AIR Moving Beyond the Desktop with Merapi

AIR has provided the ability to move outside the browser, but the new Merapi project enables AIR to move outside of the desktop. In short, Merapi enables AIR to interact with Java. Here is some info from the Merapi site:

With a light weight and straightforward API, developers can leverage the OS by writing Java companion applications for their AIR™ applications. Java programs treat Merapi as a bridge to the running Adobe AIR™ application and vice-versa.

Developers can build their Flex, Flash and AJAX applications for Adobe AIR™, and use Merapi to make them do things that AIR just can’t do by itself.

What Can This Do?

So what can this accomplish? An example is probably far more compelling than a paragraph. Let me introduce the AIR controlled robot:

Working With Merapi

If you are curious how Merapi works, you can check out this video to see some sample Merapi code in action: