Based on Opera's reports of their new JavaScript engine, Caraken, being "7x faster" than the standard Futhark engine built into Opera 10.10, we ran it through Mozilla's Dromaeo JavaScript tests, which combine Apple's SunSpider and Google's V8 JavaScript benchmarks. Pure runs-per-second speed isn't everything, of course, and engines can be built specifically to max out in these kinds of tests. That said, the results of Opera 10.5, rolled into our last round of browser speed tests, were more than a little impressive, using Dromaeo as a measuring stick:

The chart up top is pulled from our most recent speed tests, with Opera 10.5 pre-alpha results rolled in. It shows some, shall we say, notable improvement. The gHacks blog put 10.5 against Firefox 3.6 beta and Chrome's development build in the SunSpider and V8 tests and found that Opera either beat, or came very close to, Chrome, in those separate runs, and usually left Firefox in the dust. We'll have to put Opera 10.5 through its full paces when it's out of its very unstable build.

If you're the adventurous type and do want to give the pre-alpha a try, you'll also find improvements to the page rendering engine, new Private Browsing tabs and windows that don't track any history, and some interface and visual design tweaks, detailed in the post below. The big JavaScript improvements aren't as pronounced on the Mac build as on Windows, according to the development team, but are still there.

Opera 10.5 pre-alpha is a free download for Windows and Mac systems. Tell us if you think there's some real speed-ups in this build, and what else you like, in the comments.

Opera has announced that it's offering Opera Mobile to OEMs—the people who actually make your phones—to replace, or ship alongside, Android default browser. This is very different from Opera Mini, which has been in the Android Market for months now: Opera Mini is a Java-based browser originally intended for dumbphones, which isn't that great; Opera Mobile, on the other hand, is a full, extremely capable browser, which has long been Windows Mobile's answer to the likes of Mobile Safari and Mobile Chrome.

If the Android version is anything like the Windows Mobile versions of late—and it looks like it is—this is worth getting excited about. It's based on a completely different rendering engine than Android's default browser, supports server-side page compression for faster loading, and has too many useful small features to list, making it the first genuine competing browser on the platform—the others, like Steel and Dolphin, are just variations on the default browser.

The only hangup is that as of now the browser is only available to OEMs, meaning that it wil come with some new phones, but won't be listed in the Android Market, at least for now. We'll have to leave it up to the likes of XDA and Modaco to make it more broadly available, which, let's face it Opera, they totally will. [TechCrunch]

Considering this thing will contain "every conceivable luxury," fording the river seems a little dangerous. I wouldn't want to ruin those gorgeous hardwood floors, the motorized beds, or all the wine I'd have stored in this thing's wine cabinet. Yeah, I'd probably float it.

And c'mon Axel Enthoven. You say you took your design cues from the Sydney Opera House, but we all know you're just trying to live your grade school dream: taking a covered wagon across the Oregon Trail. In style. [Axel Enthoven via Dezeen, Likecool via Dvice]

No, it's not Explorer. Originally, Microsoft wanted to order browsers from left to right in order of market share. That meant Explorer was going to go first, then Firefox, then Safari, Opera, and Google's Chrome. The EU objected, so Microsoft complied and offered a very reasonable solution: Alphabetical order.

That puts Apple Safari in the number one position, followed by Google Chrome, Microsoft Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Looks good enough to me, but Jenny Boriss—a Firefox user experience designer—disagrees:

This ordering is about the worst option possible. Microsoft wrote in their proposal that 'nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen and the presentation of competing web browsers will express a bias for a Microsoft web browser or any other web browser,' but this is exactly what the current design does. Windows users presented with the current design will tend to make only two choices: IE because they are familiar with it, or Safari because it is the first item.

The disproportionate advantage to Safari is what really makes this design poor," she said, citing several studies that claim first position in a ballot gives an advantage, in part because Western voters scan from upper left to lower right when they read.

She goes on and on and on about this, but her basic message is: If Firefox is not first, this design is BAD. She timidly proposes a random order every time the selection screen opens, but she argues that this is bad because "unfortunately does not provide users with any information about what browsers are preferred" (according to who, Jenny? Maybe user would prefer Safari over Firefox—I know I do. Or maybe they would prefer Chrome if they could try it, as it seems to be a lot faster than Firefox).

Then she shows her true colors, proposing the order according to market share—what Microsoft proposed—but excluding Explorer from that ordering and leaving it to the last position. Wouldn't that be unfairly helping Firefox and putting Safari, Chrome, and Opera in a bad position? And why discriminate Microsoft Explorer too?

Finally, she also proposes probability ordering by market share excluding Internet Explorer, which again gives Firefox the advantage over the rest 50% of the time.

In other words, Microsoft and the EU should help Firefox to become the new monopolistic browser, no matter what. Jenny, please: Stop. Saying. Words. [Boriss' Blog via Computer World]

The idea is to mirror the desktop version as much as possible. Open a new tab and you'll see the visual speed dial thumbnails, which you can also customize based on your browsing history. The new version can also be set to store login details on your phone.

As with Opera 4.2, YouTube videos will play via your phone's native media player, and there's still no Flash support. What also sucks: This beta won't support Skins and Opera Link, though both should be reintroduced as development continues.
[Opera: Full Website | Mobile version]

Seeing as most of the time spent on a laptop is spent online, AnandTech ran exhuastive tests on Windows machines, Intel and AMD, netbook and notebook, to see if switching browsers makes any difference in battery life. And hey, it does! In some tests, there was a 30% advantage between the worst browser—always Safari—and the best—Internet Explorer 8. Seriously.

In fact, Microsoft's browser came in front across the board, even inching out Firefox with Adblock by a few percent. It's hard to say why IE8 is so power-thrifty, but the most processor-intensive operations a browser does outside of running Flash content are in rendering Javascript, which IE8 kind of sucks at. So, mystery solved, maybe! Firefox, Chrome and to a lesser extent Opera held up fine, but depending on what kind of laptop you're running, and how willing you are to ditch your browser, there are quite a few sweet battery minutes up for grabs here. Full breakdown at [AnandTech]

The deal, according to ElectricPig, is as follows: If you never dropped those 500 Wii Points on access to the Internet Channel, you can now download it for free. If you for whatever reason had, you're entitled to free access to "a Virtual Console NES title worth 500 points," which, despite the vague phraseology, is pegged with an October release date. In other words, it's a specific game, instead of a simple 500-point credit, or at least a range of titles.

To be fair, they didn't have to give users anything, and no matter how marginally useful the browser is, whenever it was free—like at launch—it felt like a nice value add. [ElectricPig via Kotaku]

The latest build was missing Flash and Gears, but Opera Turbo—speedier page loading with some help from Opera's servers was there. Hopefully it'll have the other two in place by the time it hits Android, which is in the works, confirms Opera's CEO, where it should provide some decent competition to the default WebKit browser, which is already pretty damn good. [App Scout]

Unite is somewhere between a personal web server and a file sharing application, technologically and conceptually. The interface is straightforward, divided into panels for each service that you choose to "host." All of them behave in the same stupid-simple way: you start a service, whether it be photo sharing, music streaming, web hosting, or straight file sharing, select a shared directory, set your privacy preferences and go. There are also hosted chat services, and "Fridge," which is a—you guessed it—hosted quasi-Facebook wall for other Opera users to drop notes on.

Even at this early stage you can find a lot of shared content to explore, including plenty of publicly streamable music, which will almost certainly cause Opera problems even though, strictly speaking, they're not doingthe streaming. There's no video service for now, but Unite is extensible, meaning that anyone can design a plugin to add to the program's default file-serving capabilities.

Opera is proud of the fact that Unite runs against the tide of most new web services, opting for client-side content hosting over cloud-based solutions—so proud, in fact, that they're able to repeatedly, straight-facedly describe Unite as a "Web 5.0" product, which is a bit rich considering it's essentially a collection of services that have been available for years, albeit never in such a simple or consolidated way. As a convenient tool for sharing large amounts of content, I get it. As a game-changer? I'm not so sure.

Try it out for yourself: a technical preview of Opera Unite is available for download here. [Opera]

Opera plainly states in the release notes that this is an early build of the browser, which means a few features are missing, the most conspicuous being full Flash and Google Gears support. But what what about regular browsing?

With compression on, it's fast. The full NYT homepage, images and all, loaded in 10 7 seconds flat over 3G. Formatting is basically unaffected by the optimization, and the sacrifice in image quality is, while noticeable, not that bad. With compression on, though, the browser is crashy, occasionally poopin' the bed when directed to more complicated sites, like Giz.

There are other issues, like near-total lack of support for nonstandard software keyboards in Windows Mobile, and a broken rotation function. But it's a beta, and so far, so good—if 9.7 turns out as good as it sounds like—and now, looks like—it will, it'll give Skyfire a run for its money and/or debilitating kick in the junk.
[Opera]

The thing is, as ridiculous as the peripheral may be, it felt pretty great in my hands. The back is shaped similar to an Xbox 360 controller (complete with triggers for the Wii's A & B buttons), so you can type on the large, split QWERTY with relative ease. I'm not sure the I'd use it to browse the web on the Wii, but then again, I'd probably never browse the web on the Wii in the first place. No word yet on pricing or availability.

It should make browsing on slow cellular and/or modem connections much more palatable, the trade-off being that image content looks like ass, as demonstrated in the above screengrab. [Opera via Pocket Lint]

Attaching to the Nyko Wand (the Wiimote is semi-incompatible because it lacks Nyko's proprietary Trans-Port Technology), the Type Pad Pro transforms an ordinary Nintendo controller into a testicularly spaceshippy full QWERTY keyboard. Through Trans-Port communication, the A and B buttons on the Wand are relocated to the Type Pad while the pad itself integrates with the Wii through a wireless USB dongle. (Yeah, it's a tad confusing. Basically, the pad is incapable of piggybacking its signal onto the Wand's.)

The result is a QWERTY keyboard capable of surfing the internet on the Wii. The other result is the zaniest but most ambitious Wii peripheral we've seen this side of Nyko's unreleased Party Station.

There's a mad, mad man at the helm of Nyko's design team. And we really want to go drinking with him.

(Please, allow me to ramble for five minutes.)

While I'm sure this space age version is amazing, Chuck Jones' parody—which also nails Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain and chops it to bits—is without a doubt the best interpretation ever released this side of Apocalypse Now helicopter attack. Not strangely, it has been considered repeatedly as the best cartoon of all time by critics and animators since it was released in 1957. If you having seen it yet—or if you can't remember it—enjoy:

Watching it, you can clearly see why it's the be all end all of comedy cartoons—and drama too. Like Chuck Jones said many times, people actually teared up when they saw the ending. It's certainly my favorite, along with some of the craziest Roadrunners and Daffy Duck's classic movie genres parodies, all masterpieces of comedy and movie making.

But if you are in LA and still insist in watching tenor Plácido Domingo playing Elmer J. Fudd dressed up as a neon Darth Vader in the real The Valkyrie, you can do so at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion for the rest of the week.

Or you can spare yourself the pain and see some images right here. [Beautiful Decay]

* Woody Allen dixit.

The in-dash computer has a wireless keyboard and mouse, a 6.5 inch touchscreen. No word on screen res or if the kb and mouse can be swapped with a media center type model for easier lap usage. The setup has 4GB of memory, and a stylus for the touchscreen. It can even output via bluetooth to an optional battery powered printer.

You've got all these upscale marquees, like Lexus, and Audi and BMW and ok, Acura who haven't done it. Never mind the Astons and Ferraris of the world. And none of them can keep up with Ford. Ford is clearly kicking ass in the tech department.

Do we need this kind of thing with the rise of smart phones? Will car computers die like car phones before they've ever born? I hope not, because of the inherent advantages to heavy car integration. Imagine car telemetry, and more advanced connected GPS and media library sharing with the home, as well as road worthy friend finding functions. Stuff like this is best done when fully installed in the vehicle.

Nevermind that this tech will make your car a totally unsafe place to drive, because you are browsing
Fleshbot instead of driving. I mean, the Explorer roll over issues are going to look like child games after this. But I wouldn't say no. Update: For safety, the system only works when the car is not in motion.

April 2, 2009 – Mountain View, CA and Las Vegas, NV –

Owners of Ford F-150, Super Duty, E-Series and Transit Connect trucks and vans will now be able to access the full Web from the convenience of their vehicles, thanks to Opera and Ford Work Solutions. Opera will be the featured browser on Ford's industry-first, broadband-capable, in-dash computer.

With this technology, truck and van owners (contractors, farmers, construction workers, business owners, etc.) will be able to use the in-dash Opera browser to access essential information and applications including sales information, contact databases, job-site plans, inventory lists, calendars, e-mail, or even the weather. The in-dash computer, combined with the Opera browser, Bluetooth printing capabilities, and other features transform Ford's new lineup of trucks and vans into true mobile offices.

"Opera's vision has always been about giving people access to the full Web anytime, anywhere," explains Rod Hamlin, Senior Vice President Americas for Opera Software. "No example showcases this better than delivering a fast, feature-rich Web browser to a vehicle. This solution will allow Ford truck and van owners to maintain a virtual work environment with access to all of the important files, information and applications they need on a daily basis. "

Ford Work Solutions is a collection of factory-installed affordable technologies-including "smart" features that provide full Internet connectivity, tool/inventory tracking, remote computer access, fleet management telematics and security to support Ford customers with mobile office and business needs, even on the job site.

The Ford Work Solutions in-dash computer is integrated into the vehicle's center stack, filling the same space normally occupied by the standard radio. It is equipped with a 6.5-inch, high-resolution touch screen, four gigabytes of memory, a secure digital slot for added memory, a USB port and a wireless keyboard and mouse. A stylus, stored next to the CD slot, is included for use on the touch screen, as well as an available Ford-certified, on-board, Bluetooth-enabled, battery-powered inkjet printer.

All four Ford Work Solutions technologies, including the Opera browser, are available on the new 2009 Ford F-150 XL, STX, XLT trucks; F-Series Super Duty XL, XLT and FX4 trucks; and all 2009 E-Series vans. The 2010 Transit Connect van joins the lineup in mid-2009 and will be available with Ford Work Solutions in-dash offerings.

For more information, visit www.fordworksolutions.com.

To see Opera in action on the in-dash computer, click on the "In-Dash Computer" link and then press "play" on the video (Opera, 1min, 38sec).

How's that, exactly? For one, Flash Lite will be supported, opening up a plethora of previously inaccessible streaming video sites. Google Gears will provide offline Google web apps and better performance, competing with the upcoming Offline Gmail feature bound for WebKit-based browsers. OpenGL ES hardware acceleration will add a missing fluidity to movements, assuming your phone has 3D hardware and drivers (like most HTC handsets). Most importantly, 9.7 will have the option to connect to Opera Turbo, the content compression service used in Opera Mini, which does a lot to knock down loading times for a small sacrifice in image quality.

Fans of Skyfire might notice that these features—excluding Gears—are all available on their browser already. True! But one thing isn't: proper VGA and WVGA support, which prevents it from being usable on every desirable Windows Mobile phone, period. So basically, this is very good news. [Opera Mobile via Information Week]

[Opera via Joystiq]

Changes for this release:

1. added JSR-75 (File API) support which gives access to the SD card for
uploading and downloading and also the possibility to save pages locally
2. added support for video playback (Opera Mini hands over to the
operating system video player)
3. double tap works for zoom/unzoom
4. use of inline url entry instead of native textbox
5. fixed password text entry to show hidden characters
6. fixed problems with exiting application when back button was pressed
7. Improved trackball speed.
8. Using Extra Large font in the builtin pages.

+ many small tweaks and fixes

[Opera]

This IE 8 release candidate is said to be feauture complete, which is to say that we should expect anything significant to be added before the final version ships. Most of what we were expecting is still present, and refined: the porn mo—err, InPrivate, a refreshed interface, stronger find functions, full keyboard navigation and adaptive zoom. Not present, however, are significant increases in Javascript rendering speed or CSS compatibility, areas in which even this mature version of IE 8 was handily beaten by current Firefox and Chrome builds.

Still, the browser looks to be a solid step forward, and despite the one-step-behind spec sheet, aging code base, and TGDaily's convincing assertion that IE 8 won't be able to slow the erosion of Microsoft's browser market share, will provide welcome improvements for that giant, stubborn chunk of the population that just uses whatever their eMachine shipped with. [TGDaily]