Adobe AIR 2.5 looks to open up TV environment

Adobe Air 2.5, introduced last week at its developer conference, will bring Adobe-powered content to TVs, mobile devices and computers, assuming device manufacturers decide to include the platform in their units.

AIR 2.5 offers support for smartphones and tablets based on BlackBerry Tablet OS, Android and iOS, desktops running on Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems, and televisions--with Samsung the first television manufacturer to ship Adobe AIR in its line of Samsung SmartTV devices. AIR gives developers the ability to use Adobe Flash and Flex to build rich standalone applications, apps that could run on any device. As Ryan Lawler at NewTeeVee points out, the ecosystem currently is extremely fragmented, with almost every CE manufacturer supporting their own app framework. AIR 2.5, which primarily is targeted at the developer community, could change all of that.

"With the release of AIR 2.5, more than 3 million Flash developers can now build a single game or application and easily deploy it across multiple application stores and devices," said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Creative and Interactive Solutions Business, Adobe. "This is a huge step forward for developers looking to build rich, engaging applications but who have historically had to incur the cost of building them separately for each device and platform."

AIR 2.5 enables rich application experiences through a series of new features, including support for accelerometer, camera, video, microphone, multi-touch and gestures

For more:
- see this release
- see this blog
- see this article