… Could have been the title of this post 3 months ago. Given the recent layoffs and announcements in the past few weeks, it may seem short sighted to be overly excited faced with this news today. This was, however, a part of the announcements recently by Adobe regarding Flex. They are committed to contributing Flex (and several complimentary projects) to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). I personally witnessed the commitment and plan for this at their San Francisco office. Many leaders of the Flex community gathered at Adobe SF by request of group product managers Deepa Subramaniam and Andrew Shorten this week. We heard from senior management on their new strategic vision for Adobe around digital marketing and digital media. We heard apologies for the accelerated and miscommunicated nature of the messaging of the past few weeks. And, we, most importantly, heard about the future of Flex as it may likely live in the ASF.

There has been a lot of focus lately on the poor messaging to the community around the announcements of late. I don’t disagree about how destructive and misguided this messaging was, but I do think it’s important to see it as the past and move on. Many in the community may criticize this idea. It would be easy to say this is one of many moves towards under valuing the community. Again, I wouldn’t totally disagree, but I do think this particular moment in history is different than in the past. Here’s a bit of an explanation…

The ASF model for development is much different than how a product is developed by a corporate software vendor. On an Apache project there are no project managers, product managers, senior vice presidents, presidents, CEOs, CTOs, development managers, senior engineers, or any other title of a role that you can think of; other than “commitor”. A commitor has the right to commit code to and vote on a project. You can read a lot more about the ASF process on their site. So, what’s the big deal? Why is this different than a time in the past that Adobe (or any company) did wrong by it’s community, said “we’re sorry”, and kept moving right along? – This time they’re actually handing over the reigns of the project to us; to the community.

Adobe will not have contributors on the Apache Flex project. Neither will Spoon, Roundarch or any other corporation or group. This is (technically) true because contributors are individuals. So, there will be some individuals who are contributors on Apache Flex that will also be Adobe employees, but they will not have any higher status or privilege than any other contributors on the project. This is by design. The design of the ASF. The process of Adobe contributing Flex to Apache is in the form of a proposal. That proposal states the intention of all initial commitors to create an Apache Flex project, among other details. Up until Apache Flex is realized as a full project there will be a phase of incubation. During this time Apache will work with the proposal submitters to help arrive at a proposal that fits the Apache model. This is to ensure the best possible arrangement for a successful Apache Flex. That’s why this moment is different than similar times in the past. By this model, Adobe gives up the sole control and direction of Flex and enters into a partnership with the community to drive the future of the framework, with the guidance of Apache. Without that partnership Apache will not accept this contribution. So, for those claiming Adobe is “giving Flex to Apache to die” or “dumping off Flex with Apache”, this is simply not true. It also shows a severe lack of understanding and respect for what the ASF does and has done.

We have not heard this before. This is a new approach with a high potential for excellent collaboration of all the individuals and entities that depend on Flex for critical business needs. These individuals and enterprises need a path to a future that enables their teams and businesses to deliver the high quality solutions they (and their customers) are accustomed to. For many enterprises developing highly complex applications with millions of lines of code, large development teams, and high expectations for success, Flex was and still is an extremely valid technology, for others it is a requirement. There are enterprises that are so vested in using Flex to build (or maintain) a platform for their businesses that a short term migration is simply not possible. This is not an understatement. Individuals from enterprises like what I’m describing were present and vocal at this recent Flex Summit.

So, what else did we hear as it’s relevant to Flex?

A paraphrased quotation, as I can’t remember the exact wording:

Adobe will not continue to develop Flex as a “stand alone” business.

It was also stated that Adobe does not currently have plans to develop any product targeted at enterprise scale user interface development. That’s not to say they aren’t developing tools for HTML5 development, just not a platform like Flex based on HTML5. They are committed to their runtimes for what seems like a minimum of 3-5 years. All of the current runtimes (less Flash Player for mobile browsers): Flash Player for desktop browsers, AIR for mobile (iOS, Android), and AIR for desktop (Windows, Mac OS).  However, it does seem clear that this runtime development will be focused in line with their new strategy of digital marketing and digital media. For Flash that means game development and video. There are certainly concerns around this regarding Flex. Game development is very different from enterprise class development. They have also stated that they will commit to backwards compatibility to meet all the dependencies that exist today in Flex 4.6.

My thoughts on the future of Apache Flex…

Apache is the the future for enterprise class Flex. For those highly skeptical and critical of Adobe, my message to you is this: The move to Apache is a big one and categorically different from anything we’ve seen in the past. Is Apache perfect? I doubt it. What it’s not is proprietary or corporate. It also answers in no way to a group of public share holders. It is not driven by senior management who are making business decisions to please those public share holders. It has no “layoffs”. It is not driven by the sales of an IDE. Further more, it has no goals of making profit – at all.  It was founded and is governed by folks that really understand open source development. It is one of the most respected software foundations in the world. What Apache Flex can be is a powerful force for the community to drive the future development of Flex and deliver in a way that holds true with the most important needs of the community – governed and guided by the Apache model for open source development.

I also believe that development is just one factor in the future success of Flex. Now that Adobe is stepping back from Flex there will be gaps in the future in the areas of: education, community (user groups, conferences, etc), quality assurance, support, tooling and potentially others. The Spoon Project may likely provide an appropriate group to support in these areas. There are already of mass of talented folks rallied around problems similar to these gaps in Spoon.

So, down to brass tacks:

What’s the reality of HTML5 as it relates to Flex at this moment in time?

HTML5 and open standards for the web will play a dominant role in the future of technology. What I believe is that this future is farther off and a bit more uncertain than many that make this statement. Let’s consider some recent figures by IDC. IDC predicts that 90% of smartphones and tablets will have HTML5-ready browsers by 2013. This means that 90% of consumers will be able to access your HTML5 application on their smartphone or tablet by end of 2013 (still 12 months away). However, the Gartner prediction of 81% smartphone penetration/adoption for 2012 was off by 50%. That stat is actually 44%. Even looking at the past month, smart phone purchases are only at 56%, well below that 81% prediction. The staggering number is 2015. 90% browser adoption of HTML5 is estimated for 2015. The Flash Player has historically had 90-99% adoption in desktop browsers. Additionally, there is no complete HTML5 specification. Notice: “Draft”.

In that respect an even more staggering number is 0. 0 is, technically, the current browsers that support an open standards based implementation of HTML5. Without a complete open standard it’s impossible to have compliance around that standard.

As Google, Microsoft, Apple, now Adobe and others seem to have consensus around the support for HTML5 in the future, none of these companies seem to do a great job at messaging when, exactly, this future is. Along with that I think many analysts are also doing a poor job of analyzing and messaging the capabilities of current web technologies. Part of that problem is the term HTML5 is now being used for anything related to HTML. Current support for HTML, JavaScript and CSS is a lot better than it was years ago, but comparatively (both to what HTML5 will be and what Flex and the like are now) it has many drawbacks. There is still a considerable amount of browser fragmentation to deal with, there are considerable challenges with styling for some experiences, there is a severe limit to the amount of performance of any browser’s JavaScript “runtime”, and there is still a lacking of support for mature approaches to software engineering when it comes to JavaScript. That doesn’t mean I hate JavaScript or think it isn’t a great tool for solving a lot of problems. It is my opinion on the comparison of the available choices for developing software on the web today – not the how that may or may not look in the future.

In the future that is next week and next year, Flex still has a place.. and that future is considerably more relevant than speculation on what is 3 years away… but back to the topic at hand: Apache doesn’t hedge on those futures. It supports a thriving community interested in building software. This is another huge reason that I see so much potential for Apache Flex. So, you won’t be hearing me making blanket statements like HTML5 is the future and you shouldn’t be building Flex apps. Or, Flex will be around for decades and HTML5 is completely overrated. Anyone who makes makes these kinds of huge generalizations is in one (or all) of these categories:

• A person who is trying to sell you something
• A company man (or woman)
• A technology zealot

If you’re an engineer or part of management driving the technological future of your organization, it’s probably not a good idea to listen to these kinds of people as your only source of information (or maybe at all). The sales person is driven by profits. The company man is driven by a career towing the company line. The technology zealot holds to their particular technology views without necessarily analyzing the reality of the tech landscape. These are all risky people to put your faith in. The technologist that can analyze trade offs, discuss options, strategize to meet business goals effectively; that is a person who I trust. That is a person who I want on my team, working with my customers, and solving critical technology problems with me.

More to come on Apache Flex as it develops…

Google+ comments.

The Good.

Flex came to us at a time where there was a shift in the way we were using technology to build software for the web. AJAX was just a baby, even though many (including myself) had been doing AJAX like HTML development on the web, long before the term was coined. AJAX and HTML were a decent solution for many problems, but browser fragmentation was worse than ever, and the languages of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript were supported by browsers and tools in an arcane way. It didn’t add up to tools that made sense from a software engineering perspective. So, a lot of us turned to ActionScript. A language that was part of a platform better suited for engineering with almost none of the fragmentation problems that plagued HTML/CSS/JS. These fragmentation issues were, of course, solved by a runtime called the Flash Player.

When I first came into Flash I didn’t have a high opinion of it. I thought it was that timeline tool that designers used to make fancy ads that annoyed me. When I really dug into the language and the platform though, I saw potential. So, at the time just before Flex, like many others in the community, I was building Flex-like apps based on purely ActionScript and the Flash Player. As a young developer who had worked in more classical desktop user interface frameworks like Swing, Visual Basic, etc, ActionScript and the Flash Player gave amazing freedom from the limitations of the way browsers were constructed to deliver markup content via HTML. Markup is not a particularly desirable framework for engineering user interfaces – Flash was better.

Then came Flex. Macromedia saw a trend in the market: building applications on the web. They also saw that a lot of folks were using their runtime to do this. Possibly in a way Macromedia had never intended. Flex came as a solution to this problem. The main benefits of Flex in it’s prime:

• A standard user interface component set
• Remoting (the ability to interface with web services via transferring typed objects)
• A better skinning and styling workflow (than HTML/CSS at the time)
• Efficient vector graphics for data visualization (charts, graphs, etc)

These add up to an excellent offerring for organizations developing custom, business critical software to run their enterprises. Previously we had seen tools like Visual Basic and Java’s Swing and SWT frameworks occupy this space. Among others, a main downfall with these options was the requirement of IT professionals to support pushing out new builds of desktop applications across enterprises. Flex came as enterprise IT organizations grew tired solving this problem. At the same time the web was maturing to a point where these kinds of applications could actually be served from a browser. It allowed a single web deployment of an application that could be updated and serve many users to solve the business critical problems so crucial to the success of the operations.

This is what I loved about Flex, and still love about it. It was a tool that could be used to solve these problems for enterprises in a manner that was so much more effective and engaging than what I had previously seen in tech. It also opened the door to engage with user experience practitioners in a way like we hadn’t really seen before. When I started working with colleagues in user experience roles it changed the way I thought about software. We weren’t building something to fulfill a boring requirements document, we were engaging users to create an experience that was different than what they were used to getting from software. The goal wasn’t just to make a better widget, it was to redefine what a widget was. We’re still doing that today and it’s still exciting.

Flex is still one of the greatest UI toolkits I’ve used to build rich UIs. I am proud to have been part of community that shared this opinion and pushed the technology so much of the last few years. I have met so many brilliant engineers, user experience practitioners, and visual designers; all folks who embraced and defined what we know now as rich internet applications. I’ve learned a lot from all of you, and it’s been a great ride. To those of you at Adobe that contributed to the progress of the product; thank you. No product is perfect and your contributions to the field of user interface engineering are commendable.

The Bad.

Over the past few years it has been clear that the product development of Flex has shifted from an user interface engineering tool as pioneered by Macromedia to a tool more inline with Adobe’s offerings for designers. From a user interface engineering perspective, this was bad. There are clear examples of platforms, both present and past, that are designed for software engineers to solve complex problems. Tools for; testing (unit, integration, functional), profiling, continuos integration builds, code coverage, etc have been largely left behind in Adobe’s product development concerning Flex. I say this is bad, but I also understand that from a company who’s made most of their stake on PDF, Fonts, and Photoshop sales, it’s understandable. From a business perspective I’m sure Adobe was interested in having repeatable success with Flex as they had with Photoshop and their other creative tools. The problem is, Flex is not Photoshop and the theory that it could be has been clearly disproven.

Obviously, these are my opinions on choices made over the last several years as they apply to Flex as an user interface engineering tool. It’s also my opinion, that Adobe hasn’t really been set on the path to make Flex the best tool for this as they seemed to be up until around 2008-2009. That’s not to say Flex isn’t still a great tool for these problems, it’s just that it hasn’t made the progress it could have in terms of an engineering tool. This “bad” really adds up to lost potential to be the de facto tool for enterprises building web based applications. What’s really disappointing is that, before last week, Flex still had the opportunity to be this tool, with little competition. I personally know folks who have created proofs of concept around patching the Flex compiler to compile a Flex application to run in a JavaScript environment – and it works. Not to say this is a trivial effort, but it is something that can be accomplished. So, instead of Adobe evolving their own platform and tools around the trending towards HTML5 they’ve, more or less, decided to start over.

Starting over is actually not that bad of an idea, but the side effect of dropping commitment to the Flex platform is estranging a development community that has been passionately committed to the platform over the years. These developers are reasonably disappointed and angry to have been left out in the cold. I think it will extremely difficult to earn back that commitment in the future.

The Future.

So, Flex Developers, what’s next? Flex filled a need. A need we all were looking for and many helped shape, but it was a reaction to what the industry needed and how technology was trending at the time. It was not a proactive stab to solve a problem that was known. We all worked through this together to get to a place where we had something pretty great to solve the problems in our industries. So, the point is, we did that, and we’ll continue to do it again. The industry is trending again in another direction, and it will trend again and again and likely never settle. This is another thing I love about technology – it is constantly in a state of reformation.

Does that mean Flex is dead? Not necessarily. To quote Jesse Warden from a thread we had on Google+, “Sun fubarred Java, and it’s still straight pimpin’”. The community now has the opportunity to redefine Flex once again. Maybe a plan of compiling Flex to JavaScript isn’t far fetched for the community. Anything is possible. At the same time, this moment provides a good opportunity to sit back and look at the land scape in technology. A proper engineering mindset should arrive at decisions pragmatically, not emotionally. We have a new era in front of us that continues to show the importance of user experience but also clearly points to the importance of apps.

Forrester coined this new wave as the “App Internet”. We’ve seen the revolution of desktop applications converging on the web. In this next wave we will see mobile as a defining factor in the internet technology of tomorrow.

What we’ve all learned by using Flex is greater than Flex itself. We’ve learned and evolved the way we solve problems in technology more efficiently and serve our users more effectively. Adobe cannot layoff these skills and we can use them to continue to evolve software and the way we build it.

I am fortunate to be surrounded with technologists, user experience practitioners, visual designers, and strategists at Roundarch who combined represent expertise in almost all things relevant to modern software development. It’s a lucky spot to be in and I’m confident in our proficiency to adapt both reactively and proactively to trends like this in the industry.

So, learn JavaScript / HTML5, contribute to Spoon.as, or write the next new amazing UI framework. Just don’t stop writing great software because of the change in direction of one tech company.

By: SCOTT CACCIOLA

Before a Dec. 12 game against the Dolphins, Jets owner Woody Johnson stands in the owner's suite at New Meadlowlands Stadium in front of his computer program that monitors in-game business.

On a recent trip to Rome, Jets owner Woody Johnson visited the Colosseum. It was neither his first visit nor his second, though he always considers the experience to be an education. As he said of the architects who designed the amphitheater two millennia ago, “They did some good stuff.”

Now that he has an ownership stake in New Meadowlands Stadium, Mr. Johnson has a vested interest in stadium planning. As he walked about the Colosseum, he found himself studying the entrances and exits, and he imagined epic bottlenecks.

“You can organize people when they’re coming in,” Mr. Johnson said before a recent home game. “But when they all decide to leave after the gladiators do their job, everyone’s in a big rush. No matter how many exits or escalators, it’s always been a problem.”

Mr. Johnson considers it his job to do what the ancient Romans could not, and his goal of eliminating crowd congestion after Jets’ victories—or (gasp!) losses—is just the start. To that end, Mr. Johnson hired Roundarch, a digital design agency, to conceptualize and construct a computer system that monitors virtually every single in-game business activity at the $1.6-billion stadium.

It is known among Jets officials as Mr. Johnson’s “Command Center,” and thousands of pieces of real-time data—everything from hot dog sales to bathroom lines—are available at his fingertips on a 42-inch touchscreen display that hangs in his owner’s suite. If this all sounds Big Brother-ish, well, it is—and Mr. Johnson and his staff are unapologetic. It is all designed to enhance the fan experience, they say. And if it helps the franchise become more profitable in the process, then the Jets will have no complaints.

“You can look at every piece of information in 360 degrees,” said Thad Sheely, the Jets’ executive vice president for finance and stadium development. “You’re able to see what’s happening as it happens.”

The program’s home screen is called “The Pocket,” and it has a four-panel layout that highlights separate categories: tickets, parking, merchandise and concessions. Tap on “Tickets,” and Mr. Johnson can see how many fans have entered the stadium, when they entered and which gates they used. Tap on “Concessions,” and Mr. Johnson can see gross sales and how that figure compares to previous games. Every ticket and parking pass is barcoded and scanned; every beer sale, processed and recorded. All that information is instantaneously uploaded to the Command Center.

It bears more than a vague resemblance to a video game, with its bold graphics and vivid colors, and Mr. Johnson was asked if he sometimes has fun just fiddling around with it. “Oh, totally,” he said.

He often extols the virtues of simplicity to his staff: If you can’t explain something in very basic terms, then you must not understand it well enough. So he asked Roundarch, which has offices in New York and Chicago, to create a system that was painless to operate and produced information that was easy to understand. By his own admission, Mr. Johnson is no tech geek. But also appears to be progressive.

“If you look at older stadiums and venues, these things were not run as well as traditional businesses,” said Geoff Cubitt, president and CTO of Roundarch. “But Woody is clearly a business guy, and he’s looking at it differently. He’s looking at it as the CEO of an organization.”

While the system operates on a macro level, Mr. Johnson—and the other executives and merchandisers who have access to it—can analyze metrics on a micro scale. The Command Center features a map of the stadium with icons that represent the exact locations of all 941 concession and merchandise outlets. Tap on any of them, and a cornucopia of data spills forth in surprisingly digestible form.

Say Mr. Johnson wants to monitor one of the merchandise booths up near Section 345. He can see gross sales for the afternoon, or for the past 10 minutes, or for a 15-minute period two hours ago—all thanks to a scrolling timeline. He can get an update on sales of merchandise subsets, such as jerseys, women’s apparel or hats. Then he can check out subsets of those subsets: How are Mark Sanchez jerseys selling at that booth? How does that total compare to last week’s game? To other booths on the same concourse? Are they running out of No. 6 jerseys? (Which, believe it or not, can happen if Mr. Sanchez is having a strong game.)

With that in mind, Roundarch has implemented an automated system that tracks inventory and sends alerts if any booths need to be restocked. Mr. Johnson also has access to live feeds of hundreds of security cameras, and the stadium is heat-mapped to monitor crowd flow. The whole idea is to take the guesswork out of game-day operations and reduce it to a futuristic science. “You can reduce lines and areas of congestion by re-routing people,” said David Vanslette, vice president of Roundarch. “And honestly, this is just the beginning. We’ll be able to tailor the experience for fans in ways that weren’t possible before.”

The idea for the Command Center was hatched in June, and Roundarch sliced the process into four stages. The first essentially entailed launching the system, which was completed before the start of the regular season. The Jets are now in the second stage, part of which involves making improvements based on the data the system collects.

The Jets already have made a couple of pregame modifications. First, Mr. Johnson said, opening the gates three hours prior to kickoff proved to be too early. Fans, he said, are more interested in tailgating than milling about inside the stadium, and the Jets were wasting resources—and money—by staffing concession stands for an extra hour. So now the gates open two hours before kickoff.

But Mr. Johnson and his staff still want fans inside the stadium before kickoff, and he found there was only a slow trickle before the Jets were host to the Cincinnati Bengals on Nov. 25. So to provide some incentive before they played the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 12, the Jets announced a 25% discount on food and non-alcoholic beverages for the first hour. Sales increased by 50% during that hour—fans came through the turnstiles at a brisk rate of 400 per minute—and were up 20% overall compared to the team’s previous two home games.

“Without the program, we wouldn’t have been able to track that,” Mr. Sheely said.

The final two stages of the process seem to excite Mr. Johnson the most. They revolve around what the team describes as “fan engagement,” and Roundarch is expected to unveil a mobile application next year that fans will be able to download to their hand-held devices.

Mr. Johnson said he anticipates a wide range of uses. Which bathrooms are the most empty? Are there any traffic issues near the stadium? Mr. Johnson even suggested using the app to announce beer discounts at various concession stands as a way to control crowd flow.

“I can see fans controlling the huge video boards through the app,” Mr. Johnson said. “We want that sort of interactivity. They’ll decide what they want to see, what music they want to hear. We’re even working on something where they’ll be able to predict plays, a sort of contest—although they won’t be able to call plays, at least for the moment.”

The Command Center, Mr. Johnson said, is limited only by “the imagination”—and by its inability to score touchdowns.

Write to Scott Cacciola at scott.cacciola@wsj.com

From: WSJ.com

By: Tom Van Riper

Selling a few more cold beers or team caps may not recoup the revenue that Jets owner Woody Johnson lost out on by not selling all his PSLs, but every little bit counts.

During the Jets’ opening Monday night loss to the Baltimore Ravens, executives from Roundarch, a Chicago-based builder of web and mobile applications, showed off the new revenue-tracking device they built for Johnson and Jets brass in the company’s Meadowlands Stadium suite. It’s a 42-inch touchscreen that spits out up-to-the minute sales figures for concessions, tickets, parking, and merchandise. Call it the Woody Johnson command center.

The Jets are the first major sports team to try the Roundarch product. Company execs, hoping it will catch on, plan to demonstrate it around the NFL this season. Visiting Ravens executives were checking it out Monday night.

The application breaks everything down by category and individual item, while highlighting the best and worst performers. If Diet Pepsi is a particuarly big seller at a refreshment stand on the upper concourse, Johnson will know immediately. If a given parking lot that’s usually filled to capacity is a quarter empty today, he’ll know that too.

Traditionally, team executives wait until after game day to review stadium sales data and make adjustments for the following week. The idea behind real-time tracking is the ability to change promotions and adjust inventory on the fly to nab additional customers. If Mark Sanchez jerseys aren’t selling well at one of the team stores, Johnson can alert his merchandise manager, who could display them more prominently or, conceivably, mark down the price a little.

With thousands of potential customers walking the stadium, “the idea is to spur action between the tailgate and the seats,” said David Vanslette, a Roundarch vice president.

For Johnson and the Jets, game-day revenue tracking might prove to be a mere first step. Drilling down to individual customer behavior – who’s buying what, who’s not in his seat, who’s leaving early – yields even more valuable information. “I told him he ought to put RFID on every ticket,” said Vanslette. Tempting as that is, management isn’t yet ready to infringe on fan privacy to that degree. But in the new world of wired sports stadium, can it be far behind?

From: Blog.Forbes.com

A look inside New Meadowlands Stadium’s clubs (PDF)

New Meadowlands Stadium will feature what’s billed as revolutionary technology after Verizon and Cisco combined to provide digital video and wireless content over a network that requires 10,000 data ports and thousands of miles of cable.

The technology allows for branding, such as the stadium turning from blue to green depending on the host team. Video screens throughout the stadium range from offering food menus to in-game video to statistical information. In addition to the four high-definition video scoreboards in the stadium, there are more than 2,200 HD video displays throughout the facility.

“There’s highly interactive capabilities,” said chief technology officer Peter Brickman, who gave the example of wishing happy birthday on a video screen to a customer at a concessions stand.

“Plus, we have capabilities of tracking what’s being purchased, the popularity of how it’s selling, the popularity of our sales people. … We have ways to monitor and make sure our concession stands are working more efficiently.”

The Jets are also independently working with technology providers FanVision and Roundarch. The former offers handheld devices to fans that show video of the game from different angles. The latter provides real-time stadium data to the Jets in an effort to enhance the fan experience.

“Technology is key to the operation of this building,” Jets owner Woody Johnson said.

The technology has advanced so much, in fact, that some of it was not yet invented at the conception of the stadium. The fiber optics are now installed, though, so Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg said the only issue is keeping the software up-to-date with advancements.

Of course, the $100 million invested in stadium technology means little if the product on the field is not satisfactory.

“I’ve been in this business long enough to know that nothing enhances the fan experience more than putting a winning team on the field,” Giants owner John Mara said. “But having seen what other stadiums around the country have accomplished, we decided very early on that we wanted to be the most technologically advanced stadium in the world.”

From: NJ.com

Recently, the Chicago Flex users group raffled off two tickets to the 360|Flex conference.  I was lucky enough to be one of the winners! The conference will be held in Washington DC this year, from September 19^th – 22^nd.

This year Roundarch will be one of the sponsors alongside Adobe, O’Reilly and APress to name a few. As well as sponsoring the event, Roundarch will have a booth set up for the many social events in between the scheduled seminars and workshops. Roundarch rock stars Adam Flater and Jesse Freeman are also scheduled to speak.

I am very excited to have the opportunity to attend this unique community event and there will be a lot to gain from it. This conference provides an exceptional opportunity for Flex novices, and ninjas alike, to learn from community experts and industry leading engineers. With the tremendous line up, attendees will also have the rare opportunity to meet the authors of the great blogs and articles that we as developers come to rely upon.

Some of my top level goals:

- Be a sponge and absorb as much knowledge as possible.

- Heckle Adam and Jesse during their presentations (just kidding)

- Meet Doug McCune, because he is hilarious.

- Represent Roundarch!!!

Stay tuned for my detailed re-cap after the event. For more info on the conference see the links below.

About 360|Flex

Schedule

Speakers

Chicago Flex

Chicago Flex(LinkedIn)

“360|Flex is the first and still the best Adobe Flex developer conference in the world.’”

From: Roundarch Blog

By Samantha Murphy, TechNewsDaily Senior Staff Writer

The National Football League is often hailed as one of the most technologically savvy sports operations in the world. To keep up with the demands of those involved in the game and those watching at home, the league will be testing a myriad of new technologies this season, from a new type of game clock that keeps the refs in the loop to its first 3-D broadcast.

The league’s tech goals this year, as in other years, are clear: boosting the fans’ experience by getting them deeper inside the game.

“The closer you can get to the game, the more you feel a part of it,” said John Chambers, chairman and chief executive of Cisco, during a recent webcast press conference. “There are many game changers on the horizon.”

NFL embraces 3-D

The NFL often gives technologies a test run during the preseason; for instance, referees’ use of TV instant replay to review calls debuted during a preseason game in the 1990s. During this preseason, the NFL launches its first 3-D broadcast Thursday, Sept. 2, when the New York Giants host the New England Patriots in the Giants’ new stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Although this won’t be the first 3-D telecast by a professional league – Major League Baseball and the FIFA World Cup already have tested the three-dimensional waters – it marks the start of a long experiment by the NFL involving several stadiums.

The 3-D game is being carried subscribers of Verizon FiOS TV in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Viewers need a 3-D TV set, 3-D glasses and a high-definition set-top box to see the special effect.

Working with a company called 3ality Digital to power the telecast, Verizon is using two cameras attached to one rig — one camera for the left eye and one camera for the right eye — to create feeds that are beamed to a truck stationed outside the stadium and are combined to form a 3-D signal.

Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon’s chief executive officer, said the New Meadowlands Stadium, which the Giants share with the New York Jets, will be among the NFL stadiums experimenting with 3-D technology in the next few years.

“You will see a lot of 3-D at the New Meadowlands Stadium over the next two to three years – and then you will start to see it pop up more elsewhere,” Seidenberg said during a press conference.

What happens at the stadium, he said, “will impact the football viewing experience in the future.”

New game clock

The effect of new technologies will also be felt on the field. The NFL has had its eye on the Precision Time System currently used by the National Basketball Association, which allows on-field officials to control the pace of a game with the touch of a button.

Four officials — wearing battery-operated packs attached to their belts — will be able to activate or stop the clock system. They will work in concert with the game clock operator in the football stadium’s booth.

The NFL started testing out a new Precision Time System game clock during four preseason games to increase accuracy and cut back on downtime between plays.

“If we have the potential to time our games with more precision, then we will pursue all avenues, including experimenting with alternate methods to accomplish that goal,” Carl Johnson, the NFL’s vice president of officiating, told USA Today.

The NFL could roll this out league-wide in the near future, once a full evaluation of the test has been completed.

In-game video

Also debuting this season is a handheld device called FanVision that will allow fans in the stadium to watch the game as if they were back home on the couch. FanVision offers 10 video channels, including multiple camera views, out-of-market games, fan-controlled instant replays, game highlights, comprehensive game statistics, and real-time scores from around the league.

It can be used in the parking lot and inside the stadium only.

The devices — part of a venture owned by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross — are currently available for 12 teams, including the Dolphins and Jets. Fans will be charged $200 for the devices.

“This is of great interest because it gives fans access to information they wouldn’t necessarily have while at a stadium,” Thad Sheely, executive vice president of finance and stadium development for the Jets, told TechNewsDaily. “It enhances the game that much more for them.”

Team tech

The Jets also are trying out new technology in the skybox this season. Team owner Woody Johnson will be testing a touchscreen device to keep track of various game-day operations, such as which concessions and merchandise are selling fast, ticketing information and if there’s a jam in the Meadowlands parking lot.

The touchscreen “command center” — built by design agency Roundarch — is a first for an NFL team.

“Woody loves technology and wanted access to the entire stadium’s data flow in real time to oversee everything that’s happening,” Sheely said. “If each game is three hours and there’s only ten games, that gives us only 30 hours of action to get it right for our fans. We don’t want to have any lost opportunities, so having the device at our fingertips is key.”

Johnson said the new technology has the potential to revolutionize how NFL teams manage in-game operations in the future.

“The application that Roundarch is developing for us will help us to understand, analyze and then improve the experience each and every time fans come to the stadium and interact with our team,” he told TechNewsDaily.

Internet viewing access

To cater to the needs of on-the-go game viewers nationwide, DirecTV is offering its NFL Sunday Ticket package to the online world, giving non-subscribers the chance to watch out-of-market games. Those who want to watch football via a computer or smartphone can pay $350 for access to streaming video of the games and the Red Zone channel.

“In this widget-app-driven world, mobility is the name of the game,”Robert Mercer, a spokesman for DirecTV, said in a telephone interview. “Consumers are demanding more access to entertainment and information wherever they are. As broadband and mobile services continue to increase in popularity, and now with the introduction of new devices like the iPad that provide an even better mobile viewing experience, we expect that trend to continue.”

The move follows a year-long test of the service in the New York market.

“We’ll see how we do with this national launch and use that as a strategic guide for 2011 and beyond,” Mercer said.

From: TechNewsDaily

Marks Digital Agency’s Fourth Office; Denver Location Led by Adam Flater

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Roundarch, a leader in digital design and implementation for Fortune 500 companies, has opened an office in Denver, the company’s fourth office. Roundarch currently has locations in Chicago, New York, Boston and key market penetration in the Washington DC area. The office is led by Adam Flater, a technical architect and evangelist for Roundarch.

“It is an honor to have the opportunity to bring Roundarch to my home city”

“The new location in Denver will provide a Western base for which to provide our digital design and implementation expertise coast to coast,” said Jim Butler, senior vice president of services at Roundarch. “From a strategic standpoint, this office will bolster client service while simultaneously enabling Roundarch to acquire new business in the Mountain and Western markets.”

“It is an honor to have the opportunity to bring Roundarch to my home city,” said Flater, a resident of Denver. “I am thrilled with the chance to grow Roundarch’s presence in the West and bring new, forward thinking clients on board who share our vision of creating outstanding digital experiences to solve business problems.”

As leader of the Roundarch Denver location, Flater is tasked with managing the newest office, along with finding and growing new business while creating superior digital experiences for existing clients as a technical architect.

Roundarch will host an office opening party at 1955 West 32nd Avenue, Unit 1, Denver, CO on Thursday, May 13 between 6 and 10 p.m. for the entire Denver business community. Please join us to celebrate this exciting event and learn more about Roundarch and the transformative work we are doing for our clients. Please RSVP to Paul Buranosky at pburanosky@roundarch.com.

About Roundarch

Roundarch designs and implements digital experiences for the world’s largest organizations. Roundarch delivers web sites, rich web applications, mobile apps, social media applications, digital marketing campaigns and more for clients such as Avis, A&E, Hershey’s and the US Air Force. Roundarch’s unique blend of breakthrough user experience design and enterprise-class technology implementation is perfectly suited for the most complex problems in the digital space. Roundarch has offices in Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York. For more information visit www.roundarch.com and the company’s blog at http://blog.roundarch.com.

From: Business Wire

From: Bloomberg Businessweek

The conference, held at the 3LD (3-Legged Dog) Art & Technology Center, will feature tracks for Technology and Inspiration, along with the City track for exploring local landmarks. The Technology track will focus on coding and wiring for application architecture while the Inspiration track will center on design and user experience. The venue, which is a gallery for new media and experimental artwork, is meant to mirror the tone of the conference in the way it joins art and technology.

As part of the Inspiration track, I’ll be giving my talk entitled “Building RIAs with Style,” which I premiered at Flash Camp Chicago in February and have continued to refine since then. The talk starts with an introduction of lower level concepts about web graphics for developers, continues with exploring how some popular RIA frameworks handle styling, and wraps up by comparing two important workflow tools—Adobe Flash Catalyst and Microsoft Expression Blend—to demonstrate how the different platforms operate.

My goal with this talk is to provide rookies with a basis for understanding graphic assets, how to apply styles in RIA development, and the importance of styling as well as provide more advanced tricks of the trade for senior developers.

Check back to hear how it went, but first, watch my interview with Elad Elrom, Flash and the City conference organizer. Elad is a technical writer and senior Flash engineer, and he will also be leading a session entitled “Flex Data Binding Pitfalls: 10 Common Misuse Mistakes.”

Flash and the City is May 14-16 in New York, New York.