14 DAY TRIAL // Nvidia has now extended the Tegra platform through a newly inked partnership with the browser developer Opera. The purpose of the collaboration is the addition of a specially developed version of Opera 9.5 to the program suite built for the platform. The new version of the browser will be optimized for usage on Tegra.
Nvidia aims at providing a possible competitor to Intel's Atom processor with the launch of its Tegra platform. The Santa Clara company has designed Tegra for the ultraportable market, as well as for MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices). The hardware specifications of the platform include an Arm11 processor which features an in-house graphics processing core able to support the latest video formats. The market segment Nvidia is aiming at includes a computers-on-a-chip products family situated right bellow the netbook area, where Atom finds itself almost alone and unchallenged.
The graphics chip manufacturer has issued some specifications on the company's hardware which stress on the optimizations of Opera and its leveraged performance on the platform compared to similar products. The specially tailored browser is stated to bring full support for desktop web content which includes hardware-accelerated rich media, image and in-page video playback.
The company also says that the GPU acceleration will be able to provide a smooth, highly-interactive panning and zooming browsing experience, offering at the same time significantly-reduced battery consumption. The Tegra platform will also make available a hardware-accelerated 3D touch browsing experience with Opera's integration into NVIDIA’s OpenKODE-based composition framework using the power of OpenGL ES 2.0.
The new devices that will benefit from the integration of Opera's browser into the NVIDIA Tegra platform are meant to provide users with a seamless experience when it comes to Internet browsing. The new series of ultraportable and MID products is expected to hit the market next year.