Flash
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Microsoft will finally stop bundling Flash with Windows 10
Microsoft will completely remove Flash from Windows 10 by rolling out an update in July.
Today is the last day you can play the original 'FarmVille'
The original 'FarmVille' shuts down today as the end of Flash support effectively ends the game.
‘Homestar Runner’ creators revive 15-year-old game right before Flash dies
Homestar Runner remains one of the best-known internet cartoons built on Adobe Flash, a site that regularly produced hilarious absurdist content throughout the 2000s.
Adobe bids farewell to Flash Player in its final update
Don't expect any new features, though.
Flash content like Homestar Runner lives on in the Internet Archive
Mere weeks before Adobe’s planned end of support date for Flash, the Internet Archive has come in to save everyone’s favorite mid-aughts plugin and the creative content that came out of it.
Windows 10 update removes Flash and prevents it from being reinstalled
Microsoft has released an optional Catalog update that removes Adobe Flash from Windows 10 and prevents it from being reinstalled, paving the way for the eventual death of the app in 2021.
‘FarmVille’ is shutting down for good on December 31st
FarmVille is closing its gates on December 31st.
Microsoft details how it will phase out Flash support in Edge after 2020
Microsoft has outlined how it will end support for Adobe Flash in its Edge browser, and it's a multi-step process with some exceptions.
Will QLC SSDs make hard drives extinct?
QLC flash is enabling bigger and bigger SSDs, including the first 8TB consumer flash drives, but it comes with the serious drawbacks. How exactly does flash memory work, what is QLC and what is it good for?
Flash games site Kongregate has stopped accepting submissions
If you played Flash-based games in the 2000s, you probably remember Kongregate, a website that hosted over 100,000 browser games. Unfortunately, the site will soon take a step towards being more of an archive than an active part of the internet, as Kongregate has announced that it’ll stop accepting new game uploads. Additionally, Forbes confirmed that the site is also laying off an unknown number of employees after a number of employees tweeted that they only found out by a direct deposit to their bank accounts.
Adobe will tell you to uninstall Flash by the end of 2020
Adobe is not only ending support for Flash in 2020, it's encouraging you to uninstall the software.
Apple drops Flash from its latest Safari browser preview
It's another nail in the coffin for Adobe Flash. Tech providers have been moving away from the dying plugin for years, and now Apple has completely removed support for it in the latest release of Safari Technology Preview, foreshadowing what's in store for the browser later public release.
Google Search will stop indexing Flash content this year
Flash was impressive back in the day. Games, animations and interactive elements were right there in your browser. But as the internet matured, Flash did not. In fact, it became a nuisance and a security risk. Adobe, which owns Flash, announced that it would end support for the technology by December 2020, and now Google says Search will no longer index Flash content or Shockwave Flash files in the coming weeks.
Giphy Arcade lets you play, create and share your own bite-sized games
While it has evolved over the last few years to be more than just a place to find your favorite looping images, Giphy's experiments with short-form video and emoji have felt like an extension of its obsession with GIFs. Giphy Arcade, a new subsection of Giphy's website devoted to small, bite-sized games, feels like a more substantial departure. If you fondly remember the days of Flash games like Desktop Tower Defense, Red Remover and Bookworm, the concept of Giphy Arcade will be intimately familiar.
Sony's CFexpress cards will bring blistering speeds to cameras
Cameras are getting so fast now that it's hard for regular SD storage cards, even fancy UHS II models, to keep up. Sony has just announced that it's developing new cards using the all-new CFexpress tech that are up to the challenge. They can read and write data at speeds of 1,700 and 1,480 MB/s, respectively, blowing past every current type of camera storage. Several new cameras on the market, including Nikon's Z6/Z7 and the Panasonic S1/S1R, will support the cards.
Fake Flash updates upgrade software, but install crypto-mining malware
According to cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks, it discovered a fake Flash updater that has been duping conscientious computer users since August. The fake updater installs files to sneak a cryptocurrency mining bot called XMRig, which mines for Monero. But here's the catch, while the fake updater is installing the XMRig malware, it's also updating the user's Flash.
Toshiba's SSDs are the first to use 96-layer 3D flash chips
Toshiba has unveiled the XG6 series, the first SSDs to be built with its cutting-edge 96-layer 3D flash tech. The XG6 series of NVM Express (NVMe) SSDs use BiCS 3D flash memory with 3-bits-per-cell that power the drives to 3,180 MB/s read and 3,000 MB/s write speeds, with a stellar 365,000 random write IOPS (input/output operations per second). At the same time, the devices consume a maximum of just 4.7 watts.
Toshiba's flash chips could boost SSD capacity by 500 percent
Toshiba has started building prototype sample flash memory with the highest capacity yet, 1.33 terabits (166GB) per chip. The 96-layer 3D NAND flash chips have four bits per cell, as compared to its current-gen three-bit tech, which allowed for chips with "only" 32GB. A typical package for flash storage, containing 16 of the chips, would have an astonishing 2.66 TB capacity, opening up new possibilities for faster, higher density SSDs and memory cards.
Canon's AI flash moves by itself to make portraits more flattering
Camera flashes aren't normally the sexiest products, but Canon has made its Speedlite 470EX-AI a lot more interesting by using artificial intelligence. As photographers know, you're better off bouncing a flash off a wall or ceiling to best flatter subjects, rather than pointing it directly at them. Figuring all that out can be a pain, however, which is where Canon's "AI Bounce" tech comes in. By calculating the distance between the camera, ceiling and subject, it lets beginning photographers "utilize the ideal lighting and natural brightness of the room," Canon explains.
Flash storage spec doubles speeds on future smartphones
Smartphones already have storage speeds that rival PCs and they're going to take another big leap soon. Standards group JEDEC has unveiled UFS 3.0, a new flash storage standard for mobile devices, Chromebooks, VR headsets and automotive devices that doubles the bandwidth of UFS 2.1 to a stellar 2.9 GB/s. That's only a theoretical maximum that real-world devices won't likely reach, however, and requires that the host device has the hardware to support it.
