This week Yahoo refreshes ASTRA, Smashing Magazine provides a great list of AIR resources, CNET uncovers the truth about the MLB switch back to Flash video, Scott Barnes speaks his mind about Silverlight 3, Google App Engine extends its reach, ExtJS introduces some changes to its licensing, and the Masters is delivered with Flash Media Server. All this and more on the Weekly RIA RoundUp from InsideRIA.

Yahoo Releases ASTRA 1.4

On Tax Day (in the United States), Yahoo released version of 1.4 of their ASTRA component set. This version of the Flash/Flex toolkit provides updates to most all of the components as well as a new Form component and a form data manager utility. This version is available to download today and use in your Flash and Flex applications.

Yahoo Flash Blog: Astra Stimulus Package

Tour De Flex Updated Again

Greg Wilson announced that there was a bug fix for Tour De Flex this week. The web version has already been updated to version 1.2.1, and the AIR version will be updated soon. Greg provides a complete list of the bug fixes on his blog post.

Greg Wilson (Adobe): Tour de Flex 1.2.1 Released

Great List of AIR Resources

Smashing Magazine published a great and comprehensive list of AIR resources and tutorials. The list includes official AIR resources from Adobe as well as community resources. The list also covers HTML, Flash, and Flex solutions for building AIR applications.

Smashing Magazine: Adobe AIR Developer's Toolbox: Resources And Tutorials

The Truth About Silverlight, Flash, and Major League Baseball

CNET covered the transition of Major League Baseball Advanced Media from Silverlight to Flash. While much has been made of some companies choosing one solution over another, this instance is unique for a few specific reasons: this is one of the first instances of a large organization switching to one solution - and then switching back because of their experience, and also the MLB subscription service is the largest video subscription service on the web.

CNET: Why baseball benched Microsoft Silverlight

Scott Barnes Gives His Thoughts on Silverlight 3

Recently, Peter Elst (a respected Flash/Flex developer) interviewed Scott Barnes, Rich Platforms Product Manager at Microsoft, about Silverlight 3. This interview covers many of the new features that were released in Silverlight 3, but it also includes some overall comparisons between Flex and Silverlight. The complete interview transcript is available in Peter's blog post.

Peter Elst: Interview with Scott Barnes about Silverlight 3

InsideRIA: Scott Barnes' Take on Silverlight 3

The Masters Delivered with Flash Media Server

While the Master's Golf Tournament ended in a dramatic three-way sudden-death playoff, all of the online video that was streamed from CBSSports.com and Masters.com was delivered using Adobe's Flash Media Server through the Flash Player. Read Ryan Stewart's post for more information.

Ryan Stewart (Adobe): Watch the Masters Tournament Live with Flash Media Server

Google App Engine Gets Java

As more and more RIA's rely on cloud technologies for their server side architecture, Google App Engine expanded its reach by adding support for another language on the platform: Java. Previously, developers were limited to Python. In addition to the Java support, this could open up a lot of doors to solutions that are based on Java such as Adobe's BlazeDS and ColdFusion. Read the official post on the Google App Engine blog for the specifics.

Google App Engine Blog: Seriously this time, the new language on App Engine: Java

Pete Freitag: CFML on Google App Engine for Java

Ext Core Goes MIT

Version 3 of ExtJS has introduced some licensing changes. The ExtJS team released Ext Core 3.0 Beta under the MIT license. The actual ExtJS library still is under the old licensing. Dion of Ajaxian states, "It appears that you get the guys of Ext via MIT now, and if you want the component library, styles etc, that is when you go to ExtJS.". It will be interesting to see how this licensing change affects the reach of this project.

Ajaxian: Ext Core released as MIT library

Invoking JavaFX Functions from Java

James Weaver wrote another post this week on how to connect JavaFX with Java. This week, he focused on how to invoke JavaFX functions from Java. In his post he provides a basic example with code samples.

James Weaver: JavaFX Tips and Tricks: Invoking JavaFX Functions from Java

Microsoft Developing a Better Silverlight Installation Experience

Microsoft has been working on a better installation experience for users who don't already have the plugin installed. As a part of this process they have released a white paper and sample source code.

MSDN - Silverlight SDK: Silverlight Installation Experience whitepaper and sample code released

Behavior Injection for Flex

Thomas Burleson is releasing a library that enables jQuery style behavior injection for Flex applications. In his post he includes a presentation as well as some examples of how the library will work. While this library has not been released to the public just yet, Thomas assured everyone that it is coming soon.

Thomas Burleson: Flex Behavior Injection (like jQuery) | GridLinked to RUX

Read more from David Tucker.