I wasn't able to make it to SXSW this year, but I did just come acorss Brian Fling's, Director of Strategy at Blue Flavor, presentation. The presentation is more geared towards designing / developing content for the mobile web (using XHTML-MP) but there is a lot of valuable information in there for anyone designing for mobile devices. It is a great read that I strongly suggest.

I put together a new Flash Lite game over the weekend, Pocket Slots. It is a basic slot machine game for mobile devices. I have developed several Flash Lite applications in the past but this was my first attempt at developing a mobile game. I am happy with the way it turned out, and now have a few more idea's for games I plan on working on in my spare time. Feel free to download Pocket Slots and let me know if you have any questions, comments, or run into any problems.

DC, just posted to the Y! Flash Lite Group that Macromedia Japan's homepage has been redesigned targeting Flash Lite. I can't read Japanese so don't have a clue what any of it says, and it won't pull up on my phone (probably because I don't have an i-mode compatible device), but viewing it via the browser looks nice. When a company as large as Macromedia redesigns there web site to target flash lite enabled mobile devices you know times are changing.

UPDATE - It looks as if this is only a Flash Lite version of the site, going to http://www.macromedia.com/jp/ still shows the default Macromedia site. Still very cool news!

We just released the MAX '05 Mobile Conference Guide for Flash Lite enabled devices.

I haven't picked up a Computer Art's Magazine in a few years, but for some reason I decided to grab the newest issue this past weekend. While flipping though I noticed an article title Design for Mobiles. The article covers everything from Themes to WAP Sites but focuses mainly on Flash Lite design/development and how you can begin developing content for mobile devices. While it only skims the surface of what Flash Lite, and other mobile technologies, have to offer it worth picking up quick read.

This is something I have been working on for a little while now just has been on the back burner the last few weeks. But today I am releasing the beta version of my Flash Lite 1.1 MXNA application.

ShotCode is a new "offline weblinks" mobile technology. Basically ShotCode is a barcode type URL that uses your camera phone as the scanner. Users, with the ShotCode reader installed on their handset, take a picture of a ShotCode and are then instantly taken to a mobile version of your website.

Alessandro has developed a Google News Flash Lite application that he integrated into Kero.

"If you have Kero, to add the Google News RSS application to your account, just go to the main screen, select Kero, load the catalog and select Kero Catalog and add the Google News. If you do not have Kero, just download it, it’s free."

Nice work! Another great feature integrated into an already great Flash Lite application!

August 24th, 2005 Macromedia is holding two 90 Breeze seminars on Flash Lite 1.1 and Flash Professional 8. The first is scheduled from 9:00 - 10:30 am the second 9:00 - 10:30 pm (EST). They will be going over how to create rich, engaging, and easy-to-use content for mobile devices using the new mobile authoring features in Flash Professional 8. They will all demoing content on an actual handset via live video. Check it out, you may even win a free copy of Flash Professional 8!

Today Nokia released a new search application, Mobile Search. The application allows you to search today's leading search engines for local services, websites, images, and mobile content. It is only available for the 6630, 6680, and 6681, so I haven't had a chance to try it out, but if you have a compatible phone please drop me a comment and let me know how you like it and if the Local Search works in the US.

Mobile Research, is the first product launched by David Adams of MobileStartup.com. This is a "comprehensive collection of data for each device on every carrier". The data, XML formatted, is designed to easily be parsed into a rational database for programmatic use. Although this service is currently targeted at larger mobile development companies, it looks to be a great resource for mobile developers plagued by mobile device fragmentation. Personally I am looking forward to their KnowledgeBase, due out later this year, which is targeted at individual developers.

BJC Lounge has released a new Flash Lite game, Hit the Pea. It is a very simple concept, but is pretty addictive - a great combo for a mobile game. If you don't have a supported Flash Lite phone, although you should, they have a version online that you can still toy around with.

Windows For Devices has a really interesting article about Using Flash as an embedded device UI. The article focuses on using Flash as the device UI for Mobile, Kiosk, Home and Office devices. It contains a lists of hardware / memory requirements and a diagram of embedded Flash software architecture. I would love to see more devices using Flash as the presentation layer... a customizable Flash remote for my Home Theater setup would be a dream come true (hmm).

There has been more and more chatter recently about web design and mobile devices. While most of the talk around Flash Lite focuses on Games and Applications, there is another crowd discussing designing and prepping websites for these tiny screens.

Actionscript.it is currently organizing the 1st Flash Lite game contents. If you have designed games in Flash and are looking at stepping into the mobile arena this is a great opportunity.