Adobe released Flash Player 10

On October 15, Adobe Systems released an upgraded version of Flash Player 10 to provide a more enjoyable video, audio and graphics experience. The new version is codenamed Astro, and was released just a day after Microsoft launched its competing Silverlight 2.0 product.

Windows and Mac users can download Flash Player 10 for free at www.download.com . Some key features of this upgrade include:

The codename of Flash Player 10 is "Astro".

- Easy to use 3D graphics effects.

- Better text processing for complex forms of combination of text and graphics; print out sharper; and support more languages.

- Better sound processing, even for audio signals mixed together, such as music tracks with in-game sound effects.

- Better virtual effects using technology called Pixel Bender, and can interact with both After Effects CS4 and Photoshop CS4 applications.

- Better hardware acceleration.

- Ability to play video better and can be adjusted depending on network capacity.

Flash Player is an important part of Adobe's efforts to make Web-based applications more powerful. Adobe Flex can be used to create applications that run on Flash Player, or standalone applications that run on AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime).

Flash and Silverlight are not the only ways to create so-called rich Internet applications. And .Net and JavaScript technology help build more complex interfaces on Web applications. However, Flash is still the platform that can be even more powerful, it is used more by people, while upgrading to new applications also takes less time.

Flash Player 10 is also part of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 application package (including Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Premiere) currently sold to customers. Because the control panel is written in Flash technology, the menus of CS4 can be easily expanded with third-party applications. At the end of this month, Adobe plans to launch the Configurator application, which makes it easier to personalize control panels.