The Flash hate from Steve Jobs has been extremely strong over the past year or so, with Jobs pointing to Flash as the reason for a majority of application crashes. All that may be set to change with the next point release of the Adobe’s Flash Player 10.2. This demonstration video from John Nack, in a very stylish Star Trek outfit, shows of 10.2 beta using around 1/10th the CPU when playing a 1080p video.
This is achieved by shifting a lot of the processing to the GPU to give the CPU a breather. It is important to note, this is done using 64-bit hardware, which means older 32-bit macs may be out of luck, or at best see lesser improvements.
In a show-off move, Nack even demonstrates 4k video playing back on a Macbook Air, a pretty amazing feat considering the relatively low-power specs. Multiple times throughout the demonstration the audience breaks into applause, so this is clearly something users have been waiting for.
Check out the video below.
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