Open Microphone Announcement Summary at MAX 2009!
It’s been just 7 short months since we launched our getMicrophone campaign, and Adobe has already responded with some exciting news. We are very excited to recognize the hard work by the Flash Player and AIR teams as we officially learned, here at MAX, that our feature request is being delivered. Here is a summary of getMicrophone announcements at MAX 2009:
1. Flash Player 10.1 WILL HAVE microphone access! According to a post by Justin Everett-Church (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/jchurch_flashplayer10.1.html), an API for accessing sound data coming from the microphone will be available in 10.1.
“New requests started coming in pretty quickly with great ideas for how the microphone data could be used to make entertainment, communication, and productivity applications. In Flash Player 10.1, you will now have access to the same sort of data that you get from MP3 files today—but coming from the microphone. For right now, this new API will be available on desktop computers only.”
2. The Flash to iPhone compiling solution in CS5 WILL NOT allow Microphone Access. According to the specs released for this long awaited ability, where Flash devs can easily build apps/games for the iPhone, we learn that Microphone Access is one of only a few features that didn’t make this port. Read more here: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Applications_for_iPhone
“As a general rule, Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR 2.0 APIs are available when developing content for the iPhone. However, there are a number of exceptions, including, but not limited to: Embedded HTML content (via webkit in Adobe AIR), RTMPE, Dynamically loading SWFs that contain ActionScript, PixelBender Filters, Microphone Access, Video Camera Access”
3. AIR 2.0 WILL HAVE Microphone Access — As we unofficially learned a few weeks ago around FOTB. This feature was not only made official at MAX 2009, but was also demonstrated during the day 1 keynote.
4. New Microphone access in Flash Player and AIR will be limited to mono — still no stereo. Due to a codec and architecture limitation with both Flash Player and AIR, the microphone access we now have will be mono only. getMicrophone will continue to lobby for this feature.
Together, as a community, we got it done. Thanks to all at Adobe for pushing this feature across. I’ve personally thanked a bunch of folks here at MAX responsible for this feature!
As these releases become public and available on labs.adobe.com, we’ll post links and ask for you to share your examples.
Raw Microphone Access announced in AIR 2.0
Lee Brimelow has posted a video of Mike Chambers demo-ing raw microphone access in the upcoming AIR 2.0.
http://theflashblog.com/?p=1426
No word yet on this feature in Flash Player, Lee points out, but with MAX so close, I’m so glad to see this feature getting its due!
Recording Flash Microphone via…
It doesn’t get much more fun than this. Below are videos of me presenting two amazing techniques for capturing the Flash Microphone for recording voice & sound during FITC Toronto 2009. To demonstrate and implement both open source solutions I had some invaluable help from key figures in the Flash/Flex and open source communities, namely Chris Allen & Dominique Accattato on Red 5, and Mr. Adam Flater on Merapi.
While I’ve not yet gone back to package up the demo code for distribution, the videos tell the story of what we’re try to do here at getMicrophone.com.
First up is a demo on using Merapi, in conjunction with AS3 and AIR to capture Microphone, store it in a local file, and play it back.
Second is a demo on using Red5, in conjunction with AS3 and Flash Player to stream Microphone data to a remote server (it was simulated for the demo), record the stream and play it back.
I’ll be revisiting these demos and more, adding some more visual aspects to them as well, for the upcoming Flash on the Beach conference.
As always, if you’ve got a cool project for us to showcase that uses Flash Microphone in any way, let us know via twitter!
Coding a simple Microphone Graph
Tutorial Hero has a nice, simple code sample on putting together a Microphone Graph. The example draws a line to the activityLevel of your microphone as you talk or make silly noises. The post includes the easy code and breaks it down in segments pretty nicely.
http://www.tutorialhero.com/click-56307-microphone_graph.php
If you have a cool example of playing with the Microphone, DM us on Twitter (@getMicrophone) and we’ll post it!
Microphone makes balls bounce
Watch shiny, colorful, 2D balls bounce to the beat of your voice at http://www.neave.com/bounce/. The app, designed by Paul Neave, features an interface so fun and interactive, my 2-year-old is addicted to ‘talking’ to it. I turned my music up and the app’s balls even bounced to the beat.
Paul submitted the app to us via our Twitter @getMicrophone. What have you worked on with microphone? Send it to us and we’ll probably post it!
The thing we love most about Paul’s Bouncing Balls app? He shared the source code with all of us!
Microphone controlled animation in Papervision3D
Bartek Drozdz posted and impressive implementation using Flash microphone access and Papervision 3D.
The demo responds to microphone activity by swirling leaves in the air. You blowing into the microphone simulates the wind circulating the leaves. It’s a super fresh idea.
Check it out — so cool!
-
Submit your link
Follow us on Twitter and suggest some links to your blog or examples you want to share.
http://twitter.com/getmicrophone
We'll post them as soon as we can.
