Adobe shows off Web tech

Title: Going beyond Flash, Adobe shows off Web tech

Sure, Adobe Systems spends a lot of effort developing and promoting its Flash technology. And sure, a

lot of the new "Open Web" technologies are a competitive threat to Flash. But that doesn't mean Adobe isn't interested in HTML5 and CSS3--the updates to Hypertext Markup Language for describing Web pages and to Cascading Style Sheets for Web page formatting--that are two of the most important parts of that Open Web work. After all, Adobe does have its DreamWeaver product for Web site development.

But there's a new sign that Adobe is taking more interest in Open Web work. Last week, it launched its
Design and Web blog, written by Paul Gubbay, senior director of engineering, and Lea Hickman, senior director of product management for the Creative Suite design and Web tools, suites, and services.

So far the pair have hinted that Adobe is working on some more powerful tools for HTML5 and CSS3, with
internal demonstrations of what can be done, though no promises of shipping anything anytime soon.
"Recently, we attended technology demos across our design and web products. We saw a range of prototypes, many of which were focused on new services, multiscreen authoring leveraging HTML5 and CSS3. We have been spending a lot of time internally thinking about how our tools can best support and take advantage of some of the new functionality in HTML 5, and we wanted to share a couple of early ideas with you," they said, offering a demonstration of the Canvas technology for 2D graphics through HTML5.

In another, they describe Adobe's approach to "multiscreen" authoring with CSS3--in other words, coding a
Web site so that it displays correctly on a variety of different devices with different screens. We are,
after all, entering the era in which browsers are in widespread use on mobile phones, e-book readers, TVs,
and Apple's iPad, which notably doesn't include Flash support.