OStatic

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.

Firefox 3.5, Release Candidate 1 is available now. It's being delivered as an automatic update, and the release notes and download are here.

Google: We want Chrome to grow the Web. Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, weighs in on browser innovation.

Will Google Wave revolutionize free software collaboration? What impact might it have on free software users and developers?

A Mozilla update on open video codecs and quality. How does video encoded with Theora compare to video encoded by YouTube?

Will Ubuntu remain a minor player? It has problems in the channel.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, which explains a bit about how the new web development framework project Hemlock got its start. Four guys were sitting around trying to figure out how to create a real-time online fantasy football (or soccer, to us uncivilized Americans) game and realized currently technology just wasn't going to cut it. They got to work building their own web development framework, created and released their game, and now the team plans to open source Hemlock so people can build their own dream games.

Boxee adds Pandora Radio and hints at the future. The open source media center application's Pandora feature is brilliant, and there's more in a new alpha.

Awesome Tweet: Peter Rojas says Flash coming to Android. The development house BSQUARE has been hired to port Flash to the Android platform.

Shifty answers from Microsoft at OSBC? Some of the company's answers to open source questions sounded like mumbo-jumbo.

Gone but not forgotten: 10 operating systems the world left behind. Some people miss OS/2.

Launching a Linux startup: no funny business. Hackett and Bankwell is a series of cartoon manuals that teaches readers how to get started with Linux.

?Sun crams the Internet in a box. Three petabytes of archived web pages.?

Earlier this year I wrote about the Chumby internet appliance/open source alarm clock. Though Chumbys have been available in the US for a little over a year now, Chumby Industries hasn't been able to officially sell these products internationally.

Chumby Industries intended all along to open sales outside the US, but electronics standards (and approval procedures) vary from country to country, and it's been time consuming. Some international users turned to friends in the States or third party shippers, but now, at least in a few countries, this is no longer necessary. Chumby is available at select retailers in Japan, and a Japanese language Chumby portal was launched last month.

It might be time to invest in a better umbrella, as over the last few days it seems as though pigs might be taking flight. It's not so much that Adobe is releasing a 64-bit Linux alpha version of Flash, it's that Adobe is releasing the Flash alpha for Linux before it releases versions for any other operating system.

For sure it is a demonstration on Adobe's part that it truly is serious about Linux support. It's clear though that Adobe has more to gain, given that Linux is the system with the edge in 64-bit support and features native 64-bit browsers.