Oslo, Norway – September 5, 2006
Opera Software today announced that Opera 9 for Devices is now available to bring the power of the Web to set-top boxes, portable media players, games consoles and other electronic devices. With the latest in Web technology, Opera 9 for Devices delivers a fast and feature-rich Web experience, and includes expanded standards support and Widgets.
Always up to speed with Opera 9 for Desktop and Mobile, Opera 9 for Devices features improved performance and Website compatibility and is already pre-ported to popular device platforms. This allows for easy integration of the browser and reduces time-to-market.
Opera 9 for Devices also brings increasingly popular Web based Widgets to device platforms. OEMs and operators now have a unique way to offer new Internet services, give users more control and utilize existing content differently with the help of these fun, small and useful Web applications. Widgets run outside of the browser on the device’s main interface and can be launched and managed with a single click.
“Opera 9 for Devices takes advantage of all that the Web has to offer, pushing it beyond Web surfing into a powerful user interface and application platform for devices of all kinds,” says Scott Hedrick, Executive Vice President, Opera Software. “We are particularly proud of our support for Widgets. We see Widgets as new revenue source for OEMs and operators, allowing them to offer new Web-based services that add value for their customers.”
In addition to bringing the full Internet to devices, Opera 9 for Devices serves as a powerful execution environment for AJAX, Web applications and dynamic user interfaces. With Opera’s Extensible Rendering Architecture, Internet pages are smartly adapted to suit the screen of the device in use. Easily customizable with Opera’s well-documented APIs, Opera 9 for Devices is also a powerful tool for device manufacturers looking for a superior Web experience.
Feature highlights
Added Web technology support
Opera 9 for Devices features some of the latest Web technology including advanced support for AJAX-based applications. In addition, Opera 9 for Devices improves on its industry-leading standards compliance with added support for Webforms 2.0, Xpath, partial support for CSS 3 including opacity, media queries and selectors, Canvas and SVG 1.1 Basic.
Widgets for devices
With Opera 9, Widgets can now be delivered to any device and enable new business models for operators and manufacturers. Packaged as small Web applications, Widgets can be developed using Web technology.
Supporting JavaScript and native applications
New JavaScript objects and methods can be created with Opera’s native JavaScript extensions. JavaScript can also be used to change TV channels or adjust the volume on a set-top box, for example.
Plug-ins
The Adobe Flash Player 7, the most current version available for the devices market, can be quickly ported to devices with Opera’s Netscape Plug-in API.
Ready for the world
Opera 9 offers full support for Unicode, proprietary character encodings and Bi-Directional scripts.
Availability
Request Opera 9 for Devices at http://www.opera.com/devices.
About Opera for Devices
Opera provides an optimized implementation of Internet technologies for handheld devices, digital TV and other devices, with innovative and powerful features that seamlessly adapt the Internet experience to suit varying screen sizes and input devices. In addition to being a full Internet browser, Opera is a high performance execution environment for Web applications and dynamic user interfaces based on interoperable open Web technologies such as AJAX.
http://www.opera.com/devices/