Here is a free PHP script to convert the titles of a news feed to a PNG graphic for display in Google Lively. To display a news feed in Google Lively, go to the "Add object" button, search for "Picture Frame". Click on add to room and then edit properties. In Gadget Options place the url of the PHP script in the option box.

The script can then be hosted on a web server where it can pull down the latest stories and update the PNG image accordingly.

The first idea is of course not to reinvent the wheel and search for an already-made solution. I had to find a really good way to extract information from a SWF file. I had two trivial ways to go : (a) find an already-made SWF Header Extractor, or (b) work at the binary level.

At first, of course, I turned to the PHP documentation (http://www.php.net/manual/en/) and found out the LibSWF and Ming libraries as candidates.

Of course, the code is provided for his solution, and it's actually quite simple. The class does the hard work of mapping out the data from the Flash file's header. All he needed to do was to reference that value in the result under the 'fps' array key.