-iphone-but-not-to-safari

After today's bad news, Adobe Senior Product Manager for Developer Relations Mike Chambers has announced a way to put Flash into the iPhone: Compile Flash into full standalone applications for the App Store. This solves part of the iPhone-Flash conundrum.

Using the next version of Flash Authoring—which is now in private beta—developers will be able to turn any Flash app or widget into an iPhone/iPod touch application. Some apps will require optimization, taking into account the iPhone's hardware limitations and its multi-touch user interface conventions:

The iPhone has a significantly slower processor and less memory than what can be found in a typical desktop computer. As such, existing content may need to be optimized for performance, and / or user interactions (given the smaller screen and different UI metaphors).

However, publishers will be able to easily adjust their existing code at a small cost, developing a full app that would be available at the App Store. While this doesn't fix the lack of Flash in Safari—which Chambers says they are still working on—it's a huge advance. Just imagine Web publishers creating iPhone-capable versions of their sites—or part of them—which would feed on the same online data as their browser-based counterparts.

Now, if Adobe introduced a Flash video player, and Apple enabled Safari to recognize Flash video like they do now with YouTube H.234 material, everything would be fine. [Flash apps for iPhone and Mike Chambers]

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Using the Red One and 5d Mark II to Create Living Magazines [Magazines]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/7NrcSZzASqs/using-the-red-one-and-5d-mark-ii-to-create-living-magazines

Magazines are going down the crapper as a medium, but the crew at Alexx Henry photography envisions a world where OLED and eInk screens put motion into mags and makes them cutting-edge.

Is this what the future of publishing looks like? Well, I'd be pretty surprised if these techs became anywhere close to disposable anytime soon. Instead, we'll be seeing things like the Apple Tablet and Microsoft Courier coming along to load up stuff like this. But despite the packaging differences, the finished product loaded on these next-gen displays could be pretty similar to this. And it looks pretty badass. [Living Art Media]

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Conde Nast Closes Four Magazines, Focusing on Digital Distribution [Digital]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Z9jjOQ0V1FE/conde-nast-closes-four-magazines-focusing-on-digital-distribution

Normally the closure of two bridal magazines, a dining magazine and a mom magazine wouldn't be notable; except that this time their publisher, Conde Nast, notes that they're going to focus on digital distribution instead.

The important part of Gawker's memo is here:

In the coming weeks, we hope to announce initiatives to develop digital versions of our brands that will make use of new devices and distribution channels.

New devices makes it seem like it's not just moving those four publications online—a move that would have succeeded already if just going online would save magazines. It's that new devices bit that's intriguing. [Gawker]

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Crank This Battery To Charge Up [Batteries]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/7O1MbUWplO4/crank-this-battery-to-charge-up

The Wind Up Battery is a rechargeable battery with a little pop-out hand-crank to power up using some good ol' fashioned elbow grease. I'd probably looks like an idiot using it, but better than suffering without a AA.

Designed by Qian Jiang, the concept is actually rather brilliant since it wouldn't require an additional gadget to recharge your batteries and depending on how many recharges it would allow for, it might be a rather good deal too. Since this battery is still a concept, we're a bit skeptical about the claim that it could be fully charged in 20 minutes, but that would be fast enough for most of us. Those of us who haven't got the arm muscles of a noodle that is. [Yanko Design]

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This Is a Photoshop and It Blew My Mind [Graphics]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/D259gyPgnF0/this-is-a-photoshop-and-it-blew-my-mind

PhotoSketch is an internet-based program that can take the rough, labeled sketch on the left and automagically turn it into the naff montage on the right. Seems unbelievable but—as the video shows—it works:

According to authors, their software can take any rough sketch, with the shape of each element labeled with its name, find images corresponding to each drawn element, judge which are a better match to the shapes, and then seamlessly merge it all into one single image.

PhotoSketch's blending algorithm analyzes each of these images, compares them with each other, and decides which are better for the blending process. It automatically traces and places them into a single photograph, matching the scene, and adding shadows. Of course, the results are less than perfect, but they are good enough:

The authors of the program—Tao Chen, Ming-Ming Cheng, Ping Tan, Ariel Shamir, and Shi-Min Hu at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, and the National University of Singapure—presented it at Siggraph Asia 2009. An event that will be remembered forever in the History of Humanity as the day in which a million of dorks were finally able to put themselves in X-rated positions with Megan Fox. [PhotoSketch—Thanks Brice]

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