I'd been aware of the Adobe Integrated Runtime, previously known as Apollo for some time but it wasn't until seeing some demos of at a recent Adobe roadshow that it's true potential hit me and fell head over heels for it! If you're not familiar with it's like a light-weight virtual machine (like Java) so the code can run on any platform can run the virtual machine but unlike Java, it doesn't have it's own language - rather it adds extensions to Flash and Javascript allowing existing web-technologies like Ajax and Flex to be easily converted into local applications - with all the added benefits of local apps like reading/writing local files, access to the clipboard, dragging objects between the application and the desktop and various other cool things. I'm currently teaching myself it and looking at how it can be used at my work (and then how it can used for writing games at home!) so don't have much to say about it at the moment other than it's a very, very exciting technology and I think in the next few months we'll really start to see it's true potential coming to light.

Was recently at the Adobe On Air tour when it stopped at London, a lot of very exciting stuff on show - and hopefully very soon I be able to start rolling some it out with new products at work!