This week saw new releases for the Flash Player, Silverlight, and Java. In addition AMF comes to Silverlight, the BBC breathes some AIR into iPlayer, and soliders learn from a virtual RIA world. All this and more on the Weekly RIA RoundUp from InsideRIA.

FEATURED: The Week of Releases

This week saw releases of the three most popular runtimes on the Internet: the Adobe Flash Player, Java, and Microsoft's Silverlight. All of these releases have to do in whole or in part with the RIA offerings of these platforms. In addition, Adobe also shipped Creative Suite 4 this week - which powers the design of many different RIA platforms.

Flash Player 10

Adobe's release of Flash Player 10 is big. In this release Adobe added native 3D support, the ability to use Pixel Bender filters, a completely new text engine, sophisticated color management, new sound API's, and a new drawing API. These features will drive the next generation of the Flash platform (Flex 4, Thermo, AIR 1.5).

Ryan Stewart (Adobe): Flash Player 10 is Here - Something For Everyone

Mike Chambers (Adobe): New Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10 Articles online

Grant Skinner: New Player 10 Feature Tour

Java 6 Update 10

It may tempting to dismiss Java 6u10 as just an 'update release'. However, this is a huge release for the RIA efforts of Sun. First, the browser plug-in has been completely rewritten and now provides an easy way for deploying a single application as an applet or Web Start application. Second, Swing now contains a new look and feel called Nimbus. Third, there are new mechanisms in place that allow only a potion of the JRE to be loaded unless additional libraries are needed. All in all, this a very important release that aims to make Java (and also JavaFX) a more tempting solution for RIA developers.

Ajaxian: Java Plugin 6 Update 10 Production Release

Download Java 6u10

Java 6u10 Release Notes

Silverlight 2

Silverlight 2 contains many new features and runtime enhancements over Silverlight 1. First, Silverlight 2 contains a version of the .NET framework which allows developers to write Silverlight applications in any .NET language. Silverlight 2 also contains a wealth of new controls. In addition Silverlight gained increased network support and integrated DRM for media content.

One of the interesting announcements that came with the release of Silverlight 2 was that Microsoft was developing (with Soyatec) an Eclipse plug-in for Silverlight authoring. Currently, this plug-in is Windows only, but the site states that future versions will be available for other operating systems.

Scott Guthrie (Microsoft): Silverlight 2 Released

Jesse Liberty (Microsoft): Silverlight 2 Release Guide

Shawn Wildermuth: Silverlight 2 Released!

AMF for Silverlight

Radek Gruchalski of Monochrome highlighted FluroineFxSL, an AMF client for Silverlight 2. The AMF format, which was made into an open specification by Adobe earlier this year, is currently the standard binary data transfer format for Flash, Flex, and AIR. This library could open up new possibilities for Silverlight developers to communicate with the many server-side AMF libraries currently available.

Monochrome.co.uk: AMF Client for Silverlight 2

BBC iPlayer on AIR

This week the BBC announced a new version of their downloadable iPlayer application that will run on Adobe AIR. The current version of the downloadable iPlayer is a Windows-only application, so this will enable Windows, Mac and Linux users to all enjoy video that can be downloaded to the player and viewed at a later time. This follows a recently move to Flash video for the online version of the iPlayer.

Andrew Shorten (Adobe): BBC To Launch Download iPlayer Using AIR

RIA Training Soldiers in 3D

EffectiveUI and Intelligence Gaming have teamed up to create a three dimensional training RIA for soldiers. This application utilizes many of the new featured in Flash Player 10 including the 3D support and new Sound API's. These new features enable them to create a realistic environment complete with eight channels of audio that adjust as the user moves through the virtual world.

ZDNet: 360 Degree Virtual Reality Training RIA

Read more from David Tucker.