Gawker: valleywag, adobe

Adobe Joins Pre-Holiday Layoff Wave

Ryan Tate — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:23:32 EST

Adobe will lay off 680 people, or nearly 10 percent of its workforce. The publishing software company joins Electronic Arts and AOL in making pre-Thanksgiving cutbacks. At least these workers won't be shocked during the holidays. Just broke. (Pic)

YouTube users in virus panic

Owen Thomas — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:00:00 EST

Hasn't YouTube always seemed too good to be true — all those video clips, for free? We must be getting away with something. That's why rumors about a new YouTube virus have spread so far, so fast.

Some people viewing YouTube videos have gotten an alert saying antivirus software has detected a computer virus called Actns/Swif.T. That virus is real enough; it redirects people to a website which then installs a piece of hostile software deceivingly called Antivirus 2009. The software is actually spyware, and notoriously annoying to remove.

But YouTube is not actually infected with a virus, it turns out. Instead, out-of-date antivirus software is mislabeling YouTube clips as a threat.

Panic over, right? No. The video format YouTube uses, Flash, has proven insecure before. YouTube processes users' video files and generates its own Flash files, so it's unlikely that YouTube would host hostile code — but never say never. As people spend more time on video sites and social networks like MySpace and Facebook, they increasingly become targets for virus creators.

The bigger problem here is figuring out whom to trust. Outdated virus-detection software, or the websites they're labeling as dangerous? Blogs which report new viral threats, or the ones that debunk them? Software which labels itself "Antivirus" but actually infects your computer? We're going deep down the rabbit hole, and I don't think Keanu Reeves is waiting for us on the other end.

PDFs now as rock-solid secure as ActiveX

Tim the IT Guy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:20:00 EST

It's a verified bug: PDF files can be used to take over your PC. Adobe's mistake was adding support for ever-sloppy JavaScript inside the once-benign PDF format. Core Security, the company that outed the vulnerability, says, "An attacker could put malicious code in JavaScript embedded in a PDF and [...] could manipulate the program's memory allocation pattern and trigger the vulnerability to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user." Great. I can hardly wait to reinstall Paul's PC after he pretends to read another of those ethics-in-journalism PDFs.

Adobe really really really wants Flash everywhere

Alaska Miller — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Why is Adobe dropping licensing restrictions and fees for its Flash video player? To prod Steve Jobs into adding Flash to the iPhone. Maybe Adobe should just keep resubmitting that iPhone Flash player application to the iTunes Store. [Wired]

Skip Intro now officially dead

Paul Boutin — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:20:00 EDT

Google began indexing the text context of Flash animations, movies and interfaces in Web pages a few months ago. But no Google improvement is complete until the professional SEO's document how to game the system. Here's the first well-done guide to getting your world class Flash content the placement it deserves on the Internet. Author Brian Ussery steals one of Google's best tricks: If you're going to tell a bunch of techies how to lie, blanket it in soothing geek imagery by using examples tied to science. NASA is good. Executive summary for globalists: "Google doesn’t seem to translate text content in Flash files, especially when text is supplied by a server or some other third party source." So it's kind of Speak English or Die for now.

Microsoft to sneak in a launch of Silverlight 2.0

Alaska Miller — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:20:00 EDT

Yes, all anyone can talk about are Apple's new laptops. Always prone to squandering a PR opportunity, Microsoft is set to debut the next version of its answer to Adobe's Flash — Silverlight, the video player everyone talks about but no one has installed. Silverlight 2.0 has ~~digital rights management software to power multimedia sites, skinning capabilities for the player, deep zoom, as well as finally Mac and Linux support for Firefox and even Chrome~~ a long list of features that don't matter. [PC Magazine]

Adobe building iPhone Flash player

Paul Boutin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:00:00 EDT

A senior Adobe engineer confirmed the obvious at a Flash developer's conference in England that yes, they're building a Flash player especially for the iPhone. Paul Betlem from Adobe balked at saying the app was sure to be built into Apple's Safari browser that ships with the phone, but it seems a certainty. Flash websites and video clips are no longer the "Skip Intro" bane of the Web. Apple went out of its way to enable YouTube on the first iPhone. Enabling the iPhone to work on any Flash-based website seems the obvious next step in removing the functional differences between phone and laptop. (Photoillustration by Jackson West)

Adobe: Amazon.com goof allowed free movie downloads

Jackson West — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:40:00 EDT

Amazon.com's Video On Demand service, which allows you to preview and purchase streaming videos online, uses Adobe's Flash Media Server to deliver the video. Late last week, Reuters reported that hackers had discovered an exploit that would allow users to turn the free preview into the full stream, allowing folks to watch movies for free using software like Replay Media Catcher from Applian. Adobe took issue with Reuters' contention that Flash isn't secure — instead suggesting it was Amazon's fault for not enabling various security options such as streaming encryption and player verification. Why did Adobe choose to blame a customer instead of quietly fixing the problem behind the scenes? Probably seemed easier.

Dear Adobe, we hate you

Jackson West — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:20:00 EDT

DearAdobe.com catalogs and organizes by popularity and product bite-sized rants against Adobe, the software company that creates products like Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash which have become industry standards for creative professionals. Messages seem to convey one idea over and over: Dear Adobe, Your bloatware is slow and costs too much.

NBC dumps Microsoft Silverlight after Olympics

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:20:00 EDT

NBC streamed all its NBCOlympics.com videos using Microsoft's Silverlight backend tech, but the network dumped Microsoft before last night's NFL kickoff — streamed live over NBCSports.com and NFL.com — opting to use Adobe Flash instead. Why? Because, as SAI notes, while 40 million US visitors to NBCOlympics.com didn't have Silverlight installed, Adobe Flash is already installed on some 98 percent of Internet-connected computers. NBC's move didn't pay off last night. The feed was unwatchable over a broadband connection, serving up freeze fames, blurry action and skipping back and forth as the it tried to buffer.

Amazon.com's video on demand more "piddling" than "streaming"

Jackson West — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

While Amazon.com makes no claims as to the quality of video from its new "video on demand" online streaming service being comparable to DVD quality, a measly 1.2 megabit-per-second data rate is still laughable. To put it in perspective, standard-definition DVDs typically run well over 6Mbps (Apple, also risibly, calls the 5Mbps offerings from iTunes "HD," purely based on pixel dimensions and not data depth). And based on your connection speed, Amazon might deliver even less digital resolution. All of this for up to $14.99 to "own" a movie stored wrapped in Adobe's Flash copy protection. Granted, Amazon is hindered by the slow broadband connections typical in American households, but keeping the bitrate low also keeps bandwidth costs down — and margins high.

Adobe-Yahoo rumor? Confab thrower's attention grab

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:20:00 EDT

Professional linkbaiter Guy Kawasaki reports a "juicy tidbit" from the Gnomedex conference in Seattle: "Adobe is scratching their collective chins and in deep thought considering a Yahoo acquisition." We don't believe it. With a $23.61 billion market cap, Adobe isn't exactly in a position to spend $40 billion on Yahoo, even its stock price has finally sunk below where it was when Microsoft made its offer. So why the rumor? Look to its source: Chris Pirillo — the guy who puts on the Gnomedex conference, of which we admit to only a vague awareness before Pirillo sent a Twitter message about the rumor and got everyone talking about it. And him. And his conference.

Microsoft now being sued for patent infringement over Silverlight

Alaska Miller — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:40:00 EDT

Silverlight, Microsoft's buggy effort to tackle Adobe's Flash video technology, has another hiccup on the road to mass acceptance. Gotuit, a video-technology startup, has filed suit against Microsoft for patent infringement. Gotuit will be represented by Spencer Hosie, a law firm which has tangled with Team Redmond before and managed to squeeze out a $60 million settlement for Burst.com. Don't even know what Silverlight is? Read the primer so you can bluff your way out of a gaggle of Google employees. [News.com]

Iran hacks world media with Photoshop

Paul Boutin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Left: The head-turning photo that appeared all over the world yesterday. Right, the original photo. The New York Times, which ran the altered version, explains how the photo spread "from the Web site of Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," to "the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites." We lucked out by running other photos for variety. (Photo by Sepah News via AP)

Google, Yahoo start to search Flash

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:20:00 EDT

Adobe has begun work with Google and Yahoo to enable their search engines to index Flash content. What that means for the rest of us: more whizbang Web site designs on e-commerce sites that previously stuck with HTML in order to remain searchable. [PaidContent]

Adobe's revenue is up, but struggling to make a market out of mobile

Jackson West — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Year-over-year revenues are up 19 percent at Adobe in the most recent quarter, driven mostly by sales of the new CS3 versions of popular applications such as Photoshop. (Even bloggers use it!) But there was little growth in revenues derived from mobile markets as the company struggles to make its Flash Web-video technology the go-to media software for phones and other devices. On the iPhone front, the company has Flash running on an emulator, but in Cupertino, Apple is developing its own alternative. [ZDNet]

Joost's last, best hope nixed by Adobe

Jackson West — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:20:00 EDT

The latest iteration of Joost, the once-hot, now decidedly not video startup from the people who brought you Skype, will work in your browser — but only if you download a plugin from Joost. And while Joost struggles to find good content, Adobe is rolling file sharing into its Flash player, beating Joost's new plugin to the punch. NBC has worked with file-sharing content delivery platforms in the past, and Hulu — a site backed with quality content — uses Flash. I'm sure the Joost developers are tech whizzes, but even our journalist math puts them on the wrong side of this equation. (Photo by Job D.)

Tech's worst workspace: Mozilla

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:20:00 EDT

What's so bad about Mozilla's Toronto workspace? Besides the fluorescent lighting, the colorless white walls and the folding tables, the worst thing about Mozilla's Toronto workspace is how we're sure management would improve it. With corporate graffiti, company logos and too many colors. That was management's trick at Facebook and look where readers ranked it in our poll on tech's ten worst workspaces — as tech's second-worst workspace, just after Mozilla. Check out the full list, below.

Rank tech's 10 worst workspaces

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:00:00 EDT

After reviewing our post "The 10 worst workspaces in tech," commenter AdmNaismith described Facebook's office, pictured above, as "foggy, dank, dim, and utterly depressing." Commenter mothra1 hated Yahoo's New York offices more: "They suck! Lifeless and impersonal. Kinda like the douchebags who still actually work there." Meanwhile, Adobe apologist BlairHapjo told us we "clearly didn't get past Adobe's lobby," and the rest of the office features "Aeron chairs, real offices (with doors!), big picture windows." For us, the worst offices we found on Office Snapshots and elsewhere were the the ones that try too hard to seem Internet-hip, like Jajah and Google. Now it's time to settle the disputes. Below, vote for your least favorite and help us rank tech's 10 most dismal places to work:

The 10 worst workspaces in tech

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:00:00 EDT

We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.