GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

The iFlash not a battery-sucking, CPU-choking browser plugin. Instead, it’s an LED lamp that plugs into the dock-connector of any iPhone or iPod and provides a “flash” for your photos.

It’s self-powered, so you won’t drain your battery, and you’ll have to switch it on and off manually, making the dock-connector little more than a mounting point for the light. And that’s not the only hole it will fill on the iPhone: a little plastic jack-plug will let you dangle the dongle from the iPhone’s headphone socket when not in use.

I’d probably avoid this particular gadget, though. If you’re going to add light to your photos, why go to all the bother of buying an expensive light and then just stick the thing right near the lens, where it will give you the same harsh shadows you get from any light so close to the lens. It’s like buying an SB900 strobe for your Nikon and then sitting it in the camera’s hot-shoe. No, better to just take the $40 this widget will cost you and buy a decent LED flashlight.

iFlash Product Page [Gadgets and Gear via Oh Gizmo]

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Osram, the lightbulb company, has come up with a bright new LED lamp for use in cellphones. Called the Oslux, it is 50% brighter than other LEDs, but more importantly for taking photographs, the light is flatter and “more evenly distributed”. This means that the light-falloff towards the edge, something common to regular and LED flashes alike, is reduced. This in turn gives a bigger patch of usable light.

The chip that does this all is smaller, too, at 2.5mm (shaved down from 3mm). How does it manage to be so bright? “New UX:3 chip technology that makes the LED capable of handling high currents.” That “high currents” part sounds like bad news for your cellphone battery.

Your photos will still be ugly, though, with washed-out faces and harsh shadows. Which brings me to a question about cellphone “flashes”. The lenses are tiny, so why not make a ring-flash that wraps around them? That way, shadows would be cancelled out (or, rather, filled in) and instead of bad snapshots you’d get a great fashion-shoot look to all your snaps. I’m serious. Why isn’t somebody doing this already?

The fancy Oslux lamps will find their way into cellphones as soon as a phone manufacturer decides it needs a new bullet-point on the feature-list.

Powerful LED flash for cell phones [Osram]

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RIM has released a video pitching the upcoming PlayBook tablet against the current iPad, and it’s pretty impressive. Clearly the tests were chosen to favor RIM’s own device, but even so, it beats the iPad handily in each one.

Loading a regular webpage, for example, sees the PlayBook finished with everything, rendering and all, while the iPad still ticks along. Next, it’s on to Flash, which the iPad doesn’t do at all. Smartly, RIM chose to use a non-video serving site (in this case Adidas) as most video providers offer iPad-compatible streams as an alternative to Adobe’s proprietary plugin. Even so, the animation on the Flash site stutters noticeably (this is probably Flash’s fault, not the PlayBook’s).

Then we move to Javascript and HTML5, and while the example shown clearly favors the PlayBook, there are plenty of sites where the iPad works great.

Still, the raw rendering speed of the PlayBook’s browser is obvious, and the Flash support will make it useful for browsing restaurant websites on the go (why do all restaurant sites use Flash?). RIM must be proud. It must also be aware that the PlayBook won’t be out until next year, when it will be up against the iPad 2, not the current iPad.

BlackBerry PlayBook and iPad Comparison: Web Fidelity [Blackberry YouTube Channel]

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Steve Jobs has successfully prevented Adobe Flash from getting on the iPhone for years, but a new iOS app promises to bring Flash video to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch without upsetting the CEO.

Demonstrated below, Skyfire is a web browser that automatically transcodes Flash video into HTML5 so that it can be displayed on your iDevice (instead of the blue LEGO block symbolizing a lack of Flash support).

To our knowledge, Skyfire will be the first app of its kind to offer a roundabout method for watching Flash videos, when it goes live in the App Store this week.

Apple has prohibited Flash from running on iOS devices ever since the original iPhone launched in 2007. In an open letter published April, Jobs said that Flash was the No. 1 reason Macs crash, and he didn’t wish to reduce reliability on iOS products.In the same letter, Jobs vocalized his support for HTML5, a new web standard that does not rely on plug-ins.

“New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too),” Jobs said.

The Skyfire app only transcodes Flash videos into HTML5 not games. A Skyfire spokesman said the Skyfire app was developed with oversight and feedback from Apple.

“It adheres to every guideline put forth by Apple regarding HTML5 video playback for iOS,” the spokesman said. “Skyfire will allow consumers to play millions of Flash videos on Apple devices without the technical problems for which Jobs banned Flash.”

The app was submitted late August, and it will go live in the App Store on Thursday.

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Maybe Flash on a tablet isn’t as bad as Steve Jobs says it is. That’s what Adobe and Research In Motion want you to think after watching the video below.

Taped at Adobe’s MAX conference this week, the segment shows the BlackBerry PlayBook running media apps coded in Adobe Air, which is based partly on Flash. The video also shows YouTube.com playing a video with Flash 10.1 player.

“We’re not trying to dumb down the internet for a small mobile device,” says Mike Lazaridis, RIM’S CEO, during the PlayBook demonstration. “What we’re trying to do is bring up the performance and capability of the mobile device to the internet.”

Though there is no mention of Apple in the video, the comments about dumbing down the internet appear to target the iPad, which does not support Flash. In a famous blog post published April, Apple CEO Jobs explained why Apple was leaving Flash out of its mobile operating system, citing issues such as application crashes and battery drain. Later, when Flash debuted on the Android OS, some independent tests found that Flash was causing crashes on Android devices and that performance was sluggish, but battery drain was not significant.

The BlackBerry PlayBook will be shipping early next year. RIM has not announced a price.

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The Color Splash flash adds a splash of color to your flash. It’s a dirt-cheap, plastic flashgun that contains 12 different colored gels. To select a color, just turn the dial and the gels are rotated in front of the flash-tube. You can even split a shot into two differently-colored halves just by stopping the dial between two sections.

Take a look at the gallery below to see what kinds of things you can do. I love accessories like this, or the $12 Diana lens adapter that lets you put crappy plastic Lomo lenses onto your DSLR: For less than the price of a few rolls of film you can jazz up your pictures and get excited about going out to shoot.

There’s one big warning attached to this kit, though. The flash unit is designed for film cameras. This makes it great for your Lomo, it may damage a digital camera. This is because older flash units have a very high voltage across the contact on the hotshoe.

This wasn’t a problem for film camera, as the hot-shoe was essentially a dumb switch. With a digicam, though, you could fry your camera’s innards: the Color Splash has a sync voltage of 270v, whereas the average DSLR is rated for just 10-12v. To avoid trouble, various adapters are available, such as the Wein HSHSB Safe-Sync Hot Shoe.

But at just $30, this is really the perfect companion for a disposable or toy cameras. And even if you don’t want to buy it, you might now be inspired to head out into the gray Autumn day and take color things up with the flash and gels you already own.

Splash Flash product page [Photojojo]

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Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

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Apple’s newly relaxed iOS developer rules allowed third-party programming tools to be used to program apps for the App Store. However, the move didn’t do much for Adobe, who sells a tool that automatically converts Flash programs into iPhone apps.

Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen said during an earnings conference call that the revised iOS developer rules had a “muted” short-term impact on Adobe product sales, according toThe Wall Street Journal.

In other words, when the news broke about Apple’s new developer rules, programmers didn’t rush out to buy Adobe Creative Suite 5, which includesAdobe’s Packager for iPhone, out of excitement over the opportunity to code Flash apps that they could also sell to iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch customers.

This is hardly a surprise. Every iOS developer I’ve spoken to has agreed that anybody serious about creating iOS apps is going to use Apple’s native SDK in order to get the best results. The people who would’ve wanted to create iOS apps using Flash were probably already Flash developers to begin with, hence the “muted” effect on sales.

That doesn’t go to say that the removal of the restrictions was trivial. When Apple imposed the ban on third-party toolkits (notoriously known as section 3.3.1 of the iOS developer agreement) it sparkedcontroversy among programmers debating about the implications on creative freedom in the App Store.

Also, there was some collateral damage incurred on creators beyond Adobe. For example, the app Scratch, which displayed stories, games and animations made by children using MITs Scratch platform, waspulled from the App Store.

John McIntosh, creator of the Scratch app, said on Twitter that he was stillawaiting a response from Apple on whether Scratch would be approved in the App Store in light of the new developer rules.

See Also:

• Apple Eases App Development Rules, Adobe Surges
• Apple Answers Questions About App Rejections, Raises Others …
• Apple Rejects Kid-Friendly Programming App
• Steve Jobs Debates Developers Over Apple’s New App Policy

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If you spent $500 on a Nikon SB900 Speedlight, you’ll remember how happy you were with this great flash. You’ll then remember the rage, followed by disbelief, when you discovered that it wouldn’t fit any of your existing lighting gear thanks to the stupid fat foot that Nikon put on it, a hot-shoe that would make a midget tall enough to reach the top-shelf magazines. This forced you to use the included tripod adapter, which Nikon decided to make with a fast-stripping plastic tripod thread. Plastic. On a $500 flash.

Luckily, someone out there is thinking straight and, starting next month, you’ll be able to buy the Frio Coldshoe, a miraculous widget that will fit any flash, including the club-footed SB900, and mount it safely on any light-stand or tripod.

We like it for a few reasons. First, it is secure. A springy tab automatically clicks shut when you slide in a flash (or mic, or LED-panel) and needs to be pressed to release. There is also a hole in just the right place for Canon and Nikon locking pins to slide in. Second, the tripod-mount is metal, which means it’ll last. And third, it’s tiny, way smaller than Nikon’s dumb adapter.

The Frio comes from Orbis, the ring-flash adapter people, and exists currently only on the teaser site, not yet on sale. My guess is that it will be cheap enough to buy a handful and just leave them on every one of your strobes.

Frio product page [Frio/Orbis via the Strobist]

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With their infinitely configurable touch-screens, iDevices make pretty much perfect universal remotes. The iPhone and iPad can already be used to remote-control a DSLR, your iTunes-equipped PC or even your Sonos multi-room sound-system. Soon, you’ll be able to add Elinchrom’s RX flash lights to that list.

Elinchrom make those big, powerful flashes that you see in photographers’ studios, the ones that pull their juice from the mains or large external batteries and put out enough light to beat the Sun into submission. The company has just announced, through a coy, teasing blog post, that it is working on an iApp to let you control the power levels of your various flash-heads, pilot-lights and “many other features of the Elinchrom RX flash units”.

The actual workings of the apps are still top-secret:

We like to give our respected competition the chance to find out themselves. The EL-Skyport system idea lasted at least approximately 4 years, before other companies picked up this great idea.

We can make a guess, though. Elinchrom’s existing solution is a transmitter on the camera, and also a USB-dongle for control from a Mac or a PC. The picture above doesn’t show any extra hardware plugged into the iPhone or iPad, so I assume that the internal Wi-Fi radio of the iDevice is somehow being used. Either that or there is a dongle and it just isn’t in the picture.

We’ll find out soon enough, though, as Elinchrom will be showing off a demo at the Photokina show beginning next Thursday. The app will be available to buy for the “most modest price” in the early part of next year.

Remote Quadra RX with iPhone, iPad [Elinchrom]

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Nikon’s second big announcement today (the other is the hot new D7000) is the SB700 speedlight, a smaller version of the great SB900 and an overpriced replacement for the SB600 (although the SB600 is still available).

Nikon makes some of the best flashes around: even some Canon shooters prefer them to Canon’s own if they plan to use them manually, but they probably won’t be buying this one, as it has one big feature missing: a sync-jack. Over at the Strobist blog, flash-nerd David Hobby has been crawling through the specs and finds that there is no way to trigger the flash off-camera with a standard PC-cord. You’ll either need to use a compatible Nikon camera to trigger it remotely, buy an expensive proprietary cable or use the “SU-4″ mode, which turns the flash into a dumb slave unit.

Apart from this odd move, the SB700 looks good. If you’re familiar with the SB900’s screen-and-control-dial interface, you’ll be at home here. In fact, in some ways the new flash looks better than its big brother, with dedicated switches for changing modes and for illumination patterns (like the SB900, you can choose between standard, center-weighted and “even”).

There’s also a motorized zoom, AF-illuminator and the ability to act as a commander for other, off-camera flashes (useful if you ponied up the cash for the top-end D3 which doesn’t have a built-in flash to do this). And lastly (well, lastly for this post: Nikon flashes have a veritable confusion of options if you dig in) there speedlight comes with a few hard color filters, replacing the flimsy ones that come with the SB900. The price for this new flash is $330, compared to around $220 for the SB600 and around $460 for the SB900.

SB-700 product page [Nikon]

Nikon SB-700 Speedlight Misses it By This Much [Strobist]

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T-Mobile has announced the G2, the successor to the very first Android phone, the G1. The new handset loses the famous “chin” of the original, adds fast HSPA+ data and integrates Google Voice.

With so many Android handsets either blocking or replacing Google services on the “open” Google-owned operating system, it’s nice to see an Android phone as Googly as this one. In addition to Google Voice, there is Google Goggles, voice control and all the usual Google services like Gmail, maps and YouTube. All this, as you’d expect, runs on Android 2.2 Froyo and the T-Mobile press-release promises an “Adobe FlashPlayer enabled Web browsing experience” (read: stuttering video playback and reduced battery-life).

As for hardware, the CPU is an 800MHz Snapdragon and the phone will offer “4G speeds” via T-Mobile’s new HSPA+ network, if you can get it. A keyboard flips from behind the screen for a full, landscape-oriented QWERTY hardware experience, and the screen is a large 3.7-inch multitouch one.

Finally, there’s a 5MP camera with LED light, and the handset comes with 4GB memory and a microSD slot, in which you will find an 8GB card pre-loaded.

If you want the full, unfettered Googlephone experience, without weird carrier restrictions (apart from the coverage restrictions of T-Mobile, we guess) then this might just be the Android phone to go for. It has a plain and handsome design and while the computer inside isn’t the fastest, it is more than competent.

Availability and pricing have yet to be announced, but existing T-Mobile customers will get first bite “later this month.”

G2 product page [T-Mobile]

G2 press release [T-Mobile]

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Apple has opened up the App Store review process, dropping its harsh restrictions on the tools developers are allowed to use and at the same time actually publishing the App Store Review Guidelines, a previously secret set of rules that governed whether or not your app would be approved.

Those guidelines will go a long way to making iOS a better place for developers. Previously, you wouldn’t know if you had broken a rule until your app was rejected. And if your app had taken months and months and tens of thousands of dollars to develop then you were pretty much screwed.

This uncertainly has doubtless kept a lot of professional and talented developers out of the store and caused the rise of quick-to-write fart applications. In fact, the point I have heard spoken over and over is that the developers don’t mind what the rules are, as long as they know about them.

The second part of Apple’s relaxation of restrictions is even less expected. Here’s the relevant point from the press release:

We are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

Yup, that means you can use Flash to develop your apps, and then compile them to work on the iPhone and iPad. This also means that all those crappy Flash games on the web can now be quickly ported to the iOS. This is a direct reversal of Apple’s previous ban on third-party development-tools. Why? Games. Many games use non-Apple, non-iOS code to make them work: the Unreal Engine behind the stunning Epic Citadel shown off at last weeks’ Apple event, for example, would fall foul of Apple’s previous rules. The “do not download any code” part of this is important. Apple will let you use non-iOS runtimes within your apps as long as it can inspect them first. Anything downloaded after installation which bring out the ban-hammer.

It’s a completely unexpected reversal, and one which will eventually lead to much more complex and refined apps in the iTunes Store. And everyone should be pleased about that.

Statement by Apple on App Store Review Guidelines [Apple]

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Nikon’s new P7000 compact camera smacks right up against Canon’s G11 (and forthcoming G12). It’s a tough, rangefinder-style camera with looks and specs which are almost word-for-word the same as those on the Canon. And that’s a good thing.

First, the similarities. Both the Nikon and the Canon have 10-megapixel sensors, both of which are a relatively large 1/1.7-inch in size (7.60 x 5.70 mm). Both have a maximum aperture of 2.8, and both go up to ISO 3200 without using any noisy extended modes. Both have hot-shoes, optical viewfinders and lots of chunky mechanical knobs and dials for quickly adjusting settings.

Then things get a little different. The G11’s zoom runs from 28-140mm (35mm equivalent), whereas the Nikon keeps going all the way up to 200mm, and then Nikon continues to pull ahead:

The Canon G-series has notoriously lacked high-def video since the G9, shooting at a pathetic 640 x 480 resolution. Nikon not only beats that, with 720p but adds in a microphone jack for proper sound recording.

Add to this the fact that the P7000 will work with Nikon’s iTTL speedlights and you have a pretty powerful-looking camera, one which can remotely trigger and control a full flash setup, and the $500 price starts to look cheap.

Should you choose this over the (not yet official) G12? Without actually testing one, we can’t say, but if you already shoot Nikon and use off-camera flash, then the answer is a clear “yes”. Otherwise, with the specs this close it will come down to feel in the hand, for which you’ll need to visit an actual, physical camera store. One thing, though: In the pictures, the Nikon viewfinder looks like it might be big and bright enough to actually use, unlike the G-series finders, which are worse than useless.

P7000 product page [Nikon. Thanks, Geoff!]

Nikon Coolpix P7000 digital camera specifications [DP Review]

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A new chip could improve error correction in flash memory, and might also lead to more efficient spam filtering and shopping recommendations.

Lyric Semiconductor, a small MIT spinoff, has created an error correction chip that uses a technique called “probability processing” to guess the right answer or solve a problem.

The chip, called LEC, is 30 times smaller in size than current digital error correction technology. That means manufacturers can create higher density chips that offer more storage at lower costs.

“This is not digital computing in the traditional sense,” says Ben Wigoda, founder of Lyric Semiconductor. “We are looking at processing where the values can be between a zero and a one.”

Error rates in flash-based storage are of concern to both consumers and manufacturers.

“The issue with flash is you get higher and higher bit errors as you move to smaller geometry,” says Greg Wong, an analyst with research firm Forward Insights, “so to discern data that is in there you have to use probability type of algorithms.”

Today, one in every thousand bits stored in a flash memory comes out wrong when the memory is read. With the next generation of flash memory, the number of errors is expected to approach one wrong bit out of every hundred.

For consumers, this means a music file that they play from their flash storage disk could sound wrong — or a file could get corrupted. To avoid that, flash memory makers have to use error correction, much of which is currently done using software algorithms.

The problem with software-based solutions is that they use digital signal processing circuits that add to the size of the chip, says Wong.

“This is an area where cost is a very sensitive factor,” he says. “So if you can reduce the size of the circuitry, there’s a big benefit there.”

Despite its tiny size, the Lyric LEC contains “a Pentium’s worth of computation,” says Wigoda.

Story continues.

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Photojojo’s eight-pack of colored filters is “more whoa-inducing than a double-rainbow,” according to the blurb. The satisfyingly hefty chunks of acrylic will color the light from your flash for selective effects, or sit over your cameras lens to cast their hue over the entire scene.

Drilled to hook onto a keyring, and much sturdier than flimsy colored-gels, the plastic chips are just $15 and look like a whole lot of fun. If I didn’t already own a bag of gels, I’d spring for these right away. There’s just one thing missing: CTO. What? CTO, or color temperature orange, is the filter that warms your flash to the same color as indoor tungsten lighting, and is the most useful flash filter you can own.

It can also be used to simulate the setting sun when used in its full-power incarnation. Happily, this last, rather over-the-top, effect should be possible with the paler of Photojojo’s orange filters.

And before you worry about putting hunks of cheap plastic in front of your beautifully engineered lens, don’t. First, you shouldn’t be thinking too hard about image quality when you’re turning the whole room red. Second, this close to the lens even your pinky won’t show up on an image. Seriously. Set the lens on your SLR to its widest aperture and try it for yourself.

The filter kit is available now.

Color Lens and Flash Filters [Photojojo]

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David Hobby, the man responsible for re-lighting the enthusiasm for off-camera flash (and driving up second-hand prices of the same) has turned his lens on slavery. Not the unpaid servant kind, but the flash-triggering kind. A new article over at the Strobist blog (which you really should be subscribed to) details the different kinds of slaves, and how they work.

A slave unit is a simple trigger which closes a switch when it sees another flash. Thus, you can control many flashes from afar without wires. And while the operation is all-manual, slaving an old flashgun is way cheaper than buying the auto-everything strobes from Canon and Nikon.

There are two kinds: passive and powered. Read David’s excellent (and entertaining) post for the full run down, but the short form is that you should avoid passive units, which rely on gathering enough photons through their eyes to fire a trigger, and go for the powered units, which are a lot more sensitive. The best option is to only buy speed-lights with built-in slaves, as you don’t then have to drop extra cash on expensive adapter dongles.

A flash like the LP160 (which we reviewed a couple weeks back) is ideal. It’s cheap ($160) and the slave unit popped the flash every time in testing.

Failing this, you should buy the most expensive slave unit you can afford, otherwise you’ll suffer the rage-inducing frustrations of missed exposures. David tells us where to buy, and what buzzwords to look out for. Go read the article, and wait for part two, which will tell you how to get the most out of your brand new toy.

Understanding and Using Optical Slaves, Pt. 1 [Strobist]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

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For the last couple of weeks I have been testing out the low-cost LP160 camera-flash. The successor to the LP120, the flash is designed for full manual control, and can be triggered pretty much any way you like. The strobe is aimed at Strobists, photographers who use small, off camera flashes in manual mode to get amazing, creative results.

For a full spec list, check out the preview from last month. The short form is this: The flash-head spins almost 360-degrees and tilts up 90-degrees (and down by seven-degrees). There’s a slave sensor on the front, and – in addition to on/off and test buttons – zoom, slave and power-output buttons on the back.

The quad-sync part of the name comes from the triggering methods: hot-shoe, PC-sync cable, 3.5mm jack cable and slave. The hard-wired methods all work as expected (although you’ll want to use the 3.5mm jack as the cables are cheaper and the plugs don’t fall out – a design problem with all PC-sync cords).

The real power is in that slave mode. The front-mounted slave unit watches for another flash and fires its own lamp. This can be hit or miss but in regular daylight (not full, midday sun) the LP160 hits it pretty much every time. The shot above, for instance, is taken with a Panasonic GF1. The built-in flash is the trigger, but to keep it from adding light to the photograph, I blocked it with a white card. Enough light bounced around the room to trigger the LumoPro for every exposure.

The slave has two modes. One is what you’d expect – it sees a flash and fires. The second, reached by sliding the switch across one more notch, is called Si. This is for use with compact cameras, and will ignore any pre-flashes. I tried it with the red-eye setting switched on on the GF1 and it worked great.

The other buttons control the zoom motor (24-105mm), which lets you change the concentration of the beam, and the power output. This goes from full power, or 1/1, down to 1/64. This, aside from all the other functions, is what you need to do manual photography. You just hit the button to cycle through the levels, and a red LED shows you what is selected.

Build quality is ok. The plastic is lightweight but flexible, so although it isn’t as solid as a Nikon speedlight, it shouldn’t shatter on impact. Would I buy one? Sure. At $160, it is in range of most photographers, and it works as it should. There are no frills, but a lot of thought has gone into what features have been added. And at the price, you can buy a clutch of LumoPros for the price of one Nikon SB900.

LP160 Quad-sync Manual Flash [LumoPro. Thanks, Moishe!]

LumoPro LP160: Quad Sync v.2.0 [Strobist]

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IOS hacker Comex has managed to get Flash up and running on the iPad. That’s right, now you can watch YouTube, Hulu and all the adult video you want. What? You can do that already?

The hack is called Frash, and in its current form won’t play video. What it will do is let you play games and view Flash advertisements in all their annoying, animated glory.

To use Frash, you’ll need to have a jailbroken iPad (that is, an iPad hacked to give you file-system access). Once done, you should navigate to the Cydia app (the jailbreak community’s App Store) and add the insanelyi repository to the list. From there you can install Frash.

If you have ever used a Flash blocker in your browser, you already know how to use Frash. Instead of loading Flash content, Frash presents a big “F” in place of the animation. Click to load.

I haven’t tested this (because I like not having to tolerate Flash on my iPad), but the video of Frash in action shows it running at pretty much full speed. I have no idea if this hacked version of Flash will drain the iPad’s battery as fast as real Flash drains my MacBook’s battery, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it might. Also, beware of browser plugins: there’s no guarantee that Frash doesn’t contain the same security holes as its official brother.

Frash beta : Flash for iPad! [OSx86]

‘Frash’ Brings Adobe Flash to Apple iPad [PC World]

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Just last week I wished for a pulsing strobe-light application for the iPhone 4’s LED lamp: “Im hoping that somebody makes a strobing photo and video app that allows for some cool, stuttering image effects,” I wrote, breathless and giddy with the possibilities of making people look like herky-jerky robots as they moved in the dark.

This week, my incessant prayers have been answered by a 15-year-old boy. That boy is John H. Meyer, a developer who has made Strobe Pro, a soon-to-be-available app which will fire the iPhone’s rear-facing flash in staccato bursts. See it in action in this video:

Pretty slick stuff, you’ll probably agree. You might also agree that Meyer has an impressively deep voice for a teenager.

The real utility in this app will probably show itself in combination with a proper camera. As you will have noticed in the video, the iPhone’s camera has trouble keeping up with the flashing lights, but if you were to fire a burst of flashes as a subject moves through the dark in front of the open shutter of your SLR, you’d get a sequence of images not unlike a nocturnal version of Eadweard Muybridge’s famous motion-stopping photos.

Strobe Pro is awaiting App-store approval.

Real Strobe Light for iPhone 4 [YouTube. Thanks, John!]

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In an open letter three months ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs challenged Adobe to ship its Flash software on any mobile device and prove it worked well.

Adobe, now, has an answer. The company has released Flash Player 10.1 to its mobile partners and the technology should be in the hands of Android phone users with the upcoming Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ update to the operating system.

Flash Player 10.1 will be available as a “final production release” for smart phones and tablets, once users are able to upgrade to Android 2.2, says Adobe.

Among the devices that will get Froyo and Flash Player 10.1 are the Dell Streak, Google Nexus One, HTC Evo, HTC Desire, HTC Incredible, Motorola Droid, Motorola Milestone and Samsung Galaxy S. Google hasn’t said yet exactly when Android 2.2 will be available to users, though it is expected in the next few weeks.

Adobe says Flash Player 10.1 will also be available in devices using BlackBerry, webOS, future versions of Windows Phone, MeeGo and Symbian operating systems.

If major Android phones get Flash capability it will be a push back against Apple’s efforts to turn public opinion against Flash on mobile devices.

With the launch of the first iPhone in 2007, Apple declared war against mobile Flash. Apple is supporting HTML5 and its efforts have influenced the online video landscape significantly. Many major websites are starting to use HTML5, and video players such as Brightcove are serving up HTML5 videos for devices not compliant with Flash. Separately, Apple has worked with companies like YouTube to produce iPhone-compatible versions of their sites.

“We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it,” wrote Jobs in a note posted on the Apple website in April. “Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but were glad we didnt hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?”

But many developers are not convinced. Adobe’s Flash standard is still widely used on the internet, for everything from animated banner ads and splash screens to infographics, educational content and games. Much of that content has been unavailable on mobile devices: The previous version of Adobe’s mobile Flash player, Flash Lite, supported only basic Flash content, such as video.

Gadget Lab’s first look at a Flash Player 10.1 beta showed that Flash on the mobile phone can be fun, unlocking sites that otherwise would be inaccessible. But it’s not a flawless experience. On a Nexus One, Flash content — especially video — took time to load, which was frustrating. And it sucks bandwidth.

Still, for Adobe, it’s a big step toward making Flash a contender in mobile multimedia.

Photo: Flash Player 10.1 on a Nexus One phone (Keith Axline/Wired.com)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews