A Swedish wolf in Norway

Do you know what browser you are using?

Perhaps that sounds like a strange question, but it seems that a lot of people don’t know the brand of their browser. I guess the marketing departments of the browser making companies still have some way to go…

(via the Google blog)

Opera Software today released the first beta of Opera 10. Get it while it is hot!

Among the news in 10, compared to 9.64, are:

• Opera Turbo, with speed enhancements for slow networks
• Automatic updates, so you do not have to worry about having the latest version installed
• Crash logging built-in, to help the developers fix any bugs
• Inline spelling checker, an improvement from the spelling checker in previous versions
• 100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test
• Visual tabs, along with other improvements in the UI
• Significantly improved performance, particularly on CSS/HTML rendering
• Opera Mail HTML Compose support, please do not abuse

Nintendo today unveiled the DSi as an upgrade to the massively popular Nintento DS. There doesn’t seem to be any official information from Nintendo in English yet, and there are some conflicting reports on what the Japanese information actually states. Unfortunately, Nintendo of Japan’s site is using a Flash animation, so it’s impossible to use tools like Babelfish or Google Translate to translate it, and my Japanese is limited.

There are reports, however, stating that the DSi will have a built-in web browser (such as ITavisen’s article from earlier today). VG goes so far as to state that the browser is made by Opera. Some reports state that the browser is not to be built-in, but a free download. I haven’t seen any official pressrelease from Opera saying that it is Opera that will come with the DSi yet, but since Opera already did the ill-fated Nintendo DS browser, and the Wii Internet Channel browser, it sounds like the natural choice.

And the screenshot on Nintendo of Japan’s site (second-to-right tab, centre image) of the browser does look like a mix of the old DS Browser’s UI with the Wii Internet Channel’s buttons, so it only sounds natural.

I have a DS Lite, perhaps I’ll consider upgrading to a DSi. Having an easily-accessible built-in browser does sound nice, but it have better be faster than on the regular DS/DS Lite. That one has too little memory and is running on a too slow CPU to be very useful beyond browsing very basic sites. Unfortunately. There are limits to what you can make the such a small machine do.

Update: Opera Software confirms that the DSi browser is Opera.