15
Feb
unnamed (1)

Opera Buys Skyfire In $155 Million Deal, Looks To Improve Mobile Video

Posted by in Applications, News

Opera and Skyfire have a lot in common: specialized use cases, small, dedicated populations of users. That appears to be enough for the desktop browser to swallow the mobile one. Opera Software ASA announced via a press release this morning that it is acquiring Skyfire and its assets, in a deal worth $155 million USD. The sale price includes a mix of cash and stock, $50 million of which will be delivered up front.

While its market share is small in the desktop world, Opera's userbase is incredibly dedicated, and many don't realize that the software and the company have been offering surprisingly advanced browsing for nearly two decades.

23
Nov
Skyfire 1

Rockmelt On Your Phone? Skyfire 3.0 Brings Facebook Integration And More Social Features

Posted by in Applications, News

Alternative browser Skyfire made waves with a previous update that allowed it to play Flash videos on any device, and the latest update to version 3 has even more features that most other browsers are lacking - built-in Facebook integration, notably similar to recently released PC/Mac browser RockMelt.

In addition to aforementioned ability to play Flash videos, Skyfire now includes the following social features:

  • Popular Content
    instantly see what content on the site is most popular with your friends and the Facebook community
  • Fireplace Feed Reader
    nothing but the links from your Facebook feed. Simple and addictive
  • Facebook Portal Integration
    one-touch access to your Facebook feed, profile, places and status updates
  • Skyfire Search
    simple way to search across Facebook, Google, VideoSurf, Twitter and more

As Adobe's official Flash player comes to more devices, Skyfire really does need a new hook, but I'm not sure Facebook integration is going to be it.

12
Jun

Viva Android! How To Watch Live Streams Of World Cup Games On Your Android Phone

Posted by in Carriers, News, Sprint, Tips & Tutorials

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed most of the world has been focusing their attention on the 2010 World Cup, which officially started yesterday. We know many of you would love to be able to watch the matches on you phone while you’re out and about, so we’ve put together a few ways that this can be done.

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One of the really cool things about the World Cup games this year is that so many sites are streaming them live, for free, making it pretty easy to catch a match wherever you’re at as long as you have high speed internet and access to a computer.

29
Apr
Skyfire

Skyfire 2.0 Launches For Android Today

Posted by in Applications, Apps/Games, News

After the much hyped acquisition of Kolbysoft and a controversial leaked alpha, Android users who are eager to enjoy Flash video on their phones can now grab Skyfire 2.0, dubbed the first ‘mobile browser for the Social Media generation’.

In a departure from the very popular Windows Mobile version of the browser, the developers have chosen not to include Flash video in-line and have instead introduced a new feature: the SkyBar.

When users visit a page that hosts a Flash video, the SkyBar will pop up and alert them to the videos presence. They then have the option of launching the video, which is transcoded to H.264 on the fly and in the cloud, and delivered seamlessly to the user's device.