Opera News

Just as the slopes around Oslo were being groomed for the 2012 World Snowboarding Championships, our tireless engineers here at Opera HQ were hard at work bringing a new level of performance to the next version of Opera. With the latest Labs build, there have been a slew of fixes for out-of-process-plugins (otherwise known as the dreaded Flash crash) as well as 64-bit support. That should make your entertainment time on the Web, whether that's gaming, or playing audio and video, much more enjoyable. In other words: smooth and fast.

Rider Sage Kotsenburg catches some air on the run at Wyller, Oslo. (Photo by Elenora Raggi, courtesy WSC2012)

Meanwhile, out on the information superhighway, the controversy over legislation that defines "sharing" vs "stealing" online content continued. Following the defeat of SOPA and PIPA in the US, the main action shifted to Europe. The proposed treaty called ACTA is now stirring up its own set of protests, online and off.

But hang on for a sec. Why do people get so worked up over the Internet, anyway? Could it be that there is something, I don't know, a teensy bit addictive about it? Well, since you ask...Scientific research has now confirmed that we just can't help ourselves when it comes to hitting the Refresh button.Looks like Maslow's hierarchy of needs may need to be revised: add "status update" and "tweet" between "breathing" and "food."

Given that such seems to be the case, it came as a bit of surprise to learn that service for a mobile handset optimized for Twitter (but for some reason called the "Peek") was suddenly discontinued last week. At about the same time, news emerged that researchers at Samsung are working to create a phone that is aware of its user's emotions. (Perhaps the two companies can join forces to create a device that automatically broadcasts how you are feeling, and call it the "Speak.")

Last but not least, a bit of sobering news: Kodak announced it was going to exit the camera business. Apparently a picture still may be worth a thousand words, but it's worth considerably less as a revenue stream.

Have a great weekend, everyone!