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Microsoft earned a reputation for its "embrace and extend" development philosophy, which recalls a time when it assimilated existing ideas by hook or by something else. Adobe's plan with respect to HTML5 technology is more like "embrace and pummel." Although it's been telling analysts and reporters that Flash is embracing HTML5, the message Adobe's product managers gave to developers this week at its MAX 2011 conference is that the plug-in reigns supreme.

Hackers will have fun building Adobe AIR apps for mobile devices that incorporate Near Field Communication (NFC) sensors, now that AIR version 3.0 enables software access to hardware data including vibration control, magnetometers, light sensors and NFC.

The API is likely to lead to some really fun capabilities. Imagine all the accessibility and beauty of Adobe AIR, combined with the real-world location and frictionless data transfer capabilities of NFC. Hot.

All the buzz about HTML5 in 2010 and the Apple/Adobe rift makes it pretty easy to think it was a grim year for Flash. But the Flash team at Adobe wouldn't agree. They've posted The Flash Platform Top 10 for 2010, an interesting list reminding us that 2010 was actually a pretty good year for Flash developers. Apart from all the worrying that the sky was falling or that their skill set was going to go the way of horse-drawn carriage repair.

The preview of the Melrose Beta SDK from Adobe allows for Adobe AIR apps to be integrated into online stores such as the Intel AppUp center. The Atom Developer Program offers the SDK and accepts AIR apps. Now that AIR applications are supported in AppUp, it's probably a good idea to take inventory of what this means for developers.

The Adobe AIR for Android runtime is now available in the Android Market, news which is sure to excite a number of Flash developers. With the new application, developers can build mobile applications for Android users without having to learn new languages. Instead, they can continue using familiar programs like Flash Builder, Flash Professional CS5 or an ActionScript development tool.

For end users, the availability of AIR means, simply put, new apps to try. Searching for "Adobe AIR" in the Market will now reveal a selection of apps that are built with AIR.

Today at the Mobile World Congress 2010, Adobe announced several initiatives designed to cement their company's relevance in a world where Apple, one of the top smartphone players, has banned Adobe software from inclusion on all mobile devices including the iPhone, iPod Touch and the soon-to-launch iPad. Without Adobe's Flash runtime, thousands of websites don't work, streaming videos won't play and a number of online casual games are broken. Apple, of course, is fine with this, having worked around the issue thanks to the 150,000+ iPhone applications that deliver the same functionality...although sometimes for a fee.

Adobe, meanwhile, is focusing on the other up-and-coming smartphone platform, Google's Android OS, with the launch of their "AIR for Android" offering. With this and the newly announced Flash Player 10.1, wannabe mobile developers don't need to learn specialized code, but can instead leverage their existing development skills to build Flash and AIR-based applications. They can then have those apps run anywhere: PCs, Macs, Linux and mobile...including, surprisingly, the iPhone.

We have profiled Twitter-based file sharing services in the past, but in some cases the shared files were read-only and the UI design left much to be desired, or the service merely redirected the user to a third-party file sharing service.

Spain-based Ideateca has conquered these drawbacks with FileSocial, a sleek multi-platform file sharing service for Twitter. After authenticating their Twitter account, users can upload any filetype up to 50MB, add a message of 110 characters or less, and FileSocial will post the tweet on Twitter with a link to the file.

In recent weeks Salesforce.com has partnered with a host of companies, including Box.net last week and an integration with Cisco earlier this month.

When Adobe AIR was first released, we were in love. These glorious rich internet applications let us interact with web services outside our browser. In many ways, AIR apps were revolutionary. More complex than simple desktop widgets, these programs delivered the web to us in beautiful little packages. Almost immediately, we were updating Twitter, streaming video, reading feeds, editing photos, and so much more using various apps built for this new platform.

But recently, we've begun to question AIR's longevity. Now don't get us wrong - many of our favorite apps (TweetDeck, Tumbleweed, Yammer, etc.) are built using Adobe AIR. However, there's no reason why these apps couldn't just run in a browser instead...and that might even be a better place for them. 

If you've ever been to a conference or some sort of large event, you've probably seen a live Twitter stream in action. Up on a big screen in a prominent place, often the stage itself, the live stream tracks the relevant hashtags or keywords about the event, be it a conference, a panel, a meetup, or some other sort of heavily-tweeted gathering.

But sometimes there's an issue with displaying the raw, unfiltered tweets in this way: they can be disruptive. All it takes is one Twitter user trying to be funny - or, worse, a troll saying something rude - to take the discussion off course. Now there's a new solution to deal with this problem: Paratweet.