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Bsquare: Why Wait? We Got Yer Flash For Android Right Here

Bsquare says, "Pshaw!" No need to wait until the end of 2009 to get Flash on your Android device. It is already offering Android developers support for Flash Lite 3.1 on ARM-based devices.

What Bsquare has done here is to port Adobe's Flash Lite 3.1 player into the browser of devices running Android version 1.5 "Cupcake."

According to Bsquare, the port has been available for some time and developers are already taking advantage of it. Bsquare is stepping up its PR campaign a bit now that HTC brought Flash to its recently announced Hero Android device.

Larry Stapleton, Bsquare's vice president of global sales, recently told ComputerWorld, "We have ongoing projects with several large ARM system-on-chip (SoC) makers, so you should see a wide range of smartbooks and smartphones [with our player] coming out by the end of this year." That's good news, good news indeed.

Don't think that Flash Lite on your Android phone is going to magically mean the most awesome Web experience ever, though. Flash Lite 3.1 supports H.264 high-definition video, but it is not fully compliant with Flash 9 (the desktop version of Flash). This means the mobile experience will be better, but still won't match the desktop experience. YouTube videos will be available in mobile form.

Developers interested in taking advantage of Bsquare's port should contact Bsquare directly. Bsquare is licensing it to any Android/ARM system or phone manufacturer.

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