Opera to launch new browser toolkit for game machines, TVs

At CES, Opera is launching a new edition of its toolkit for building browsers that run on gaming machines, set-top boxes, and other places beyond garden variety PC and cell phone environments.

The "Devices" toolkit -- already used for Nintendo's Wii -- now allows for development of mini-browsers with complete Internet capabilities.

Eariler versions of Opera Devices SDK 9.7 have been used to create browsers for Nintendo's Wii and a Sony Bravia TV, said an Opera official, talking with Betanews last night at a Pepcom-sponsored CES press preview here.

A number of other PC-based browsers, such as Google's Android, are now starting to migrate toward cell phones, he noted.

But otherwise, in terms of makers of standards-based browsers, Opera has the field totally to itself in the device market, Betanews was told. "Manufacturers really have two choices: us or a proprietary browser," he elaborated.

Opera Devices SDK 9.7 is based on the same Presto rendering engine as the Opera desktop and mobile browsers, letting developers create mini-browsers that can access the full Internet, he said.

The new kit also adds a module that allows developers to get the full benefits of Opera Dragonfly tools for easier development and debugging.

Through support for Opera Binary Markup Language (OBML), another new capability, developers will able to compress Web pages up to 90%, reduce bandwidth, and speed up browsing even on "limited device hardware," he maintained.