Startup sets full mobile browser free
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A growing set of developers is setting to work making Web browsing on a phone match the experience on a PC.Skyfire, a startup in Mountain View, California, joined the fray on Monday when it unveiled a free browser intended to support everything a PC browser can. That includes Flash video, Quicktime, Javascript, AJAX, and more, though not everything may be there right now, according to Nitin Bhandari, Skyfire&#39;s CEO. The browser is now in a private beta test for U.S. users only. The software was demonstrated at the Demo conference in Palm Desert, California.Apple&#39;s iPhone changed the mobile browsing world last year when it drew a huge following with its Safari browser. Unlike most browsers for phones, it lets users view a full, standard Web page all at once and zoom in to make up for the small size of the screen, though it doesn&#39;t support Flash video and some other standard Web features.Meanwhile, more opportunities have opened up for third parties to get any sort of application onto a consumer&#39;s mobile phone. Parts of&#160;Google&#39;s Android development environment&#160;are already available to developers, and Apple is preparing a software development kit for the iPhone. Both Verizon and Sprint Nextel, two of the biggest U.S. operators, have outlined plans to allow any device and any application on mobile networks.&quot;The iPhone has pretty much settled the debate. People want a rich, full Web experience,&quot; Skyfire&#39;s Bhandari said. &quot;There&#39;s a lot of consciousness that that&#39;s the bottom now, and everything now has to be there or above it.&quot;Since the phone&#39;s June debut, Mozilla has started developing a mobile version of Firefox, which looks somewhat like mobile Safari in screenshots on Mozilla&#39;s wiki. However, Mozilla has been vague about when that software will come out. Norwegian browser vendor Opera has its own mobile browser, Opera Mini.Skyfire&#39;s product will be set apart from Opera Mini and others by supporting the full browsing experience, Bhandari said. It does so by relieving the phone from some of the heavy lifting of presenting a Web page. In fact, a server transcodes every page into an efficient protocol that Skyfire has developed over the past 18 months, he said. The additional exchange of packets between phone and server to make that possible isn&#39;t a problem, because the server can carry out tasks much faster than a phone, according to Bhandari.&quot;The delay added by the server is actually such a small percentage of the time we&#39;re actually saving ... that it&#39;s actually a huge benefit in the end-user experience,&quot; Bhandari said. Skyfire operates the servers in its own datacenter.Skyfire can deliver full versions of popular Web sites, such as YouTube and ESPN, as demonstrated in a YouTube video. The zooming function, the critical tool for viewing full-size Web pages on a small screen, is different from the iPhone&#39;s &quot;pinch&quot; and &quot;unpinch&quot; gestures. A gray box appears over part of the Web page, and users can size that box to cover the area of the page they want to see full-screen, then tap on it to zoom in, Bhandari said. The browser also features a search bar and a tab with featured links in categories including news, sports and video.The browser is available only for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 today, but a version for Symbian, as well as an international beta test, are coming later, Bhandari said. Skyfire might also develop versions for Android and for the iPhone once Apple&#39;s SDK becomes available, he said. It is talking with handset makers and mobile operators about having the browser built into phones, but also sees search and advertising as possible revenue sources.In addition to invited testers, a limited number of public users will be allowed to participate in the beta. They can sign up at Skyfire&#39;s Web site.
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Your mobile phone may be one of the last  spots around that&#39;s relatively free of advertising -- but not  for long.
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MTLD Ltd, the company that operates the .mobi top-level domain, will next month unveil a certification program for all mobile sites that will be free to join and not restricted to buyers of .mobi sites.
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Users can now access Windows Live services through mobile accounts and a single sign-on.
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On Tuesday, Opera Software unleashed the latest commercial version of its mobile Web browser. Opera Mobile 9.5 was developed for sophisticated mobile devices and offers users a desktop-like browsing experience, complete with zooming and panning. The Norwegian company said the browser loads pages quicker for a more PC-like experience.
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Opera Software has announced that over 1 million copies of its Opera Mobile web browser for Symbian OS have been downloaded from the company&#39;s direct download site
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(InfoWorld) - Gartner, IDC, and 451 Group research analysts, this week warned IT administrators to keep iPhones away from their businesses. "We're telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting [iPhone use in] the enterprise," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said. "This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities, and it's important that it be recognized as such." As if that will stop people from buying them anyway when they hit the market in the U.S. next week. The reality is that no matter how hard IT administrators try, the iPhone will be snapped up by their employees -- and not just the average Joes either. The device is a status symbol that will likely be snapped up by business leaders as the digital technorati. Try telling your CEO the iPhone doesn't play well with your IT systems. Dulaney and other researchers notwithstanding, this device can be good for the enterprise because of the business needs of smartphone users. It is an iPhone, after all, with an emphasis on phone. It offers e-mail -- currently the most popular means of business communications. There's an address/phone Book for quick access to contacts. It offers SMS, a quick way to contact other mobile phone users, and voicemail -- both useful to road warriors. There's a real Web browser -- by far the most underpowered and underappreciated part of a mobile phone. And it contains a slew of enterprise-worthy apps, including a calendar, access to maps, spreadsheets, and a document reader. All of these things are important -- and all can be done to a greater or lesser extent on most business-focused PDA phones. But in the business world, the mobile Web browser is the key to the future of business apps, and it is becoming a platform unto itself. One thing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs made abundantly clear at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is that the iPhone would include a full browser. The Symbian and Linux platforms' best browser is Opera Mini -- which isn't that bad -- but it by no means constitutes a full browser. Windows Mobile's browser isn't bad either, but it also falls well short of Internet Explorer 7. Additionally, the iPhone browser has a lot of zooming and panning tricks that make it more usable on the relatively small screen. In that crucial area, advantage: iPhone. Why is the browser crucial? Because most new business applications are being built around it. AJAX and other browser technology innovations over the past few years have turned the browser into a veritable platform. Sure, a lot of legacy applications still require browserless, platform-specific client applications. But those days are numbered. It's not just the isolated applications that are moving to a browser. All of the stalwart office applications are also moving to the Web. With Google Office (which now works with Safari -- the iPhone browser), Soho Office, and even Web-centric versions of Microsoft Office applications, the browser is truly the new business platform. The iPhone is not without its business-use flaws. It doesn't natively sync up with Lotus Notes or Exchange - and Microsoft, at least, will most likely do everything in its power to try to keep it that way to protect its Windows Mobile business. It can, however, hook up to IMAP email, LDAP address books, and WebDav for calendaring; with a bit of tweaking, that will work well for Exchange-based companies. Microsoft SharePoint can also be browsed from the Web interface, but to what extent? Time -- and the work of apps developers -- will tell. A newly anointed relationship with Cisco on all things iPhone should also let the device into the VPN and might even let an iPhone play well with Cisco VoIP solutions. And of course, don't forget the arduous task of getting your conservative IT department to accept the idea of letting loose an Apple phone -- or even MacBook Pro -- into the office. Previews of the phone haven't yet touted an instant messaging client like Apple's iChat or AOL Instant Messenger. It is likely, however, that Apple will include something with instant-messaging functionality in the near future -- there are still four slots left in the iPhone's application window. It's also true that the first-generation iPhone isn't the raw specs winner by any stretch. That honor goes to the Symbian/Windows Mobile 6 Phones coming from Toshiba (the G900), Nokia (the N95), Samsung (the F700) and HTC (the Shift). AT&T's EDGE wireless network is slow by today's standards, and while Wifi connectivity will help, there are questions about why Apple has forsaken the HSDPA/UTMS component and when an update might occur. Given that battery life is a factor -- Apple this week released updated specs that go beyond what it touted in January -- EDGE makes sense because it's more energy efficient. Also, the 8GB max on storage is seems low. At a time when you can buy an 8GB SD card for less than $80, Apple likely looked to keep costs down with an eye on upping that storage when it's economically smart. Most users would likely be happy with a micro/mini/SD card slot now standard on most smartphones. There is, of course, the price. The iPhone's hefty $499 and $599 price tags, depending on which model you buy, is a definite disadvantage in business. With relatively comparable gear (from a corporate standpoint), such as the Motorola Q, which is almost free with a service plan, buying an iPhone requires serious justification. We're talking about spending the equivalent of a budget laptop. Of course, something that you spend half your day using should justify the premium that this delicious piece of hardware demands. And then there are at least two intangibles: Usability. Apple's legendary reputation for making painful tasks easy will totally transform the mobile phone industry. And remember, companies love productivity from their workers. Until now, the big players have been Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, and Linux. They all had successes. But it's the last 10 percent of usability that Apple always manages to squeeze out its products will be the differentiator. Apple did the same in the computer industry until Microsoft caught up. Apple has learned from this and patented every minute detail of the iPhone, making it harder for copycats to appear anytime soon. The few seconds here there that the iPhone saves users will quickly add up. It's the little things that make for big savings across an entire enterprise. Business bling, baby. Everyone knows that this is the phone to have. Just look at the buzz ahead of the June 29 launch. Apple has spent the last few years building up its brand across all channels and is reaping the rewards like no other company in the industry. As much as the enterprise IT guys will want to recite better specs for rival Windows Mobile devices, nobody wants to hear that. I can imagine any number of CEOs saying, "I don't care! Just make the iPhone work on our systems!" And if it works for the CEO, you can bet the sales folk will want in on the action, too. Think they'll want to show up to a meeting with an important client and whip out last year's "hot" phone? They might as well wear parachute pants as well.
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You&#39;ve made your Web browser a part of the operating system, and you&#39;ve effectively vanquished every other Web browser in the world to minimal importance.
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After 19 months of development, two name changes and more than 8 million downloads of its preview release, the Firefox browser is finally turning 1.0.
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A NEW front has been opened in the long-dormant browser war, with the first full version on the open source Firefox browser aiming to challenge Microsoft&#39;s dominant Internet Explorer.
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Q: How can I have Web pages open full-size automatically when I am surfing the Web on my PC?  A: I'm reading into your question a little, but the problem you suggest bugs me, too.
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InfoWorld - A little-known search engine has optimized its offering for mobile devices, joining an increasingly crowded market of services targeting cell phone users.
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Company turns up the heat in the mobile Web market with with launch of tool that aggregates messaging and social-networking information for cell phone users.
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The free Firefox Web browser, which has chipped away at the market dominance of Microsoft Corp.&#39;s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Internet Explorer, has been readied for a full release including new features designed to make it more
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(InfoWorld) - Yahoo Inc. ratcheted up its sponsored mobile search program on Wednesday, launching a beta test for all users of its mobile portal in the United States and United Kingdom. All mobile phone users with access to the Yahoo Mobile network will now see paid results when they search for certain terms. The full beta test follows limited trials in the two countries as well as a broader rollout in Japan, said Michael Bayle, senior director of monetization at Yahoo. The company plans to gradually expand the search terms involved. Both Yahoo and Google Inc. are working to expand their lucrative search advertising businesses to the still-emerging mobile Web. The challenges include creating a good user interface on a wide variety of phones and determining the value of a consumer's click on a mobile search result. But the rewards may be rich from the billions of cell phones in the world, said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, in Oakland, California. "It's just an enormous opportunity, and the needs of mobile users are more immediate in most cases than those on the Internet," Sterling said. In Japan, mobile search ads have commanded higher prices than those on the Web, Yahoo's Bayle said. Because of limited screen space and network speed, users generally won't see as many sponsored links on their phones as they do on the Web, according to Bayle. Yahoo may place one paid link at the top of the results list and sprinkle in a few more farther down, he said. But where it makes sense, such as when a user searches for "car rental," there may be more paid results, he added. The ads will behave differently, too, because many companies don't have a mobile Web page. Clicking on a link generally will take the user to a WAP (wireless application protocol) page created by either the vendor or Yahoo, Bayle said. That may be a full mobile commerce page or just one that gives a store location or a button to place a call to the merchant. The paid search results represent the first ads on Yahoo's mobile presence, which includes mail, messenger, news and other content, Bayle said. Analyst Sterling thinks it's likely to be the first step toward a wide variety of mobile Web advertising that includes banner ads, coupons and other elements. Google Inc. also is venturing into paid mobile search, he said. "It represents the mainstreaming of... advertising in the mobile environment," Sterling said. Consumers probably will respond well to mobile advertising as long as it's relevant to them and there isn't too much of it, he said.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Using the Web on most cell phones has tended to be a balky, awkward experience, reminiscent of what the Internet was like on computers in dial-up 1995. So a handful of startups are trying to make it much cooler.
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Taking a page â albeit a tinier one â from the iPhoneâs design is a new test version of the Opera Mini browser for cellphones.