Any time their spider needs to view a SWF file, it will load up this version of the Flash Player and at any given point in the application it will give the text and links that are available then. What Google and Yahoo are doing then is driving that application with a virtual user and they can navigate the application whether it’s an application, website or what have you and keep going down different paths of the file until they feel that they have viewed all the content…

Not sure what the time frame is, but hopefully it will be a step toward making Flash and Flex content more search engine optimized, and eliminate one of the strongest arguments against using Flash on the web. Correction: And then the Flash-bashers will have less fuel for their dwindling fires… Unfortunately, I incorrectly linked to Veerle’s article when I meant to link to the comments section. It was this exchange that came to mind as I wrote this post. And I inadvertently labeled her a “Flash-basher,” which was just a failed attempt at e-sarcasm. Rookie mistake.

If you haven’t discovered Veerle Pieters’ blog yet, you should definitely check it out. It’s one of the first blogs I started following regularly and inspired me to create this site.

The amazing Mr. Norrby is at it again! Horizon is a “3D camera-aware background gradient and image mapping tool for Adobe After Effects…” and looks like it will be as indispensable as other Trapcode plugins like 3D Stroke and Particular. As always, Norbby has created one of his signature “I needed something like this so I just whipped it up the other day” quicktime tutorials, which will show you what it does, and why you should build a shrine to this man in your studio.

Ever wonder how that giant poster design is going to look once it’s giant? LiveSurface has pre-masked, layered templates you can download to test out designs on real surfaces like bottles, envelopes and pretty much anything else you can think of. The templates also use Vanishing Point to provide 3D surfaces. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the amazing technology this guy has created, which currently takes the form of software called Photosynth, is owned by Microsoft and only Windows users get to try out the demo. Let’s hope they don’t f this up.

Basically the software takes a lot of photos of a particular subject, like a ton of pictures of Notre-Dame Cathedral on Flickr, and turns them into a 3D representation of the cathedral. The other technology this guy created, Seadragon, allows you to zoom, pan, rotate and interact with the Photosynth object in some unbelievable ways. You’ve got to see it to believe it.

Adobe releases the beta version of Flash Player 10 today on Adobe Labs. On my birthday! I’m so proud…

Some of the new features are described on Flash Magazine. Particularly intriguing is the ability to load and save files using the FileReference object. Instead of simply passing files back and forth, it seems you can actually do stuff with them!

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

[ via Motionographer ]

Well, maybe that’s going a little far. But if you work with video on a computer and are into things that kick ass and are free, you need to download MPEG Streamclip from Squared 5. A friend told me about this recently and I don’t know how I lived without it. It will play almost anything you throw at it (or drag onto it - not so good with the throwing), and you can convert to just about anything, as well as mux, demux, convert, deinterlace, scale, you name it.

It’s one of those things that I had trouble believing was free for a long time. I kept checking the developer’s site to make sure I hadn’t accidentally missed something. Enjoy!

Play a round of I Love Typography’s Font Game. Part font identification, part memory tester, 100% way to drive yourself insane. Unless you’re among the 99% of humans who don’t care about identifying fonts. But, if you’re reading this blog, you’re most likely in the other group.

My favorite part is that, despite a dismal score of 20 out of 34, they still let me join the hall of fame! Good luck…