In recent weeks, a plague has overtaken the Mac OS X operating system, called the Trojan Flashback. The Flashback malware allows hackers access to personal information of Mac users, by extracting the info via a security hole in Java as well as other recent social engineering methods. With Java being the main culprit here, Apple has made a quick and decisive move by releasing a removal tool via Software Update on all Macs running OS X Lion without Java installed.

About Flashback malware removal tool

This Flashback malware removal tool that will remove the most common variants of the Flashback malware.

If the Flashback malware is found, a dialog will be presented notifying the user that malware was removed.

In some cases, the Flashback malware removal tool may need to restart your computer in order to completely remove the Flashback malware.

This update is recommended for all OS X Lion users without Java installed.

This tool rids the OS X system of all viruses present in the system, related to the Trojan Flashback malware. Java does not come pre-installed on the Mac, and therefore allows Apple’s removal tool to figure out as to where the virus is originating. The Flashback virus has been a huge issue in the media, with a reported 600,000 Mac users being affected by this virus.

{via MacRumors}

In a report from Israeli business newspaper Calcalist, it was revealed that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is ramping up its operations in Israel post acquisition of Anobit. The report also mentioned that AAPL has begun looking over resumes to hire for its new research and development center in Haifa, Israel and has looked over “several hundred resumes” from engineers looking to work in the new center.

The new research center is expected to be run by Apple’s new hire, an Israeli high-tech executive Aharon Aharon. The report also notes that Apple is opening up its new research center in a location where companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Phillips currently call home.

Apple is seeking expertise in chip development, more specifically in the electrical circuits and hardware testing and verification departments, many of which the companies mentioned above can provide. Apple’s research center is separate from its acquisition of Israeli flash memory firm Anobit, which, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, is currently being integrated into Apple’s ecosystem and will be headed by hardware engineering chief Bob Mansfield.

Reports from 9to5Mac also suggest that Apple has sent vice president Johny Srouji, who has had experience at other companies such as IBM and Intel, to oversee Anobit’s operations in Israel. Srouji joined Apple in 2008 and is now overseeing VLSI operations at Anobit, which focuses on chip design and implementation.

{via MacRumors}

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively.  This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

iOS devices will not be affected by this shutdown, since they never ran the Flash Player in the first place. Apple refused to support it. Steve Jobs himself wrote an open letter back in April 2010 laying out the reasons why. Those included that it was proprietary, unstable, and a resource hog, among other things

An Adobe engineer admitted this had much to do with the decision to abandon the mobile Flash Player. They grew to realize the player would never be ubiquitous on mobile platforms like it had been on the desktop. Instead, HTML5 now has many of the features that once could only be done using Flash.

The decision to stop development of the Flash Player plugin for mobile browsers was part of a larger strategic shift at Adobe, one which includes a greater shift in focus toward HTML5,

Flash is still an active environment for desktops, but with much of today’s web traffic being generated by mobile devices many developers may choose to write code in HTML5 and CSS that can be run on all mobile and desktop platforms.

Google recently introduced Swiffy, a service that converts .SWF Flash files into HTML5 compatible with devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Swiffy is part of the Google Labs suite of services that has the potential to become a major part of Google’s media integration in its desktop and Android OS.

Google’s Swiffy website offers a gallery of videos and games that have been converted to HTML5 from Flash and a list of Frequently Asked Questions. The website also mentions Adobe and what it thinks about Swiffy.

Adobe is pleased to see the Flash platform extended to devices which don’t support the Flash player.The result is that anyone creating rich or interactive ads can continue to get all the authoring benefits of Flash Pro and have the flexibility to run the ad in the Flash Player or HTML depending on what’s available on the system. Google and Adobe look forward to close collaboration around efforts like these.

Swiffy’s output file works in all browsers based on Apple’s open-source Webkit engine, which powers the Mobile Safari browser found on iOS devices. Google Swiffy is limited in terms of scope and only offers a few types of conversions.

Google has a product that can possibly become a major part of 3rd party development on Apple’s iOS WebKit. The company has attempted video conversion through YouTube in the past and is currently promoting it’s own WebM over Apple’sH.264 format.

The company says that it’s WebM format can possibly “enable open innovation”. From an analytical point of view, it seems that Google is attempting to step over Apple, while using iOS platform as it’s stepping stone.

Google and Apple are competitors but are forced to work together due to similar customer base and alike business motive. Google, meanwhile, is offering products that Apple is not, such as Swiffy, and other services that sidestep iOS limitations.

HTML5 is the web standard Jobs and co believe makes Flash pretty much obsolete and is the backbone of all the shiny new webapps popping up all over the internet. Even YouTube now supports HTML5 for those who don’t want to fight with Flash just to watch a video of a cat on a skateboard. The fact that Adobe is trying to give developers a way to convert Flash items into HTML5 will be of great interest to iOS developers out there. Just think how many Facebook apps they could make run on an iPad!

Before everyone gets too excited, remember this is still early days and the tool isn’t yet ready for public release. Watch this space.

[at MAX 2010] Sneak Peeks – Export fla file to html file.

Bearing in mind that the Apple / Adobe spat over Flash associated development tools being banned from use in iPhone development was pretty much what anyone in the tech press was talking about a few months ago then one would expect this to be a big deal.

Even more so when you consider that both Steve Jobs and Shantanu Narayen (Adobe’s CEO) had a public war of words over Flash and the lack thereof in the App Store, earlier on in the year.

In Adobe’s quarterly earnings report on Tuesday the CEO of the company responded to questions about their third party tools, and demand for them since Apple’s announcement. Overall the increase in demand for their tools has not been significant.

“In the short run, I would say the impact was muted,” Narayen said.

He also let slip that many developers were concerned about making products for many devices with different sized screens. This is a problem that plagues the Android ecosystem far more than the Apple iOS ecosystem.

In any case Narayen said that he felt sure that Adobe was well placed to help developers solve that problem.

I have to say I am not sure what advantage Flash really brings to that problem over OpenGL. But anyway…

As with all the Flash shenanigans this year it does seem to be a big fuss over nothing.

Are you still expecting a deluge of Flash titles for your mobile devices? Or are you hoping the flood stays away? Have your say in the comments…

Everyone is watching from the sidelines as Apple and Adoble duke it out, in what is the epic battle between Flash and HTML5. It appears Steve Jobs is making unlikely friends in his stab at Adobe, pornographers.

A report by ConceivablyTech, says the leading adult film studio Digital Playground will abandon Flash and use HTML5 in their thirst to target iPhone users.

Two years ago, Digital Playground began offering its content to iPhone users, but because of Apple’s policy of allowing pornography in its App Store, they were forced to look at the iPhone’s open, unrestricted web platform.

Adobe had yet to release a sufficient version of Flash for the iPhone, so Digital Playground has targeted HTML5 as its mobile delivery platform. Ali Joone, the founder and director of Digital Playground states:

Mobile browsers run HTML 5 very well. Flash brings everything to a crawl and has an impact on battery life. With HTML 5, there is no reason to show our content in Flash.

Joone told ConceivablyTech, that it will abandon Flash as soon as the desktop browsers fully support HTML 5. Until then, the company plans to use Flash to target desktop users. Joone closes by stating:

Just a matter of time until Flash disappears. It’s the next passing of the torch.

What do you think about Digital Playground’s jump towards HTML5? What do you think this means for Adobe? What do you think about Joone’s closing remarks? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Any chance you get to look into the mind of a genius and luminary like Steve Jobs is a rare and welcomed opportunity. Last night at the D8 conference we got such an opportunity. Although the inner thoughts of the captain of Apple are a little more common with Steve’s newfound willingness to answer e-mail, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher’s interview ranged over a wide variety of topics. It was interesting to get his take on many of the stories and controversies that have surrounded his company in the last 12 months.

During the D8 interview Steve Jobs was questioned about the lost iPhone 4G / HD and why Apple doesn’t support flash in their mobile devices.

The Lost iPhone 4G / HD prototype – Jobs downplayed the ongoing drama surrounding the loss/theft, revelation, and recovery of the iPhone prototype; likening it to some kind of potboiler mystery. “It’s a great story…it’s got theft, buying stolen property, extortion. Probably sex in there somewhere…someone should make a movie out of this.” While he couldn’t speak at length on the particulars of the case due to the ongoing legal investigation, Jobs makes it clear what he thinks of the type of journalism that brought the next generation iPhone out in the open. Talking later about the iPad and journalism, he laments our descent into a “nation of bloggers” and says “We need editorial oversight now more than ever.”

Flash – We’ve heard the party line on Flash before and Steve reiterated it at the interview. Flash is an old technology in the twilight of its usefulness he said. Likening the product life cycle to seasons, Jobs intimated that Adobe’s content technology was certainly in the winter of its life. He mentioned that Apple asked Adobe to show them something better than Flash but Adobe never produced it. He feels that although there are holes in some sites where Flash doesn’t play on the iPad and iPhone, those holes are being plugged as content providers and sites switch from Flash to open standards like HTML 5 and H.264. He didn’t intend to start a war with Flash, only that Apple made a technology decision based on what they thought was the best for the consumer and “So far they’re liking the iPad…we’re selling one every three seconds.”

Did Jobs say anything new to you or just reiterate what you already knew? Let us know your thoughts on these questions.

In essence Smokescreen takes Flash (.flv) files, converts them into Javascript, and then strips out the images and audio and finally reconstructs them as an SVG file.

All browsers play SVG files, including the iPad. So once they are served up to your browser in that format they play just fine.

Whilst the end result is not quite as fast as native Flash, it certainly works. As can be seen in this video:

And in reality its probably as fast as most of the demos of Flash that have been shown on recent Android mobile devices.

Does this seem neat to you? Let us know in the comments.

According to MeFeedia, 26% of all web video in May was iPad accessible. While that may not seem like a significant amount, consider the growth implied by MeFeedia’s numbers. In January only 10% of web video was accessible by the newly announced iPad device. In 5 months 16% of viewable video on the Internet moved to present itself in a format accessible by the iPad. That’s an incredible figure.

Now many will point to these numbers and call Steve Jobs a bully. They’ll say that by limiting the premiere media consumption device his company makes, he’s driven a my-way-or-the-highway attitude towards HTML 5 and H.264 adoption. And to some extent those people would be right. On the other hand it would be as equally correct to say Steve Jobs has engineered a revolution only, well, Steve Jobs could have engineered. As standards, HTML 5 and H.264 have languished underutilized and fought over for years. The only serious users have been proponents of an open, standards-based web like Google and web app developers. Apple’s refusal to put Flash on the iPhone started a realization that Flash has quickly become an unnecessary item in the developer’s toolkit. Rich, immerse web apps were possible without the need to involve third party plug-ins. Indeed, the original intent for apps on the iPhone were for them to be entirely web-based and written in HTML 5. It was only through pressure from the development community that Apple relented and made native apps possible.

So where does all of this leave Flash, the iPad and HTML 5? Two of the three are very obviously on the way up and the other is on the way down. This isn’t going to degrade into another Flash-bashing session, there’s been enough of those online in the last three months to fill a lifetime. Remember, the iPhone and its lack of Flash support had a negligible impact on Flash’s usage numbers. What we have now is a unique nexus of points; the popularity of the iPad coupled with the beginning of widespread HTML 5 adoption coupled with the general unease and dissatisfaction Flash usage has finally created. It will be interesting to watch how subsequent numbers from MeFeedia chart the rise of standards-based video display and the fall of Flash-based solutions. The numbers are destined to move up for the former and down for the later.

Do you think the MeFeedia numbers point to a general trend or are simply an aberration? Did the availability of the iPad provide the final weight that tipped the balance against Flash? Is Steve Jobs just a big bully that wants the Internet to work the way he wants? Leave us a comment and share your thoughts.

Adobe is dropping some serious cash for a web campaign running on a number of high profile tech sites. With the adverts it seems to be escalating the spat between itself and Apple over Flash.

The campaign appears in a white rectangle with a crisp “We heart Apple” message, and the Adobe logo at the bottom. It then flips to the following message:

What we don’t love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web.

Clicking on the ad takes you to a set of statements by Adobe’s founders.

This is clearly a response to Steve Jobs’ open letter on Flash, which we reported on a little while ago. The campaign also seems to be timed deliberately to come just after Adobe demoed a working version of Flash on an Android handset (albeit pre-release). Perhaps something that they feel now gives them some credibility, finally.

The Adobe founders attempt to address some of the points raised by Steve Jobs, and others, about Flash and Adobe’s motives. Adobe, somewhat clumsily, try to portray themselves as about openness and as being solely focussed on their customers creative freedoms.

As ars technica summarise, if Adobe is spending this kind of money on a web campaign, rather than simply publishing an Open Letter on their website they are obviously feeling threatened. I would add that perhaps Adobe are trying to get someone’s attention!

This is maybe an attempt to ratchet up the pressure for a possible antitrust investigation into Apple over the controversial clause 3.3.1 from Apple’s iPhone Developer Agreement, which effectively bans Flash from iPhone, iPad and the iPod Touch.

What do you think of Adobe’s campaign? Do you feel sympathy for them, or find it disingenuous? Let us know in the comments.