Adobe to pull plug on Flash software, ending an era

Facebook Live gets support for UK 360-degree video streams

SAN FRANCISCO, July 26, (Agencies): Adobe Systems Inc’s Flash, a once-ubiquitous technology used to power most of the media content found online, will be retired at the end of 2020, the software company announced Tuesday.

Adobe, along with partners Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook Inc and Mozilla Corp, said support for Flash will ramp down across the internet in phases over the next three years.

After 2020, Adobe will stop releasing updates for Flash and web browsers will no longer support it. The companies are encouraging developers to migrate their software onto modern programming standards.

“Few technologies have had such a profound and positive impact in the internet era,” said Govind Balakrishnan, vice-president of product development for Adobe Creative Cloud.

Created more than 20 years ago, Flash was once the preferred software used by developers to create games, video players and applications capable of running on multiple web browsers. When Adobe acquired Flash in its 2005 purchase of Macromedia, the technology was on more than 98 percent of personal computers connected to the web, Macromedia said at the time.

But Flash’s popularity began to wane after Apple’s decision not to support it on the iPhone.

In a public letter in 2010, late Apple CEO Steve Jobs criticized Flash’s reliability, security and performance. Since then, other technologies like HTML5 have emerged as alternatives to Flash.

In the past year, several web browsers have begun to require users to enable Flash before running it.

On Google’s Chrome, the most popular web browser, Flash’s usage has already fallen drastically. In 2014, Flash was used each day by 80 percent of desktop users. That number is now at 17 percent “and continues to decline,” Google said in a blog Tuesday.

“This trend reveals that sites are migrating to open web technologies, which are faster and more power-efficient than Flash,” Google said. “They’re also more secure.”

Flash, however, remains in use among some online gamers. Adobe said it will work with Facebook as well as Unity Technologies and Epic Games to help developers migrate their games.

Adobe said it does not expect Flash’s sunset to have an impact on its bottom line. “In fact, we think the opportunity for Adobe is greater in a post-Flash world,” Balakrishnan said.

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LOS ANGELES: Facebook upped the resolution of 360-degree Facebook Live streams Tuesday, allowing users with compatible cameras to stream with up to 4K. Owners of Samsung’s Gear VR headset are also now able to watch these streams in 4K, which should make for a much better live video viewing experience.

Facebook’s launch of 4K streaming for 360 degree video follows a similar announcement by YouTube late last year. However, it’s clear that Facebook is trying to catch up quickly: The company released a guide for publishers Tuesday to help them to get started with Live 360 streaming.

Facebook also launched its own camera certification program, giving consumer electronics companies the option to market their cameras as “Live 360 Ready.” Some of the first cameras certified as Live 360 ready include the Giroptic IO and Insta 360 Air, as well as the ION 360U and Nokia’s Ozo camera. The company also certified a few software production solutions, including Wowza and Voysys, to work with Live 360 video.

Live 360-degree video streaming was initially the domain of smaller specialized streaming providers, but the medium has quickly been taken over by the big tech companies as they look to advance their live streaming efforts on all fronts.