New Opera 10.50 beta aims to surpass Chrome

The Opera Browser

made some serious headway in keeping itself relevant when it introduced a new JavaScript engine for its upcoming revision.

The latest edition of Opera

10.50 beta 2 for Windows contains no new major features, some minor feature improvements, and is mostly a bug-fixing release that incorporates around 100 changes since the first beta.

Changes to the Windows version include what appears to be modest but detectable improvements to the new Carakan JavaScript engine. In tests limited because of time constraints, I scored the

new Opera beta

on the SunSpider JavaScript test. Over three runs, it averaged 386.4 milliseconds, compared to the 435.6 ms for the pre-alpha on the same computer.

Opera 10.50 beta

1 scored just above 400 ms, albeit on a different computer. For comparison, today's update to the development version of Google Chrome averaged 416 ms over three runs on the SunSpider test on the same computer that Opera 10.50 beta 2 was tested on.

Other changes to

Opera 10.50 beta

2 include a visual tweak for Windows XP users, moving the tabs on top for when the default Windows XP theme is used. Windows XP users who use "classic" mode won't see the change. An Opera Widgets panel has been added to the Opera user interface, and the RSS news reader and e-mail client have also received tweaks. The full changelog is available here.

The Mac release includes multiple bug-fixes from the previous pre-alpha version, including improvements to Carakan, typing speed tweaks, fixing the context menu in the Speed Dial feature, and crash fixes. The full changelog can be read here.

TV white space networks tested

The city of Wilmington, N.C., and the surrounding county of New Hanover, N.C., are among the first communities to test wireless applications using TV white space technology.

TV white spaces are the unused TV broadcast channels made available by the recent transition from analog to digital TV. In 2008, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously agreed to open up this unused broadcast TV spectrum for unlicensed use, despite strong protests from TV broadcasters, who argued using this spectrum could interfere with their television broadcasts.

Initially, the network is being used for three main applications. The first application uses traffic cameras at intersections to provide real-time traffic monitoring for the department of transportation to reduce congestion, fuel consumption, travel time, support local law enforcement, and assist with hurricane and disaster evacuations.

In the third application, the city and county are using the white space network to remotely monitor and manage wetland areas to comply with EPA regulations. Because these areas are hard to get to, there is no fiber optic network that can be used to transmit data from sensors in the field. So people go out in boats and canoes to collect the data from the monitors. Now using the white space network, the data can be transmitted wirelessly.

But he admits that using white space spectrum is just one way to offer these wireless applications. Existing cellular networks are already being used in some places to deliver some of these services today. Some cities have already tried deploying Wi-Fi for similar applications. And wireless operators, such as Verizon Wireless, promise that 4G wireless technology will provide these same functions.

Indeed, TV white spaces is expected to be a part of the national broadband plan that the FCC is currently developing and preparing to present to Congress next month. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has already expressed interest in using white spaces to deliver alternative broadband access. And he has been encouraging companies to think creatively about how to use the spectrum.

It's early days for white space use, and the Wilmington/New Hanover deployment is only the second test bed that Spectrum Bridge has established to test applications for white space networks. In October, the company set up a network in Claudville, Va., a town with a population of about 900 people. Claudville does not have access to DSL or cable broadband services. It's only serviced by dial-up Internet and satellite broadband.http://google-trends-usa.blogspot.com

Rotondo said that the Spectrum Bridge networks are simply to show what is possible with white space spectrum and technology. The company won't be building white space devices and it won't run a white space network. Instead, it is creating software that can be used by white space products to mitigate interference. Spectrum Bridge has created a data base that keeps track of available white space spectrum, and it's developed software, which can be used by device makers to check for available spectrum to avoid interference.