Hasta La Gadget!

Opera’s no stranger to the mobile web, as it’s been building browsers for phones and tablets for years. Today, however, it’s revealing an all-new window to the web called Coast. Coast’s been constructed specifically for the iPad and seeks to make browsing the internet feel the same as using an app. What’s that mean? Well, for starters, a series of swipe-able home screens and a tile-based UI that makes all your favorite websites look like icons. Also, Coast wholly does away with browser chrome, instead showing just content, with only small home and history buttons residing beneath whatever page you’re viewing. Navigation forward and back’s accomplished by swiping, and a customizable search bar sits atop your favorites. Essentially, Coast aims to be simple to use and to deliver web content in an unobtrusive, elegant way.

When launched, Coast shows you a tiled grid of favorites, and you can set the number of tiles you see per screen (the default is nine). Adding a new site’s as easy as dragging and dropping it onto one of the home screens. Upon returning to home from a site, the icon tile of that last-visited page shows up beneath your favorites, so you can make it stick around permanently by sliding it up to join your other bookmarks. Coast also takes a page from the webOS playbook by providing your browsing history as a series of panes that are tapped for access or swiped upwards to be deleted. And, Opera has, of course, thought to secure the browser, too. Coast is backed by a security engine that constantly consults an online database of unsafe sites — stray into a nasty corner of the internet, and Coast strings police tape across the page and warns you of the danger. You can also view the security and reputation of any given site by tapping the history button, then swiping down from the bottom of the webpage to reveal such info. Want to know how Coast came to be? Join us after the break to find out.%Gallery-slideshow83434%

Filed under: Tablets, Internet, Software

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TiVo’s brand new Roamio platform is about to get a whole lot “appier” thanks to the introduction of Opera’s Devices SDK, and the addition of the Opera TV Store, a means through which developers can offer HTML5 web apps to TiVo device owners. The new partnership will also give developers an SDK to build TiVo-specific apps for an app store the over-the-top services provider plans to launch later this year.

TiVo’s Roamio platform launched just last week, via a new family of DVR hardware devices that improve considerably on the amount of content that can be recorded, and there’s a new feature coming that allows live and recorded content streaming, even out-of-home, thanks to an upcoming feature that’s going to be introduced via an update (hence the “roam” pun).

While most of the update was focused around the hardware — adding more tuners and more storage to improve the core DVR experience — TiVo also improved several of the onboard apps, making them faster and more responsive. According to TiVo VP of Product Marketing Jim Denney, some of that improvement comes from switching to the Opera Browser for those apps. The Netflix and YouTube apps in particular, both of which are built on Opera, are a lot faster to open and use.

Already, Roamio devices offer up access to some pre-installed apps including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, Spotify and more, and it consolidates content from all of the above in addition to cable services when you’re searching for shows. The introduction of the Opera TV store, which TiVo is aiming to deploy early next year, will bring a whole catalogue of new HTML5-based apps to the service, broadening the type of app-based content users have access to exponentially.

Opera’s TV Store is already available on millions of shipping devices, and the Opera Devices SDK made its way onto over 25 million connected TVs in 2012 alone. That means that TiVo customers will be getting access to a platform that’s already mature when the Opera Store goes live on its devices; there won’t be any waiting while a new store is set up and curate the way there would be if TiVo had started from scratch.

TiVo also contends that the partnership will help it more quickly introduce new and improved pre-loaded software to its set-top DVRs, since Opera has become a key partner for big brands and service providers that are making the switch to HTML5 in order to gain more presence on connected home entertainment platforms.

Access to Opera TV Store content is a big value-add that should help TiVo’s Roamio price tags look more attractive to users who might otherwise feel like a Roku or Apple TV device could fit their needs. And if TiVo and others suspect that Apple is preparing to make a fresh foray into the living room, as has been recently rumored by none other than our own contributor MG Siegler, building as full-featured an offering as possible definitely explains the push to build a software ecosystem.

Windows Phone owners if you’re looking for an alternative browser app for your smartphone, it looks like Opera Mini could be making its way onto the Windows Phone platform in the future. This was confirmed by the Opera team who stated that Opera Mini for Windows Phone is currently on their list, although when exactly will the app be developed and released remains to be seen. This was according to an email sent by the folks at WP-Hub where the Opera team replied by saying, “We are aware that a lot of Windows phone users like you would like to have an Opera browser on their phones. The engineering team at Opera has this on their list.We will announce it as soon as it is ready.”

“Unfortunately, we do not comment on timing. I can say one thing, as soon as the ability to release Opera Mobile/Mini for Windows Phone (SDK in this case) is available, we will immediately do it. That is a full SDK for developing in C, for which we could use an existing generic code written for all platforms. Not with the current SDK for the Windows Phone platform. As soon as it appears, we are porting Opera Mobile/Mini.” So Windows Phone users, what do you guys think? Is Opera Mobile/Mini a browser you would love to get on your Windows Phone device?

Opera Has Windows Phone In Their Sights original content from Ubergizmo.

Opera for Windows and Mac has exited beta, with the final version of the Chromium-based browser released. Previewed as Opera Next back in May, the new software was built from scratch, Opera says, on top of Google’s Chromium engine, and includes a new Speed Dial page for faster access to favorite sites, and the Discover

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Opera has launched a new version of its desktop browser, Opera Next, complete with the Chromium engine from Google’s portfolio. “Made from scratch” according to Opera, the new version features a redesigned Speed Dial interface with support for folders; shortcuts can be dragged and dropped on top of each other to instantly create a folder, and there’s a combined search box which merges in bookmarks too.

Other changes sees the new Discover feature added, which sifts through categorized topics – such as food, technology, or sport – and automatically pulls out content both global and localized on that theme.

The personalization element of the new features is part of a push by Opera to make the browser more focused for each user. Stash, another new addition, is basically a researching bookmark tool, clipping pages with a “heart” icon for easier recall later on. Opera expects it to be useful for shopping research or when planning a holiday, and Stash supports keyword search for easier filtering.

Opera Next demo:

It’s the underlying engine change which heralds the biggest alteration, however. The switch to Chromium previews Opera’s eventual plans to adopt Google’s Blink engine; even before that, the new version of Opera Next is said to be faster than ever before.

Off-Road, the “Opera Turbo” feature, has been fettled to support SPDY protocol, and now works with more sites, and the mail client has been cut out and will now be offered separately rather than bundled with the browser. That too has been revamped in line with Opera Next 15.

Versions of Opera Next are available for both Mac and Windows.

Opera Next browser released with Chromium engine under the hood is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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