Scooopy – Scoops about Gadget, Mobile & Technology
Posts tagged Windows Mobile
Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 is now available
Dec 15th
Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 is the next generation of mobile browsing which runs on almost every phone.
Top new features
Tabbed browsing
Browse several Web sites at the same time, while easily jumping from one to another.
Speed Dial
Get to your favorite Web page with just one click, with a set of visual bookmarks when you open a new tab.
Opera Link
Synchronize your bookmarks and Speed Dial between your mobile phone and desktop computer.
Download manager
Manage downloads right from the browser. Pause and resume downloads to suit your needs.
Feature details
Innovative and easy-to-use
1Living up to our vision of providing the best Internet experience on any device, Opera Mini 5 boasts a powerful new user interface. Merging the best from our desktop browser together with new innovations for mobile phones, Opera Mini is advanced, yet highly intuitive to use.
Faster
Time is precious. Opera Mini compresses pages by up to 90% before being sent to your phone, meaning faster page-load times than in other mobile Web browsers.
Full Web in your palm
2When visiting a Web page, Opera Mini displays the overview of the page and suggests where to begin your reading before you zoom in. Opera Mini also detects when you are on a Web page designed for a mobile phone and displays it optimally.
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Full Web in your palm
Page zoom
Control default text size on Web sites. Depending on your mobile phone screen size, often text can be too small or too large to be viewed easily. Control the default zoom level from 60% to 200% directly in Opera Mini 5.
Built for speed
The new Opera Mini lets you search for text within a Web page, so you can get to the information you need even more quickly than before.
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Innovative and easy-to-use
Speed Dial
Get your favorite Web page with just one click. Speed Dial is a set of visual bookmarks you see when you open a new tab, like a dashboard for your online life. To add a new page, simply click an empty dial, and Opera will make suggestions based on your browsing history and bookmarks.
Mobile view
Fit content to your mobile phone. Mobile view intelligently reformats Web pages into a single column eliminating the need for horizontal panning. Changing to Mobile view is accessible though the Settings menu.
Password Manager
4There is no more hassle with those hard-to-enter usernames and passwords. Opera Mini 5 will remember your credentials, and you can log on to your favorite Web sites with just a single click. The passwords are stored on your phone for your convenience.
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Password Manager
Tabbed browsing
Browse several Web sites at the same time. Check your e-mail in one window, Facebook in another and, Twitter in a third, all while being able to jump easily from one tab to another. With a touchscreen phone, you can enjoy even easier tab switching with visual tabs. On keypad-style phones easily mange desktop-style tabs in the Opera Mini user interface, above the address bar.
Power scrolling
Scroll at warp speed using your phone keypad or by dragging the page on a phone with a touchscreen.
Touch and keypad
3The user interface has been designed for both touchscreen- and keypad-style mobile phones. With a touchscreen, you can enjoy even easier navigation with our new zooming and kinetic scrolling.
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Touch and keypad
Adaptive zoom
On a touchscreen phone panning has become even easier with adaptive zoom. When panning quickly around a zoomed-in page the panning momentum creates a more intuitive and easier to-navigate experience.
Landscape mode
Browse in the way that is most comfortable to you. Landscape mode allows you to view Opera Mini 5 on your phone in landscape.
Download Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 to your mobile phone
To try Opera Mini 5 beta 2 visit the address m.opera.com/next, using your phone’s default Web browser, or download it to your computer. It is completely free.
The Differences between Opera Mobile 10 and Opera Mini 5
Dec 5th
We get quite a few questions about the difference between Opera Mobile 10 and Opera Mini 5. This post will attempt to clarify.
NB! Unless you have a Windows Mobile or Symbian/S60 phone, Opera Mobile is not available for you to download to your phone. Enjoy Opera Mini!
First, here is what they have in common:
- Both are based on the same core technology, the Opera Presto browser engine (just like Opera for desktop).
- Both use the same cross-platform user interface, providing similar features and browsing experience.
And the difference:
- In Opera Mini, the Opera Presto browser engine is located on a server. In Opera Mobile, it is installed on your phone.
When you enter a Web address in Opera Mobile, the Web page is fetched directly from the Web server to your phone. However, the Opera Mini client sends a request to the Opera Mini server, which downloads the page from the Internet. The server then transcodes the page before it is forwarded to the client in a lightweight mark-up language designed specifically for this purpose.
The advantage is that the Opera Mini client can be much smaller and work on more basic phones than the full Opera Mobile browser.
On the other hand, Opera Mini depends on a server while Opera Mobile does not. (Opera Turbo is an optional service for Opera Mobile that compresses Web pages and makes it cheaper to browse, but it is not required).
In practical terms, here is what that means for you:
- Opera Mobile will render Web pages just like a desktop browser. In Opera Mini, there may be slight differences, and very complex Web pages may not work optimally.
- Opera Mini will generally be faster. It downloads less content and requires less CPU to render pages.
- Opera Mini works on almost any phone. Opera Mobile is only available for Windows Mobile and Symbian/S60 phones.
Which product is best for you depends on your personal preferences and the sites you browse. Many advanced users will have both browsers installed and alternate depending on the situation. For example, they will use Opera Mobile when on Wi-Fi, Opera Mini when on a cellular network.
Another reason why Opera Software has both products in the portfolio is that many of our operator and handset manufacturer customers have very specific requirements. The differences between the products may be extremely important to them. For example, Opera Mobile is generally preferred by handset manufacturers for preinstallation on mobile phones.
Connectify turns Windows 7 based Laptop or Notebook into Wi-Fi Hotspots
Dec 2nd
Few years ago a little-known feature called Virtual Wi-Fi was crafted by Microsoft‘s research group as a way to “virtualize” one wireless card as several separate adapters in Windows. The project was discontinued in 2006, but some of the code apparently made its way into Windows 7, and now at least one company is taking advantage of it with a new application that can turn any laptop into a wireless access point.
Developed by military consulting firm Nomadio, Connectify lets a laptop “tether” other wireless devices to a single internet connection by effectively turning it into a software-based wireless router. Windows 7 is required on the notebook acting as a wireless hotspot, but any wireless-equipped device, including handhelds and other notebooks running whatever operating system can jump online without any additional software. The program even encrypts traffic to and from the software hotspot using WPA2-Personal (AES) encryption.
While the Connectify beta is free to download, Nomadio expects to charge users once the complete version is released in about six weeks. A free, ad-supported version might also be released down the road.
Microsoft Rolls Out Marketplaces for Mobiles
Nov 24th
Jamie Wells of MSFT just made a blog post about Microsoft’s Marketplaces for Mobile.
Here is the brief of that post:
Earlier in the month we rolled out “Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces,” a new mobile ad product that illustrates the performance advantage gained by combining the power of mobile search and display.
We launched the Marketplace to a select group of advertisers during the critical holiday shopping season, when consumers often are on the go and pressed for time. So far, we’ve launched Marketplaces for Ringtones, and additional Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces are already in the works, including Holiday Shopping, Mobile Games and Wallpapers slated for release in the coming days.
Here’s how Marketplaces work: A user browsing a Microsoft mobile media property, such as Mobile MSN, Hotmail, Messenger, CNBC or FOX Sports, is presented with a display ad promoting a specific consumer product vertical, such as “Last Minute Holiday Deals” or “Hot Ringtones.” When the user clicks on a mobile display banner they are then re-directed to a mobile landing page that contains a list of sponsored links from Bing for Mobile that are based on the specific theme or set of keywords associated with that Marketplace.
In effect, the Mobile Marketplace acts as a transformational mobile ad product, converting a generally reactive medium like mobile display into a more intent-based mobile search product. Benefits to the advertiser are many, but two of note are cost savings and ease of implementation. Advertisers are able to increase their ROI by extending their mobile search campaign across key Microsoft Mobile display properties, and it’s simple to implement – advertisers can participate in the Marketplace simply by setting up a typical Bing for Mobile ad campaign and bidding on just one keyword.
The early results are in and we’re off to a great start. Average Marketplace campaign click-through rates (CTR) are currently running in excess of 20 percent, which is over five times more than the average CTR for a mobile search campaign.
Stay tuned as we launch additional Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces over the next few months. In the meantime, please contact our Mobile Sales Specialists at mobads@microsoft.com if you are interested in participating. Also, leave a comment below if you have any thoughts on specific Mobile Marketplaces you’d like to see brought to life, or if you have any additional thoughts you’d like to share on this new product.
Opera Mobile 10 Beta Released for Windows Mobile Phones
Nov 23rd
This version for Windows Mobile users elevates mobile browsing to a desktop-like experience, helping people to search, socialize and stay connected while on-the-go.
The Opera Mobile 10 beta for Windows Mobile looks and feels similar to the Opera 10 desktop browser and Opera Mini 5 beta. Opera is creating more cohesion between its products by introducing a unified look across many of its platforms. Opera maintains its powerful arsenal of features in this beta, including Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, a password manager and its super, server-side compressor, Opera Turbo.
Read more and get to know all the techy details on our mobile pages.
If you don’t care about that, download Opera Mobile 10 Beta for Windows Mobile phones.
Opera Mobile 10 Beta works on both Classic and Professional editions of Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Mobile 6.1, Windows Mobile 6.0 and on Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC.
Devices tested: Acer N311, HTC Touch 2, HTC Touch Pro 2 (Rhodium), HTC Touch Diamond 2, HTC Touch HD, HTC Pure, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch Viva, HTC Touch 3G, HTC Touch, HTC Tilt 2, HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Touch Cruise 2 (Iolite), HTC TyTn II, HTC TyTn, HTC Touch Pro (Raphael), Motorola Attila (A3100), Oki C4, Samsung Omnia i900, Samsung Omina II, Samsung SWD-M100, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, Toshiba Portege, Toshiba TG01, Xda Zest.
Devices tested: Acer N311, HTC Touch 2, HTC Touch Pro 2 (Rhodium), HTC Touch Diamond 2, HTC Touch HD, HTC Pure, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch Viva, HTC Touch 3G, HTC Touch, HTC Tilt 2, HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Touch Cruise 2 (Iolite), HTC TyTn II, HTC TyTn, HTC Touch Pro (Raphael), Motorola Attila (A3100), Oki C4, Samsung Omnia i900, Samsung Omina II, Samsung SWD-M100, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, Toshiba Portege, Toshiba TG01, Xda Zest.
