Adobe

Adobe and Apple used to be partners, with the maker of Photoshop being one of the biggest third-party Mac developers. Then Apple started releasing digital products that competed with its partner, and CEO Steve Jobs came out against Adobe Flash.

Now the companies have quite the overlap in their customer bases and there's still a lot there, but Apple is doing its best to stop that.

Software company Adobe Systems Inc. has acquired e-signature technology company EchoSign, the two parties announced on Monday. EchoSign's technology will be integrated with Adobe's document solutions including SendNow, FormsCentral, and CreatePDF.

EchoSign's e-signature technology has already been integrated into Salesforce, Google Docs, NetSuite, Oracle CRM on Demand, SugarCRM, and SAP CLM, so Adobe, in addition to gaining the tech for its own document solutions, gains a foothold into document authentication for these major enterprise solutions.

Adobe has released public betas of the next generation of both Adobe Flash Player, and Adobe AIR, highlighting how the essential browser plug-in and cross-platform runtime component share similar code and technologies.

The most notable new feature is found exclusively in Flash Player 11 Beta: support for 64-bit browsers. 64-bit support has been in development since Flash 10.2, but until now has been available only as a limited pre-release build, codenamed Adobe Flash Player "Square". By incorporating it into the Beta release of Flash Player 11, Adobe has signalled its readiness for final release, due later this year.

Cyberlink has unveiled the final release of PhotoDirector 2011, a photo-editing tool aimed at photo enthusiasts and semi-professional users. It takes a workflow-based approach to organizing and editing images, steering the user through the process of importing, managing, correcting and finally exporting and sharing photos.

PhotoDirector 2011 includes native support for RAW-format images from Canon and Nikon cameras, a non-destructive editing environment allowing users to experiment with different edits before committing to changes, and an online resource for pros called DirectorZone where users can share and download image editing presets.

Adobe quietly released an update to its Flash Builder and Flex framework on Monday that lets developers create and deploy apps for Apple's iOS and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook OS in addition to Android, which it has supported since April.

Statistically, developers who design and release apps for multiple mobile platforms make up only a small portion of the community. But in terms of influence, these are actually some of the biggest companies in the field today, and it is not uncommon for the most popular app on one platform to also be the most popular app on MOST mobile platforms.

A group representing over 5,000 users of vector drawing software FreeHand has filed a class action lawsuit against Adobe Inc. in the California District Court for antitrust violations.

Adobe almost acquired FreeHand in 1994 when it acquired Aldus, but the Federal Trade Commission put a decade-long moratorium on the acquisition. Like clockwork, when Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, it acquired FreeHand, because Macromedia had absorbed FreeHand's then-owner Altsys.

Adobe rolled out the Creative Suite 5.5 family of products on Tuesday, which focuses on development and content creation for the mobile and tablet realm, and introduces a new subscription-based pricing model for the software suite.

Though there were no major version updates to Creative Suite's flagship imaging products Photoshop and Illustrator, CS5.5 introduces new versions of InDesign, Dreamweaver, Audition, Flash Professional, Flash Catalyst, Flex Builder and Device Central. This update, therefore, is specifically targeted at Web and mobile app developers and designers above design professionals.

Adobe has issued an out-of-cycle patch for its Flash, Reader, and Acrobat applications which it recommends all users upgrade to immediately. The fix will close a security hole in the Authplay component, which allows for the use of Flash within PDF files.

Code to exploit the vulnerability was out in the wild, Adobe has disclosed. It had initially believed that the vulnerability was only being exploited through malformed Flash .swf files within Excel spreadsheets, but it was discovered that attackers could also possibly exploit the vulnerability through holes in the PDF file format.

Adobe AIR applications haven't exactly been renowned for their great performance to date, but that could begin to change with AIR 2.6, released today, which comes packed with major new features.

The new SquirrelFish Extreme JavaScript engine should run code 50-percent faster than before, for instance. Adobe claims that a smaller and more efficient runtime will cut CPU usage by up to 30 percent, and reduce memory consumption immediately, no application recompilation required. And hardware graphics acceleration should help to maximize rendering performance on Android and iOS systems.

Anyone with an iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, third or fourth generation iPod touch or an iPad can take advantage of the new features of Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 for iOS. In addition to full multitasking and retina display support, the updated version of the app also features a refined camera workflow and the option to make an in-app purchase of the Adobe Camera Pack. Version 2.0 released to Apple's App Store today.

While Photoshop Express 2.0 is free, the in-app Camera Pack purchase costs $3.99 and includes a number of interesting enhancements and features. One of the problems with idevice cameras is that they can have a tendency to produce images that are plagued by noise. The new Reduce Noise feature of Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 can be used to quickly smooth out such problems, helping to create far more impressive photos.

Some may see it as capitulation to Apple's longstanding position on Flash, others as acceptance of trends in digital media. Either way, Adobe has apparently decided to insulate itself from the threat of HTML5 by releasing a Flash-to-HTML5 converter codenamed "Wallaby." The free application is built on its Adobe AIR platform.

Adobe says that the application will be able to convert most Flash files by simply dragging and dropping into the Wallaby interface. The release of the tool is especially significant for iOS users -- meaning developers will now have an easier way of making their Flash sites compatible with the iPhone and iPad devices.

Thursday, Adobe announced the public availability of ColdFusion Builder 2 beta, the company's Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for its ColdFusion development platform.

ColdFusion Builder first became available

Aiming to make Flash more nimble and less power-consuming, Adobe on Wednesday introduced Stage Video as part of an overall larger update to the multimedia platform. The technology takes advantage of hardware acceleration which in turn uses less processing power and thus less battery power.

With an increasing amount of Flash content being played back on mobile devices, it has become necessary for Adobe to deal with the power-intensive playback of content. The company said 1080p video playback was now possible with only 1-15% CPU usage, up to 34 times more efficient than earlier versions.

Adobe on Tuesday announced that it had acquired audience and data management company Demdex, growing Adobe's Web marketing platform further as the online advertising business continues its evolution.

Just over a year ago, Adobe acquired Omniture, a leader in web analytics and audience management that formerly acted as a partner for Adobe. Since the acqusition, the software formerly known as Omniture Online Marketing Suite has become Adobe Online Marketing Suite powered by Omniture.

Amazon on Friday launched the beta of a new plugin for desktop publishing software InDesign which converts InDesign project files (.indd and .indb) into Amazon Kindle books.

The plugin lets InDesign book and document files keep their font styles, and text and paragraph alignment after being converted to Kindle Format, and allows links, images, tables, and lists (bulleted or numbered) to be embedded as well.