Opera's new SDK: Better browsing on consumer electronics?

(Credit: Opera Software)

Article updated 1/9/08 at 1:45 p.m. PST with details on set-top boxes and a correction about the relationship with Wii. Article updated at 3:41 p.m. PST with more details on how to acquire the SDK. Correction, 10:55 a.m. PST: This story misstated the day the Opera announcement was made. It was Wednesday.

Opera has thrown a little more love at device developers by announcing an updated version of its software development kit on Wednesday at CES.

In a broad sense, the SDK will be available to all developers of consumer electronics that use Opera's browser to access the Internet, but most of us will see the fruits of Opera Device SDK 9.7 on set-top boxes, connected TVs, and a few portable media players.

While it's certainly possible that some of the technology could make its way over to the Opera-powered Wii Internet Channel, Opera tells us that in the case of this SDK, 'device manufacturers' means everyone other than Nintendo.

The latest SDK version integrates at least one feature Opera users know very well: Opera Link, the always-on syncing tool that keeps your bookmarks and Speed Dial entries current among every Opera browser you're logged into.

It also includes Opera Dragonfly, a toolset for debugging software live, and a faster version of Opera Zoom, which helps smooth out panning and zooming for consumer devices that are lean on hardware, and ACID3 compliance, which follows Opera's stated goal of developing along proven Web standards.

The SDK is currently available to device manufacturers.