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Opera Software recently released the beta of version 11.6 of the Opera browser, furthering its support for some of the latest HTML5 features. The browser's latest update introduced Ragnarök, the company's implementation of the latest HTML5 parsing algorithm and includes support for a few things most other browsers don't yet offer.

The latest version of Opera supports radial gradients in CSS3, which allows front-end developers to define the color and placement of circular gradients using only CSS code, rather than relying on images to create this visual effect. It also uses the newest version of the JavaScript standard, ECMAScript 5.1, and supports HTML5 microdata for search engines. Using microdata, developers can add semantic context to certain content, which allows Google and others to present it accordingly in search results.

Last week, Amazon announced its principal format for electronic books distributed to its new Android-based Kindle Fire series of full-color, touchscreen tablets would "support," to borrow Amazon's choice of verbs, HTML5. Kindle Format 8 (KF8) will replace the Mobi 7 format that Amazon acquired through its purchase of Mobipocket in 2005.

"Supporting" HTML5 may have as multifarious a definition as "supporting" the Republican Party. It does automatically hoist the supporter to an exalted plateau in the public eye, alongside Apple, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Opera Software, all of which have also pledged their undying support for HTML5. But without exception, all of these companies support some unique aspect or concept which, in the absence of a hard standard, may successfully be characterized as HTML5.

Mobile browser Opera announced today new versions of its Android browser with new features that will help users control the amount of data they use while surfing the mobile Web. Opera Mobile 11.5 and Mini 6.5 uses cloud technology to reduce the size of Web pages by up to 90% and is another entry into the trend of using the cloud to offload data traffic, something the new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet will do with its "Silk" browser.

Opera will show you exactly how much data you have used and how much you have saved with a dedicated page in the browser. The goal is to help users save money on pay-as-you-go data plans. It can also be helpful to the millions of users who face data caps and throttling coming from the carriers. Check out the video of Opera's new Android browser below.

The original, grand scheme for the Web was that information would be served up on multiple sites that would all link to one another. The world would be one, big encyclopedia. As it turned out, informational and educational sites have become massive repositories of articles and markup, some of which compete with one another; and news sites such as this one have become separate, self-standing feats of ingenuity.

The problem is that it's not much of a Web any more, or at least less of one that was originally intended. This is a problem that HTML5's architects are hoping to solve, by means of new systems that would enable services from the outside (like search engines) to make more and better sense of the data being maintained by servers on the inside.

Norway-based Opera has released the newest version of its Web browser today, promising faster speeds, a streamlined and lightweight user interface and several new extensions.

Opera has reconfigured its "Speed Dial" extension. Instead of static thumbnails of frequently-visited sites, now, when you open a new tab, you can embed websites that will update automatically, such as for weather or stock quotes. Opera has also partnered with several startup applications that give the browser a unique flavor in comparison to the competition.

Over a year after its launch on the iPhone, Norway-based browser maker Opera Software has at last ported its Opera Mini mobile browser to the larger form factor of the Apple iPad. The new universal iOS application, Opera Mini 6, brings a full-featured Web browser to both tablet and phone, offering a customized start page, tabbed browsing, password saving, social sharing and more.

If you're an early adopter type, you want to get things first. You don't want to wait for the first "unboxing" of a gadget on the Web, you want to be the unboxer, right? You don't want to wait for all the kinks to be ironed out, you want to see them in their first, raw nature. Reading reviews? Who does that anyway?

Opera announced today its own version for the early adopters, Opera Next, the potentially unstable and bug-ridden version of Opera for you early adopter types out there who want to know what's next.

Opera Software, the Norway-based browser maker, announced the opening of its Mobile App Store today. The store, which the company launched in conjunction with Appia, the "largest open application marketplace in the world," will provide apps to Opera's mobile browser users across a number of platforms.

According to the company, the store has already been a hit and its placement in its popular mobile browsers should ensure that it continues with this success.

Mobile browser maker Opera has released its latest report on the mobile Web and this time it's come to a conclusion you'll arrive at soon enough as the family gathers for the holidays and everyone under 30 has their nose buried in a mobile phone - "Generation Y chooses the mobile Web".

In fact, most 18-27 year-olds surveyed in the report user their mobile phones to browse the Web more often than a desktop or laptop. The report offers a number of telling statistics on where the world is headed and it all boils down to one word - mobile.

The beta version of the Opera 11 browser just launched this morning with a notable new feature: tab stacking. Traditionally, tabs were opened side-by-side, says the company, now Opera users can stack tabs on top of each other instead.

The result isn't as messy as it may sound - in fact, it could become a must-have for tabaholics who typically keep a dozen or more tabs open at any time. But is it useful enough to get you to switch?