Specifically, Adobe is getting ready to offer Creative Cloud.  What is it?  For $600 a year (or $50 a month) you can download, install and use Adobe’s entire Creative Suite Master Collection (18 titles covering pretty much every Adobe flagship product).  You can do this on both Windows and Mac platforms.

But there’s more.  You get access to their entire suite of touch apps (which run on mobile devices).  You get access to Adobe Business Catalyst (their all-in-one solution for hosting business web sites).  You get access to Typekit (access to thousands of web fonts).  You get access to Digital Publishing Suite (create mobile apps without programming).  You get access to Lightroom 4 (photo management) when it’s released.  And you get 20GB of cloud storage.

So why are some people mad? Well, they fear Adobe is moving to a pure subscription model, where you have to pay every month (or every year) or you can’t get your hands on their software (or at least the latest version of it).  Adobe claims this isn’t the case…at least not yet.  But ultimately, this is probably where all software is headed.  Just watch what Apple does in the next few years…they are usually great predictors of software evolution.

Regardless of speculating where the software industry may be headed though, a more urgent question might be “is Adobe Creative Cloud a good deal for me now?”.  And the answer depends on what you do.

Take for example person A.  They spring for a box edition of Adobe’s Creative Suite Master Collection (currently $2,500 for a single platform version).  And they use it for the next 5-7 years without ever getting an upgrade version.  Simple math will tell you that Creative Cloud isn’t for them.

But then look at person B. They want or need the latest versions of Creative Suite, so they buy an upgrade with every new version.  And they also take advantage of the other features offered in Creative Cloud…like Business Catalyst, Digital Publishing Suite and Lightroom.  And they used both PC’s and Macs.  Again, going by simple math, Creative Cloud is a good choice for them.

In other words, Creative Cloud offers a lot of bang for the buck.  But you have to be a regular user of Adobe’s products (i.e. your livelihood depends on them) for it to make sense.

There is no official word yet on when Creative Cloud will be released.  But you can sign-up to be notified and learn more about Creative Cloud in general by clicking here.

It functions not only as a high-quality boom microphone that plugs into your camera (for recording audio directly to your camera).  But it also serves as a high-end digital recorder that simultaneously records your audio to a separate memory card.

In a nutshell, the audio that gets recorded to the built-in digital recorder will be a higher quality than what gets recorded to your camera.  While editing your video, you can take the audio from the digital recorder and use it to replace the lower quality audio from your camera.

This is essentially how all professional video is shot.  The audio is recorded separately on a digital recorder and then it’s synched with the video footage while editing.  With the VideoMic HD, Rode is simply making this process easier for everyone by building the digital recorder into the mic.

Of course there are a few drawbacks to the design.  The unit probably can’t be attached to a boom pole (it will always have to be on the camera).  And users will have to press two buttons…the record button on the camera and the record button on the VideoMic HD (and a few people will probably forget to press one of them).

So what about price and availability? Good question.  No one knows when the mic will be available or what it will cost.  But you can register to learn more as the details emerge from Rode’s web site by clicking here.

Magic Lantern, a custom firmware add-in for Canon DSLR cameras, has recently released an upgrade to their popular utility that allows you to shoot HDR video (something previously impossible with a single camera).  What the software does, while you’re shooting video, is record different frames at different ISO levels.  Then in post-production everything gets melded together, creating HDR video.

But…Canon 5D Mark II and 7D users are out of luck.  HDR video can only be done with the 60D, T3i and T2i (yes, there are more than a few advantages when it comes to video and lower-end Canon DSLR’s…and this is one of them).

To get the Magic Lantern firmware upgrade and/or learn more, click here.  And to see a sample of HDR video in action (it’s subtle), watch the video below:

Magic Lantern HDR Video X-MAS teaser from Bart@RedKiteMedia on Vimeo.

There is a third option however.  One where your videos can be hosted at no cost, yet you get the professional features of a commercial online video platform.  It’s called Playwire and I originally reviewed the service back in May 2001 in this video.

Playwire has been offering a special no-cost deal for a few months.  With it you get hosting, encoding, streaming, monetization, syndication, analytics and more…for free.

What’s the catch?   Actually, there are two of them:

1. Advertising will appear in 100% of your videos.  Advertising which you have no control over…but…you do get to split 50% of the revenue with Playwire.

2. This special deal expires at the end of the year.  So if you want to get in on it, the link where you can learn more is below.

Click here to learn more about the special Playwire “no cost” deal.

And gift cards are big business.  It’s estimated that the average person has $300 worth of unused gift cards stuffed in their purse, wallet, junk drawer or somewhere in their car.

But the days of forgotten and unused gift cards may soon be over thanks to a rapidly growing release of mobile apps, that turn your smartphone into a one-stop-shop for gift cards.

What exactly can you do with your smartphone when it comes to gift cards?  Sumi Das of SmartPlant provides the details in the video below:

Why? Because HTML5 video playback on the Kindle Fire, in my testing, was much smoother than Flash.  That led to a number of people wanting to know more about HTML5 video.  So here’s a primer on it.

HTML is a programming language.  It is used to create web pages.  HTML5 is the latest version of the HTML programming language.  One of the biggest additions to HTML5 is support for the video tag.  With it, people can add videos to a web page as easily as they add images.

The idea behind the video tag was standards.  That means the intention was a single video format for the web that made it simple for everyone to add videos to a web page and simple for everyone to watch videos on a web page.  There are no browser plugins required (like Flash or Quicktime) and no confusing/cryptic video embed code is needed (like Flash or Quicktime) when using HTML5 video.

While the idea behind HTML5 video is great, unfortunately the powers-to-be (Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) have made it a bit of a mess.  That’s because none of them can agree on what the single video format should be for HTML5.  In a nutshell, Google and Mozilla think it should be WebM or Ogg and Apple and Microsoft think it should be H.264 (mp4).

That means to make your video play using HTML5…across all browsers…you must prepare your video in at least 3 different formats.  WebM and Ogg for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers and H.264 for basically all other browsers (including basically all mobile device browsers).

So how do you get your videos into each of these formats? If you want to go the free route, you can use Miro Video Converter.  If you have money to burn, you can use Sorenson Squeeze.  And if you prefer to go the cloud encoding route, both Zencoder and Encoding.com are good choices.

OK…after you have your videos in the 3 different formats (WebM, Ogg and H.264)…how do you embed HTML5 video in your web pages? This is actually the simplest part.  The code goes like this:

<video width="320" height="240" controls="controls">
  <source src="full url to your h.264/mp4 video" type='video/mp4' />
  <source src="full url to your ogg video" type='video/ogg' />
  <source src="full url to your webm video" type='video/webm' />
<video>

Pretty simple huh? You’d just take the above code and paste it in your web page (keeping in mind you need to change the “full url” listings to the actual full URL’s to your videos).  And you’d probably want to change the video width and height values.

Actually, there are more things you can do with HTML5 embed code, but we’re just keeping things simple here.  If you want to see the full array of commands you can use, click here.

Anyway, there are a couple big gotcha’s with HTML5 video.  First, you must create a video in each of the 3 formats…remember, different browsers require different versions of the same video.

For example, if you don’t make an H.264/MP4 version of your video, people using Apple mobile devices, Internet Explorer 9, Safari and a number of other browsers won’t be able to see your video.  Or if you don’t make an Ogg version of your video, people using Firefox won’t be able to watch your video.

Second, Internet Explorer versions 8 and older do not support HTML5 whatsoever.  Only Internet Explorer version 9 supports HTML5.  That means when someone using Internet Explorer 8, 7, 6, etc. tries to watch your HTML5 videos, they won’t see anything.

So what do you do about this issue (after all, a lot of people still use Internet Explorer 8)? You provide Flash fallback.  That means you tweak your HTML5 video embed code in such a way that if a viewer is using a browser that doesn’t support HTML5, the embed code will sense it and deliver the video using old-fashioned Flash.

Of course the next question is, how exactly do you do that? Well, there are lots of options.  One of the simplest (because they offer an embed code generator) is VideoJS.  With VideoJS, all you have to do is supply the URL’s to your files and click a button…they’ll give you HTML5 embed code, with Flash fallback…that you can simply copy and paste into your web pages.

And that’s all there really is to it.  Prepare your videos in the 3 formats (H.264/MP4, Ogg, WebM) and use a free service like VideoJS to build HTML5 embed code with Flash fallback for you.

But if you’re still confused about HTML5 and mobile video in general, check out our Mobile Video Made Simple course.  With it, you can master mobile/HTML5 video in about an hour…even if you’re a complete beginner.  It takes out all of the guesswork and makes mobile/HTML5 video as easy as connecting some dots.

Or to put it another way, Steve Jobs won this battle posthumously.  In fact, here’s the surprising and abrupt announcement from Adobe VP Danny Winokur “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively.  This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.”

A few of things to keep in mind about Adobe’s surprising decision.  First, Adobe will continue releasing bug and security patches for the most recent versions of the mobile Flash player.  They will not however, be developing any new or updated versions of the mobile Flash player.  Development on it is now dead.

Some mobile device manufacturers own a source code license for Flash player.  That means these individual companies can (and most likely will) develop their own custom versions of Flash player.  If you’re wondering why these companies would continue to cling to technology that the developer themselves is abandoning, remember that Flash support has been the main marketing pitch of iPad competitors.  And they’ll want to hang on to it as long as they can.

Finally, for web video producers, Adobe’s announcement doesn’t mean a whole lot.  Flash was abandoned long ago by video producers who wanted their videos to play on mobile devices…so if that’s you, you have no worries.

Pocket Light Meter

This app essentially turns your iPhone into a light meter that you can use for photos or video.  Of course real light meters are expensive, so don’t expect identical results from an app that ranges from free to $5.  And most cameras these days do an excellent job of metering light to begin with.  But a light meter can still be handy in situations when you’re working in bright light, low light or only care about the proper exposure of a persons face (while not caring about everything else in the shot).

Filmic Pro

This app is essentially a video Swiss army knife for the iPhone.  With it you can control focus areas, exposure and white balance.  It allows you to select variable frame rates, resolutions and you can meter audio with it.  Plus, as an added bonus, it also works as a clapperboard or film slate.  And when using it as a clapperboard/film slate, it offers syncing by both flash and sound.  Plus it allows you to not only upload your footage to the usual suspects like YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook, but you can upload to Dropbox or an FTP server too.  The only drawback?  It’s currently not available as it’s being updated for iOS5 (note: this post was written on October 28, 2011).

Softsign

This app would be the least used of the three; but it would also be the one you’re most thankful for having when the need arises.  What does it do?  Softsign offers a convenient, secure, green and legally binding way to sign and share PDF documents on your iPhone (or iPad).  Why would you need it for video?  Release forms.  You see, if you’re out in public shooting videos…and you capture some bystanders in your video…in most cases you must get their permission to appear in your video (ever seen a video where people’s faces are blurred out?  They didn’t sign release forms).  Or if you’ve hired a model or actor to appear in your video, same thing, you need to have them sign a release form.  But with all the stuff involved with producing videos, those pesky release forms can easily be forgotten.  This apps makes it simple, clean and convenient to get them digitally signed.

While the video itself isn’t exactly spectacular, his bosses reaction is amusing.  By the way, Marriott which owns the hotel chain where Joey worked wouldn’t exactly comment on the video.  They said the hotel is owned by a franchisee so it’s none of their biz-wax.  But expect similar videos to start pouring into YouTube:

But in case you still think printed media isn’t going anywhere, take a look at this video of a 1-year old.  It was taken by her father, a software engineer in Paris.  It shows the toddler first using an iPad…and then becoming confused when printed magazines don’t respond to finger swipes.  It’s a nice glimpse into the future: