While the ten hopeful finalists in the Cisco "Think Inside the Box" developer competition await the judges' decision, OStatic has been fortunate enough to speak with a few teams about their submissions. The global contest centered on the "network as a platform" approach to develop applications using Cisco's Linux-based AXP (Application Extension Platform), a service module on its ISR (Integrated Services Routers).

Today, Roman Skvirsky of Team RSDevs has graciously taken the time to tell OStatic readers a little bit more about his Flash Gateway to Videoconferences application. The Flash Gateway to Videoconferences allows users to connect and join conferences and audio calls to H.323 and SIP phones through a web browser -- requiring no additional software installation beyond the Flash plugin.

Google's announcement yesterday that it is acquiring video compression company On2 Technologies for $106.5 million may appear to be just another acquisition in a buyer's market, but there is a strong chance that it could dramatically affect video standards online. Because of the enormous share of online video viewing that Google's YouTube commands, the company can swing a bigger stick in setting online video standards than many people realize, and the company has already been frustrated by the refusal of leading browser makers to agree on a central, shared codec to mutually support.

Ars Technica suggests that the On2 acquisition will have a big impact on web video standards, and The Register comes right out and speculates that Google will quickly open source On2's video compression codecs. I lean toward the latter scenario.

Today, Adobe announced two new Adobe Flash Platform open source initiatives aimed at developers, media companies and publishers. The two new technologies being open sourced are designed to help content publishers and developers build Rich Internet Applications (RIA), and Microsoft is focusing on the same goal with its Silverlight technology. Silverlight is competitive with Flash, although Flash is much more entrenched. (For example, Adobe claims that more than 80 percent of video hosted online is Flash-based.)

The two technologies being released as open source are: 1) Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), previously code-named Strobe, which allows developers to build customized media players based on the Adobe Flash Platform; and 2) Text Layout Framework (TLF), which developers can use to bring customized typography capabilities to web applications.