This program has a simple and straightforward interface and concept, and it works very well for creating presentations, interactive tours, online ads and banners, or for converting your pages into a Web site complete with multimedia content. You can also use QuID to create familiar elements such as rollover navigation bars, disjointed rollovers, and animations without any coding, programming, or scripting knowledge.

While the vast majority of designers will be satisfied with the basic actions that QuID supplies (and you’ll need to consult the manual or video to understand how to use them—they are not self-explanatory) some designers will need additional complex effects that are more technically difficult to produce. Nonetheless, compared to Flash, QuID is still much easier to learn and use.

Quark Enters the Flash Market

Quark Interactive Designer (called QID for the rest of this review) is the latest addition to the QuarkXPress 7 bundle of tricks.

Although you buy QID as an individual product, you must also have a copy of QuarkXPress 7.02 installed. (This is similar to the requirements of QuarkImmedia, the long-defunct multimedia predecessor of QID.) You then launch XPress as usual.

....With QID's flexibility comes a bit of a learning curve--a little bit more of a learning curve than I expected. And there's no summary where you can see all the controls that have been applied to an object. There were too many times I found myself wondering why nothing was happening when I went to preview my presentation.

....Given that the whole point of QID is supposed to be its simple learning curve (using the tools you already know in QuarkXpress), I was disappointed in things that were unnecessarily complicated. QID has tools to let you build sophisticated interfaces, but it fails to help you do so easily or quickly.

Adobe Flash Catalyst is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding.

These can range from interactive Ads, product guides and design portfolios to user interfaces for applications.

... The designer does this by visually defining events, transitions and motion. Flash Catalyst can output a finished Flash SWF or AIR application that’s ready to publish on the web.

In addition designers can provide the project file to developers who can use Adobe Flex Builder to add additional functionality such as connection to back-end systems.

[by "John O"]
We’ve been talking about the new workflow and came to similar conclusions. At my last 9-5, I was the UI designer for a WPF project using Blend for my work.

After finding out that all the developers wanted was my XAML, I moved back to doing my work in Fireworks and using the Infragistics XAML exporter.

Round tripping sounds great but in reality, no developer I know trusts any auto-generated code.

Why would Adobe build a new product to do what Flash should have evolved to do?

The Adobe tool aims to simplify the creation of interactive applications.

By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service, 04/20/2009

Adobe Systems on Monday unveiled a version of its Flash multimedia streaming technology that would allow people to run entertainment programming directly to television sets from the Internet, a new option for the rapidly changing digital-home market.

Adobe also has signed up a host of partners to support the technology, called the Adobe Flash Platform for the Digital Home. The new platform is available now to OEMs, and the first devices and processors that will support it should be available in the second half of the year, Adobe said.

Partners that have signed on to support the new version of Flash are Atlantic Records, Broadcom, Comcast, Disney Interactive Media Group, Intel, Netflix, STMicroelectronics, The New York Times Company, NXP Semiconductors and Sigma Designs.

Industry analyst Ben Bajarin, director of consumer technology for Creative Strategies, said the news is significant because it makes Flash the first enabling technology to allow entertainment providers to stream content directly to televisions. Currently, the way to get this kind of content onto televisions is mainly by hooking up a PC to a TV or set-top box, he said.

April 20, 2009

Adobe Systems Inc. is extending its Flash platform to digital home entertainment devices like TV sets, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes.

Adobe announced Monday that the move will let people watch high-definition videos, play Flash-based games and access other Web content on their Internet-connected TV sets.

Flash is still not available for the iPhone, one of the most popular smartphones for Web browsing.

.... An Adobe spokesman said previously that the company is “committed to bringing Flash Player to the iPhone,” although no timeline has been given.

By Antone Gonsalves
April 20, 2009

Adobe on Monday said its Flash platform for running rich Internet applications and playing online video will ship in major vendors' digital TVs and set-top boxes in the second half of the year.

Flash will be incorporated in the system-on-a-chip products from Broadcom, Intel, NXP, Sigma Designs, and Mediatek. The integration will extend Adobe's reach with Flash beyond PCs and mobile phones.

About 98% of PCs have Flash installed and almost 80% of online video is seen through Flash, according to Adobe. The number of mobile phones shipping with Flash Lite is expected to reach 1 billion this year and more than 2.5 billion by the end of next year, according to Strategy Analytics.

....Companies that have announced plans to offer content for Flash-supporting TVs include Atlantic Records, Disney Interactive Media Group, Netflix, and The New York Times. Adobe and partners made the announcements at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas.

A major competitor to Adobe in the market for supplying development platforms for the next-generation Web applications is Microsoft, which offers Flash rival Silverlight. However, Silverlight has nowhere near the reach of Flash, but has seen 350 million downloads, according to Microsoft. Key customers of the platform include NBC and Netflix.

April 20, 2009

Adobe Systems Inc. announced it has unveiled a software framework, code-named Strobe that will help establish an open industry standard for media players. This software framework accelerates the creation and delivery of high-quality video and interactive experiences for Web audiences third-party developers.

China's Five Characters Spur Confusion;
'Could Have Been Much Better,' Says Creator
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
July 23, 2008; Page A1

BEIJING -- If the Beijing Olympics' five cuddly mascots go down in history as a dud, their creator wants no part of the blame.

Above: the 2008 Beijing Olympic Mascots, the Fuwa

After China's Olympics organizers gave him the assignment, folk artist Han Meilin initially sketched out five children representing the traditional Chinese elements of fire, wood, water, gold and earth. Then the bureaucrats got involved. "There had to be a panda, even though you'd think the public would have had enough of them," says the 72-year-old artist.

Games officials faxed one request after another to his studio for other national images, such as a kite, a sturgeon and ancient cave drawings. So Mr. Han gave them Carmen Miranda-style oversized hats to help hold all the symbolism.

As part of the quest to find something for everyone in a country of 1.3 billion, he drew some 1,000 different models, including a dragon and an anthropomorphic rattle drum.

Ultimately, five cartoon figures (an Olympic record) emerged, representing a fish, a panda, a Tibetan antelope, a swallow and the Olympic flame. Their two-syllable names, when lined up correctly, combine to spell out "Beijing welcomes you" in Chinese.

....But while the Fuwa are ubiquitous, that doesn't mean they're universally liked. A nationwide survey taken by Nielsen Co. in late June found that 60% of Chinese liked the characters, while 40% were indifferent or disliked them -- a high negative response in a society that prizes consensus.

After a string of natural disasters, some Chinese have lately taken to calling them Wuwa, Chinese for "witch dolls," and online Fuwa criticism frequently has been censored.

All suggest the Fuwa risk joining a long tradition of Olympics mascots gone wrong. The idea of having a cute official mascot began innocently enough with Waldi the Dachshund in Munich in 1972. (Before that, pins for the 1968 winter games in Grenoble, France had featured "Schuss," a man on skis.)

By the time the confusing Whatzit? was introduced for the centennial Games in Atlanta in 1996, making fun of the official mascot had become another Olympic sport.

....Critics also have complained it isn't clear whether the Fuwa are animals, children, or aliens. (The characters are officially referred to as children who "also embody the natural characteristics of four of China's most popular animals.")

When they were unveiled to American audiences during the halftime show at a 2006 NFL Game, Joe Bryant, a blogger at Footballguys.com wasn't impressed. "Why do the Olympic mascots have to look like some mutant Pokemon / Telletubbie thing," he wrote. "What's wrong with a bull dog or a cougar or a sweat shop worker for a mascot?"

....Mr. Han, the artist sometimes called "China's Picasso" in a fashion that fits both his artistic skills and grumpy demeanor, says the Fuwa "could have been much better" had they not been so saddled with stuff.

Their creation, he says, got off on the wrong foot when officials opened a national competition for designs. Although he was on the judging committee, Mr. Han didn't like any of the winners.

"Can you believe it? Those are the drafts that they sent through and asked me to modify," he says, pointing to monkey, dragon and tiger designs that he keeps stacked away on a shelf in his workshop. "I'm an artist. It is humiliating," he says.

He tried to drop the assignment, but the officials pressured him to stay on.

While his assistants worked with the winning contest designs, Mr. Han covertly developed his own vision, featuring five children. "I liked children instead of animals, because the love of children is the greatest love," he says. Five is a lucky number, he says, and it matches the five Olympic rings and five elements.

Although his idea for five mascots eventually won out, Games organizers didn't understand the vision behind what Mr. Han still calls "my children," he says. "They asked me to make changes again and again," he says. "Everybody tried to have a hand in the process."

He has the sympathy of Atlanta's John Ryan, the artist behind Whatzit?, the much-derided mascot from the 1996 Games. "This is the war of art and commerce," says Mr. Ryan. Atlanta organizers saddled his blue creature with oversized sneakers, which they thought might be useful for product-tie ins. "When you confront the powers that be, there is no respect for the artist. They all kind of jump on it to have their way."

....the Fuwa have most recently been beset by an online rumor that associates each one with a recent Chinese national disaster: Jingjing the panda, for example, represents Sichuan's earthquake, while Huanhuan the flame represent the Olympic torch relay beset by protests. Nini the swallow, whose hat features wings, has been associated with a plague of locusts that began heading from Inner Mongolia toward Beijing last month.

Asked about the curse, Mr. Han just sighs with exhaustion.

He suffered two heart attacks creating the creatures, and just days before the Games begin doesn't like to talk about the Fuwa. At a large museum dedicated to his work that opened last month in Beijing, there's not a Fuwa to be found.

His relations with the Olympic committee are frosty. "I was supposed to be paid one yuan for making the Fuwa, but haven't yet even gotten that."

Consumers often judge products by labels
By BRENT HUNSBERGER

Do we judge a wine by its label?

Yes, and new research counts the ways.

The results shed light not only on consumers’ snap shopping judgments but also on marketing opportunities for other consumer products, including fragrances, footwear and MP3 players.

“There’s a lot of money to be made in helping consumers make a good choice,” said Keven Malkewitz, an assistant marketing professor at Oregon State University who co-authored the study. “The package helps people make a decision.”

The study, “Holistic Package Design and Consumer Brand Impressions,” appeared this month in the Journal of Marketing, co-written by Ulrich Orth, a marketing professor at the University of Kiel in Germany. It was funded in part by Willamette Valley Vineyards in Turner, Ore.

To figure that out, Malkewitz and Orth photographed 160 wine bottles, mostly of less-recognized brands. They asked 125 experts — graphic or industrial designers — to analyze the aesthetic attributes of each bottle. Then, they sorted responses into five primary design types: massive (or bold), contrasting, natural, delicate and nondescript.
Next, researchers showed photos of the bottles to 268 consumers in Oregon. They asked 15 questions about each bottle’s “brand personality,” including whether the brands seemed sincere, exciting, competent, sophisticated or even rugged.

The results? Consumers found “massive” packaging (Wine by Joe was an example) and contrasting designs (the label on Australia’s Yellow Tail) to be exciting and eye-catching. But they also expected them to be low in competence and sophistication, of lower quality and less expensive, the study found. Additionally, wines with highly contrasting designs were thought to be rugged.

Natural designs — like Washington state's Chateau Ste. Michelle — were thought to be sincere, competent and sophisticated wines, but not especially exciting. Consumers also expected these wines to be expensive but of high quality and a good value.

Delicate designs — Italy's Travaglini, for example — also scored high on competence and sophistication and were expected to be of high quality, classy and expensive. Consumers found nondescript designs — California's Fusee — insincere, and believed they were corporate and of little value for the money.

...."We fully expect there to be differences in product categories," Malkewitz said. But he said the research should provide marketers and managers guidance for how to talk to designers and how to evoke consumer responses to their products. Appealing package designs might prompt consumers to pay higher prices for that product, he said.

Slide-show software spotlighted

.... Flypaper - now the company's new name - allows users to more easily create slide shows and presentations using video, music and other content, and then upload it directly to sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Users don't need training in Flash, an animation program that requires a technical background in Internet programming, Flypaper President Greg Head said.

"Flash doesn't apply to the non-technical person at all," he said.

The company planned to begin offering a free beta version of the software for download today at www .flypaper.net.