Adobe

Adobe announced a preview version of a new application dubbed Adobe Edge meant for creating dynamic Web content using HTML5 and related open Web standards.

"This is a motion and interactive tool for designers who want to build interactive Web content using Web standards," said Adobe Group Product Manager Devin Fernandez.

"More workloads that were previously reserved for Flash are now being done with Web standards," Fernandez admitted. "We see that as a huge opportunity for the company, to help people take advantage of HTML5."

New updates have been released by Adobe to patch Reader PDF and Flash animation applications. The patches fix the flaws widely used by hackers to penetrate and take control of end user machines.

In the latest patch Adobe fixes a serious bug in Flash that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code on machines that run the software, and there are reports it's being actively exploited, Adobe said.

Adobe is developing a patch to its Flash media player to address a critical vulnerability exploited in targeted attacks to install malware on users’ PCs. According to a blog post written by an independent security researcher Mila Parkour the attacks are launched using emails that attach a Microsoft Word document that contains a booby-trapped Flash file.

Clicking on the document causes Windows-based machines to install a backdoor known as Zolpiq, separate researchers from antivirus provider Kaspersky said.

In a move to keep pace with the rapidly changing mobile market Adobe is accelerating the release of new versions of its popular Creative Suite. The company said it would introduce a mid-cycle update to the Creative Suite family that will ship every 12 months.

Adobe said that mid-cycle releases would allow it to bring new features to its software faster, thus ensuring in-demand features aren't held back until Adobe's next milestone release of the full suite.

Adobe's John Nack wrote in a recent blog post that the new version of Flash Player (10.2) will be up-to ten times more efficient than previous versions. The new product comes with a number of upgraded features including mouse cursor options for developers, full-screen playback support for multiple monitors, and IE9 rendering support.

On the basis of a Barron’s report media sources reported that Apple may consider the acquisition of Sony which took the stocks of the latter up 3%. Reuters reported that Apple currently has $50 billion in cash reserves while Sony has a market cap of $34 billion. So, financially speaking, Sony is a strong possibility for Apple.

Barron’s said that cash-rich Apple could be contemplating a big acquisition and noted speculation about Adobe, Sony and Disney as potential targets.

According to a new report Oracle’s Java platform is exceeding Adobe applications as the most attacked software suit. Holly Stewart, a member of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, reported that warned she was seeing “an unprecedented wave of Java exploitation.” By the beginning of this year, the number of Java exploits “had well surpassed the total number of Adobe-related exploits we monitored,” she said.

On Thursday the shares of Adobe Systems Inc jumped sharply on new speculations that the company might be purchased by Microsoft Corp. The news was reported by the New York Times who said that Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer had met secretly with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen at Adobe's San Francisco offices "recently."

The two companies discussed the dominance of Apple in mobile phones market and considered several scenarios to withstand that and Microsoft’s acquisition of Adobe was at the agenda among the options.

Adobe Systems reported a critical vulnerability in its latest Flash Player that is actively exploited in the wild. The vulnerability affects Flash Player 10.1.82.76 for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris, and Android operating systems.

“There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against Adobe Flash Player on Windows,” the warning said, without elaborating. The latest versions of Adobe's Reader and Acrobat applications are vulnerable to the same flaw, but there's no evidence they are being exploited.

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the launch of its Adobe HTML5 Pack for Adobe® Illustrator® CS5 which is used extensively by designers of mobile device and web content. This pack provides initial support for HTML5 and CSS3 and extends the scalable vector graphics (SVG) capability in Illustrator, making it easier to design, deliver and optimize compelling content for mobile devices and the web.

At IBC 2010 in Amsterdam the multimedia and creativity software maker Adobe unveiled is latest Flash Media Server 4 family.

As it became known, last week Adobe managed to mend two vulnerabilities in its Reader PDF viewing software. One of the vulnerability was one that went public last month at the annual Black Hat security conference.

As Apple rejected any access of Adobe Flash on its iPhone devices the mission of Adobe is now circumcised to “just” all other major players.

Now Adobe hopes its Flash Player will reach 250 million smartphones by the end of 2012. The latest Flash Player 10.1 will soon be supported by nearly all the major smartphone platforms - Android, Blackberry, webOS, Symbian and Windows Phone 7.

Some analysts expect about 20 million smartphones to support the media technology in 2010.

Adobe has launched the latest version of its popular management and raw processing software Lightroom 3. The company has added a number of improved features to the new version which includes support for DSLR video files, improved noise reduction and image sharpening features, and profile-based lens correction.

Adobe warns users of Windows, Mac or Linux systems to be cautiousness as hackers are exploiting critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player.

Adobe esteems Adobe Reader and Acrobat version 8.x are not vulnerable, but users of the newer version 9.0 of the software are at risk. The company has published a workaround involving the deletion of a library file connected with processing Flash content in PDF files pending the development of a more comprehensive fix.