Flash to spice up Brew platform

US vendor Qualcomm has teamed up with software developer Adobe to incorporate Flash web media technology into its Brew content delivery platform.

The latest version of the Brew Mobile platform will allow developers to create rich applications and web content in Adobe Flash for the Brew environment on mass market devices.

New enhancements in platform capabilities for Brew include multimedia and content support, access to device databases, connectivity support and touchscreen user interface development, typically seen as features only available on higher end devices.

Gary Kovacs, general manager of Mobile and Device Solutions at Adobe, said “Brew Mobile Platform with Flash technology represents a major step toward the goals of the Open Screen Project, and we look forward to bringing two developer communities together to deliver rich Web and video experiences across mobile devices.”

The first release of the new platform is expected to be released in the autumn.

Flash has been making good headway in the mobile space recently. In April, handset vendor Sony Ericsson released a hybrid technology that bridges the Adobe Flash Lite and Java ME development platforms.

Project Capuchin will make it possible for developers to combine the best attributes of both software stacks to create content-rich mobile applications.

Initially this will allow developers to create applications with the clean user interface made familiar by Flash, without sacrificing the feature rich and widely deployed aspects of Java. More advanced capabilities will allow Flash Lite technology to handle an entire presentation layer and make it possible to create Java ME applications where some or all UI components are defined in Flash.