A to the d flashy fiddler, Adobe Systems has now let loose a public beta version of the upcoming Flash Player 10. The new software, codenamed Astro, comes with enhanced control over device font attributes plus it adds support for custom filters and effects, native 3D transformation and animation, extensible rich text layout and GPU hardware acceleration.

"Adobe has a long track record of creating technologies that influence market direction and we believe this beta release of Adobe Flash Player 10 raises the bar once again," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "One of the best things about the creative features now available in Adobe Flash Player 10 beta is that they won't slow down performance," added Grant Skinner, CEO and chief architect of gskinner.com. "With Flash Player 10 beta, developers can enable SWF content to render through the memory bandwidth and computational horsepower of the GPU hardware processor, freeing up the CPU to do more - such as render 3D content and intricate effects, and process complex business logic. No other browser runtime has these capabilities."

The updates included in Flash Player 10 will also be incorporated in future version of Adobe AIR but for now, the public beta is all we get. The Flash Player 10 preview version can now be downloaded from this little page.