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.
Visualizing Voice World Tour schedule
I’m presenting Stereo Microphone in Flash, and other microphone goodies! The official Visualizing Voice World Tour schedule:
| date | event | location |
| 09.17 | Harvard Flash User Group | Cambridge, MA |
| 09.21 | Flash on the Beach | Brighton, UK |
| 09.24 | Oxford Flash User Group | Oxford, UK |
| 10.03 | Flashapaloozastock | Venice Beach, CA |
| 10.04 | FITC Unconference @ MAX | Los Angeles, CA |
| 10.17 | FITC Edmonton | Edmonton, AB, Canada |
Read more about the tour here and here.
I look forward to seeing everyone from the Ribbit & Flash communities, as well as all those aspiring to do more with Flash microphone, at one or more of these awesome events!
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!
Advanced Microphone Interaction session at FITC, Toronto 2009
My session has been announced for FITC, Toronto 2009.
Using the Flash Microphone for advanced interaction
Microphone access is a generally untapped, yet a huge advantage for Flash developers and designers. Let’s break it open. Chuck will explore a wide range of samples using Flash’s ability to access the microphone as an advanced user interaction tool. See how to control UI with sound detection and activity, play with stereo, capture voice, attach voice to a server stream, and of course, use Ribbit to talk through Flash and over the phone.
Tickets are on sale - see you in Toronto!
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