gHacks technology news » opera 10 alpha http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:30:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Web Browser: Opera Face Gestures http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/02/web-browser-opera-face-gestures/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/02/web-browser-opera-face-gestures/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:03:35 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/02/web-browser-opera-face-gestures/ The Opera team is never shy when it comes to introducing new features in their Opera web browser that are then copied by other browser developers and added to those web browsers as well. Their newest feature is called Face Gestures and as the name implies it allows Opera users to control web browser functions with their face. A webcam is obviously required to use the face gestures as is the latest alpha release of the upcoming Opera 10 web browser which can be downloaded from the announcement page.

The face gestures feature can be enabled in the web browser by pressing F8. Opera will automatically calibrate the passive facial expressions of the user sitting in front of the webcam. It is important to stay calm and passive during that phase so that the calibration will be successfully.

A set of facial gestures stand at the user’s proposal after the calibration phase. It is possible to go back and forward in the browsing history, zoom in and out of pages, reload, open the homepage or speed dial page, open tabs and bookmark pages using nothing but facial expressions. The Opera team created a video that is showcasing the feature in detail

opera face gestures

The release announcement contains a section at the bottom that is addressing known problems with the facial gesture feature. This includes beard and hairstyle problems as well as adult and financial site related ones. The latest Opera 10 Alpha snapshot containing Facial Gestures can be downloaded from the Opera website.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/02/web-browser-opera-face-gestures/feed/ 11 Web Browser: Opera Turbo Preview http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/13/web-browser-opera-turbo-preview/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/13/web-browser-opera-turbo-preview/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:51:10 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=11196 Opera Software has made available a preview version of their much acclaimed Opera Turbo technology. Windows, Linux and Mac OS X users can download a preview version of Opera 10 containing Opera Turbo, a new function that is using proxy servers to compress the traffic before it reaches the Opera browser on the client’s computer system.

Opera Turbo has been designed for computer systems with limited bandwith. Users with fast connections will see no huge differences in the speed that the websites are displayed but will notice a traffic reduction thanks to the compression. Users with limited bandwidth on the other hand will notice both a website loading improvement and traffic reductions.

The layouts of websites that are accessed with Opera Turbo will look exactly like they did before. The major difference is that image resolutions may appear lower which can be attributed to the compression. Please note that text and other elements are also compressed.

opera turbo

Encrypted traffic will not be routed through the Opera compression servers. This means that accessing your bank’s website, PayPal or any other website that is using the SSL protocol will make use of direct connections.

Please note that Opera 10 with Turbo is still in alpha stage. Opera Turbo will display an icon in the Opera status bar that is giving the user indications whether it is enabled or disabled. It will also display the average compression ratio as an icon and the saved Megabytes when hovering over the Opera Turbo status bar icon.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/13/web-browser-opera-turbo-preview/feed/ 6 Opera 10 Alpha Passes Acid 3 Test http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/04/opera-10-alpha-passes-acid-3-test/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/04/opera-10-alpha-passes-acid-3-test/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:56:29 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=8714 A first alpha preview of the upcoming web browser Opera 10 has been released by the Opera development team. Among the most notable difference to previous versions is that the browser is passing the Acid 3 test with a score of 100/100. Opera 10 makes use of the new Presto 2.2 rendering engine which improves speed, performance and security significantly.

The Opera team speaks of a 30% speed increase over the previous version of the rendering engine. A test of the JavaScript performance of Opera 10 revealed astonishing results. Opera 10 completed the
Web Browser Javascript Benchmark in 188ms which is very fast compared to Firefox 3.0.4 which needed 349ms, Safari 3.1.2 with 344ms or Opera 9.52 with 420ms. It’s obviously not fair to compare a development release with web browsers who have already been released but it should give anyone an understanding about the performance increase in this new Opera version.

What else is new in Opera 10? Opera 10 adds a long requested inline spellchecker and an interesting auto-update function which can update Opera automatically whenever a new version has been released.

opera 10

Web developers will like the support of web fonts, SVG and opacity through RGBA and HSLA. The current release schedule aims for a beta in early 2009 and a final release of Opera 10 later that year.

Interested users can download the Opera 10 alpha release for Windows, Linux or Mac.

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