This article is more than 1 year old

Opera releases 6.0 for Linux, supports Symbian Magpie

Really, the Magpie one's more interesting...

Opera Software announcements tend to hunt in packs, and this week is a prime example; in fact, we've got enough to be able to do a roundup. Heading the lineup today we have the release of Opera 6.0 for Linux, closely followed by 6.02 for Windows. These arrived before we'd even got around to writing up yesterday's announcement of Opera support for Symbian's Magpie (although we actually think that's more interesting).

6.0 for Linux has been going through betas and previews for some time, so should be pretty familiar to the Linux community. The salient features, according to Opera, include added support for non-Roman alphabets, marking Opera's first foray into Asian desktop Linux. Localised versions for Chinese and Japanese are planned, and you can download it here.

As far as 6.02 for Windows is concerned, the changes seem mainly minor fixes and upgrades. You can check the changelog here, but the main additions are the addition of eBay and Download.com in the integrated search box, and an SMS panel which is currently only operational in Norway. But they're working for SMS from the browser for other countries.

But as we say, the Magpie support is most interesting. Magpie is a technology aimed at delivering the right information to mobile phone users in the right context, at the right time. Magpie routes this content via a content manager within the phone (or appliance, or whatever) first, and then makes it available to relevant applications. This makes it simpler for dynamically updated data to appear in a number of applications, for applications to be blurred together (e.g., weather reports in your calendar may be more relevant to you than in your browser), and for relevant mixes of data to be foregrounded, while the app (including the browser) kind of disappears.

Opera's support for Magpie consists of Opera's Symiban OS browser being designed to be used as a component within other applications, so while yes, it does disappear, what it's doing is facilitating the display of web and WAP content within those applications. Magpie itself is intriguing, but has barely been mentioned in the press so far. Lots more detail is however available at the Symbian site, here.

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like