Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) 1.7 has been approved as an international standard by the International Standards Organization (ISO), according to a company executive. "Adobe has received word that the ballot for approval of PDF 1.7 to become the ISO 32000 Standard ... has passed by a vote of 13-1," wrote Jim King, a senior principal scientist and PDF architect at Adobe, in a blog post Tuesday. After announcing its intentions to make PDF a standard in January, Adobe submitted PDF to the ISO's Technical Committee in July. Previously, specialized subsets of PDF -- PDF/Archive and PDF/Exchange -- have been approved as standards by ISO, and other subsets have been proposed as standards. The approval of PDF 1.7 will now serve as an "umbrella" standard that will help unify these different subsets. The ratification of PDF as an ISO standard means Adobe gives up some control over the development of future versions. Instead of setting the future path of PDF on its own, Adobe will just be one of several parties with a say in how the standard evolves. And that's exactly what King, who was nominated technical editor of the new standard, hopes to see happen. "The challenging part will be to get people to participate in the next release of the standard. Lots of people want standards but it takes a measurable resource commitment to participate," he wrote.

Adobe has now rolled out the Flash Player 9 Update 3 software previously nicknamed Moviestar. This update includes H.264 standard video support and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio capabilities in addition to bringing hardware accelerated and multi-core enhanced full-screen video playback for high-resolution viewing across well-known OSes and browsers. The new flash update can be downloaded from this page.

Soon Adobe's popular document format will include functionality to support advertising, thanks to a new partnership with Yahoo. The two companies are framing the service as a way to allow publishers to offer their content on an ad-supported basis. This could also accelerate the adoption of PDF as a way to deliver paper content to subscribers in electronic form. Ads within the PDFs would appear in a side panel and would only be viewable by those using Adobe's readers, as to "not disrupt the viewing experience." Ads would be dynamically matched to the content within the PDF, Adobe said. "By partnering with Yahoo on this innovative advertising service, we are creating opportunities for publishers to build new businesses around unique content that previously was just given away or not available to a mass online audience," Adobe corporate development chief Rob Tarkoff said. The offering would be in beta for several months, and would be open initially only to US English-language publishers.

Adobe has finally issued an update for its Acrobat Reader products. This patch updates Adobe Reader to version 8.1.1 and addresses several known issues, one of which is the PDF bug we reported here. Adobe recommends that all Adobe Reader 8 users apply this update.

• Close a potential security vulnerability on Windows XP computers that have Internet Explorer 7 installed (CVE-2007-5020); see the Adobe Security Bulletin (APSB07-18) concerning this issue
• Address several PDF forms-related issues
• Provide additional stability

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With the three main firms currently competing in the media playback industry being Microsoft, Apple and Real, Adobe has decided to launch its very own media player in an attempt to gain a foothold. Adobe Media Player (AMP for short), which is backed by several companies including CBS, PBS and Yahoo (as well as a few other online companies), is designed to work with files based on the same .FLV format used by YouTube and several other video sharing sites, with Adobe saying:

Adobe is driving the next generation of internet video delivery with the Adobe Media Player, the Flash Media Server, content protection technologies, and a broad and powerful ecosystem of partners providing key solutions from content creation through delivery and monetization. AMP brings the best of both the broadcast television and web video worlds to your desktop-providing high-quality content both online and offline, with a wide range of business model possibilities.

AMP is still only a BETA at the moment, with a final release scheduled for March 2008, but if you want to take a look at it you can download it for free from here.

A critical zero-day PDF bug in Adobe's Acrobat Reader has been discovered. The scenario is that an attacker rigs a PDF file designed to exploit the flaw. He or she distributes it via e-mail or through other means, or hosts it on a Web page. When a user opens the rigged PDF file with a vulnerable application, the user's machine can be loaded with malware that makes it open to a takeover. This PDF vulnerability is even worse than the QuickTime flaw in Mozilla Firefox fixed 2 days ago. Both Mozilla Firefox flaw and PDF bugs have been discovered by Petko D. Petkov, aka pdp. The story comes as warning to all users working with Acrobat Reader. Please be careful until a fix is released. Click here or read Petko's web blog for more information.

Today the crowd at Photoshop World got a quick preview of Photoshop Express, a new application currently in development at Adobe. First hinted at by Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen some six months ago, Photoshop Express isn't meant to duplicate/replace Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop Elements. Rather, it's a new member of the Photoshop family that's meant to make Adobe imaging technology immediately accessible to large numbers of people. Photoshop Express is flash-based and will be available for free use online.

Symantec found that the Nintendo Wii is vulnerable to a flaw in Adobe Flash Player. Whenever the Nintendo Wii tries to access a .FLV file, it is possible that the console will lock and be rendered useless until a reboot. While Adobe did release a patch for the rest of the world, it is unclear whether or not the patch actually works on the Nintendo Wii version of Opera. Since Symantec does not know whether or not Adobe's patch works on the Nintendo Wii, they have taken preventative steps to make sure that Nintendo Wii customers can access flash content unabridged. Symantec is currently warning websites that host content accessible to the Wii that they may need to edit their flash content.

SAN JOSE, Calif. and LAS VEGAS - April 16, 2007 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the Adobe Media Player at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show. This desktop application expands Adobe's Internet video solutions, adding to an emerging ecosystem that enables new ways to distribute and monetize media, while helping viewers discover and view high-quality content both online and offline. Leveraging Adobe's Emmy Award winning Flash architecture, the Adobe Media Player delivers more engaging video experiences to viewers while offering content publishers new abilities to distribute, track and build businesses around their media assets. A preview of the new player will be shown during NAB, April 16 - 19 (Booth SL 3220).

"Akamai and Adobe have a longstanding partnership that enables the world's leading media companies to deliver consistently high-quality Flash Player video experiences to global audiences," said Paul Sagan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Akamai. "Adobe continues to be an industry leader in their approach to innovation by delivering new ways for audiences to experience rich, interactive content. We are excited about supporting this latest initiative that will make it easier for our joint customers to facilitate broad distribution of Adobe Flash-based video."

Largest Software Release in Adobe's 25-year History Revolutionizes Creative Workflows

SAN JOSE, Calif. - March 27, 2007 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the Adobe Creative Suite 3 product line, a revolutionary offering of tightly integrated, industry-leading design and development tools for virtually every creative workflow. Adobe's new Creative Suite 3 line-up unites the best of Adobe and Macromedia product innovation to provide designers and developers with a broad spectrum of creative options for all facets of print, web, mobile, interactive, film, and video production. There are six all-new configurations of Adobe Creative Suite 3. These include, Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium and Design Standard editions; Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium and Web Standard editions; and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium (see separate releases). Rounding out the product line is Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection which combines 12 of Adobe's new design and development applications in a single box-the most comprehensive creative environment ever delivered.

SAN JOSE, Calif. and LAS VEGAS, Nevada - March 8, 2007 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show that it will expand its digital imaging product line, offering two editions of Adobe Photoshop CS3. In addition to the highly anticipated Photoshop CS3 software for designers and professional photographers, Adobe will also deliver Photoshop CS3 Extended, a completely new edition of Photoshop which allows cross-media creative professionals to stretch the limits of digital imaging. Photoshop CS3 Extended includes everything in Photoshop CS3 plus a new set of capabilities for integration of 3-D and motion graphics, image measurement and analysis. Photoshop CS3 Extended also simplifies the workflow for professionals in architecture, engineering, medical and science.

CNET News had a good talk to Bruce Chizen, the CEO at Adobe, who revealed they are starting to host some of their leading applications to the internet. Photoshop being the first in line will be an ad-supported version with less options then it's offline counterpart.
This is the answer to Google's ever growing online portfolio and with Adobe one of the big companies showed the pressure they are now under.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Feb. 21, 2007 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) is pioneering a new way to deliver its industry leading creative software technologies online, with the launch of its web-based video remix and editing technology. Today, Adobe and Photobucket announced a partnership to integrate Adobe web-based video remix and editing technology directly into the Photobucket user experience, giving 35 million Photobucket users direct, free access to world-class digital video editing tools. The agreement marks a new stage in Adobe's delivery of its renowned video software technologies that today underpin flagship products such as Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Premiere Pro.

AN JOSE, Calif. - Jan. 29, 2007 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that it intends to release the full Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 specification to AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association, for the purpose of publication by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

NVIDIA Corporation, today announced that the Adobe Acrobat 8 product family and Adobe Reader 8 now offer a new page display rendering mode, which uses the graphics processing unit (GPU) to accelerate the drawing and display of pages in PDF format. Building upon the recent performance improvements of Adobe Acrobat 8 and Adobe Reader 8, Adobe has leveraged the power and programmability of the GPU to further turbocharge the display of 2D content in PDF documents.