Full desktop web-browsing experience on mobile

Norway's Opera Software is set to develop a version of its Opera 9.5 Web browser optimised for Nvidia's forthcoming mobile Tegra processor, with the first handheld devices using the browser due sometime in 2009.

The press announcement this week reads: "NVIDIA Corporation and Opera Software are collaborating to bring the full desktop Web-browsing experience, including support for JavaScript, accelerated vector, and video content, to smartphones and mobile Internet devices.

Full internet on the go

"As a result, NVIDIA will offer an optimised Opera 9.5 browser in its suite of pre-integrated, in-house and third-party software for the NVIDIA Tegra family of computer-on-chip Windows Mobile and Windows CE solutions."

Opera 9.5 and Nvidia Tegra is set to deliver the 'full web browsing' experience into your hand, according to Neil Trevett, vice president of mobile content at NVIDIA.

"Opera and NVIDIA are cooperating to create a powerful browsing experience that will truly make the Internet an integral part of the advanced Tegra mobile visual computing experience," claims Trevett.

Compelling browsing

The Tegra processor, in conjuction with Opera 9.5, promises to deliver a "compelling browsing experience" featuring:

• Support for full desktop Web content with hardware-accelerated rich media, image and in-page video playback
• GPU acceleration delivering a smooth, highly-interactive panning and zooming browsing experience with significantly-reduced battery consumption
• Hardware-accelerated 3D touch browsing experience with Opera integration into NVIDIA's OpenKODE(tm)-based composition framework using the power of OpenGL(r) ES 2.0.

Nvidia's Tegra is going to be going up against Intel's Atom, with Intel also pushing to get its low-power chips into smart phones and other handheld devices.