Posts tagged opera
Google removing H.264 video support from Chrome
Jan 12th
Google just announced on its Chromium blog that it will be removing support for the H.264 video codec from the Chrome web browser, in favor of supporting only its own open WebM codec (which, as we covered earlier, is based on On2 Technologies’ VP8) for HTML5 web videos using the <video> tag.
Earlier, Microsoft, Apple, and Google had decided to support H.264 (the dominant high-definition video codec) for HTML5 web video, while Mozilla and Opera supported only Google’s WebM codec. Now, Google’s move leaves Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 and Apple’s Safari 5 as the only major browsers supporting the H.264 codec without plugins. Ironically, since the vast majority of HTML5 video on the web today is encoded using H.264, Google’s move will likely reduce the usable installed base of HTML5 video-capable browsers.
Read on for more about Google’s web video codec move.
Opera Mini browser submitted to iPhone App Store [UPDATE: Video added]
Mar 23rd
Opera has just submitted the iPhone version of its mobile browser, Opera Mini, to the iTunes App Store. Opera Mini uses techniques like server-side rendering (loading pages on Opera servers and relaying only the end result to the phone) to dramatically speed up mobile browsing– on an iPhone 3GS, Opera Mini loads pages up to 5 times faster faster than Apple’s Safari browser. Yet Apple is virtually guaranteed to reject the app, since it “duplicates functionality” already in the phone (a reason Apple uses to anything that might compete with its own apps on the iPhone).
So the question is why has Opera gone to such lengths to develop a version of Opera Mini for the iPhone and submitted it to the App Store if it’s just going to get rejected anyway? First, Opera genuinely wants to have its browser available on the iPhone. The company’s been building buzz around its new iPhone browser through closed-door demos, likely to build up public support which could be mobilized to put pressure on Apple if it rejects the application. Second, Opera was one of the driving forces behind the 2007 European antitrust investigation into Internet Explorer on Windows, and there’s a possibility the company is looking to launch something similar in the iPhone space.
In 2007, Opera claimed it wanted to give “consumers a genuine choice of Web browsers,” a line the company’s CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, recently repeated: ”Opera Mini is the world’s most popular mobile browser and users on the iPhone deserve a choice.” Opera also just put up a page tracking how long it’s been since it submitted the app. Certainly a nice publicity stunt– now let’s see where the company goes with this.
Update: Video added after the break.
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