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Computer Games Thoughts

Wii Opera Browser released this morning!!

I just thought I’d mention it 😉

The new broswer requires a System Update, then an Application Update of the browser from the Shopping Channel.

The actual browser is (now) a joy to use – the (auto) scaling and scrolling work perfectly, there are no black borders, and the control bar can either auto-hide and be manually toggled. The entire UI is much-streamlined too.

(It’s a shame that is still only supports Flash 7 – but this is purely Adobe’s fault: They won’t license later versions for systems they don’t support. Ultimately this will, I believe, but much to Adobe’s detriment: third-party and/or open-source developments (such as Gnash) will spring up to provide the implementation that Adobe won’t – and if manufacturers, given no other choice, widely adopt this software then Adobe could well be sidelined. Is there a downside to this? Well, if the “standard” fractures and every device supports a slightly different set of features, then no-one benefits. Adobe is purely to blame, though – you can’t hang on to such a lynchpin of the modern internet and try to restrict it’s use. Adobe should have released the whole of Flash as an open standard years ago – they’d still make a killing by selling the authoring tools)

What is interesting is that the new browser launches almost instantly – much quicker than any of the other channels. This makes me think that the System Update actually places the majority of the (new) browser into firmware, and the application is basically just the UI to it. Since the Shopping Channel is already web-based, it would seem a waste of resources to have two seperate browsers on the system…

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