Opera has presented the new version of its browser, Opera One R2, which offers improvements in design, multimedia content playback and Artificial Intelligence (AI) functions, with capabilities such as image generation and audio output.
The company presented Opera One in April of last year as a version designed to replace its main browser for Windows, MacOS and Linux, in which it introduced a modular design prepared to adapt to new functions based on generative AI. Thus, this browser focused the user experience on its native AI-powered assistant, Aria.
Now, Opera has shared its intention to continue “revolutionizing” the browsing experience by integrating AI and improving multimedia integration in the browser. To do this, it has presented Opera One R2, which includes new features in its appearance, the playback of multimedia files and the management of tabs, among other things.
As the company explained in a statement, this is a second version of Opera One for desktop on Windows, macOS and Linux devices that, in addition to AI, focuses on multimedia content.
This is because currently “users consume more multimedia content than ever,” including streaming music or video content, according to studies cited by the company. In fact, the viewing of this content represents more than two-thirds of global traffic.
Within this framework, Opera has indicated that it has taken up this trend to improve the user experience with Opera One R2, and has introduced a new content player that allows users to pause or skip a song by simply hovering over it in the sidebar, without having to switch tabs or applications.
Following this line, the company has also redesigned the floating video module, which now improves its appearance while maintaining all its functionalities. In this way, users will be able to separate videos from any platform and place or “resize” them on the screen according to their preferences or needs.
EYELASH REDESIGN
Opera has added a split screen feature, allowing users to position tabs so they can work on both simultaneously, placing them side by side in the same browser window. The eyelashes can be decorated with ’emojis’ to recognize them and add a fun touch.
On the other hand, with the new version of the browser, the tabs will show a subtle mark that will highlight which have been the most recently visited. As Opera explained, the lighter the underline, the older the tab and vice versa. This feature will automatically appear for users who open more than thirty.
IMPROVEMENTS IN AI CAPABILITIES
Currently, the Opera One browser has Aria’s native AI, which offers capabilities to assist users in various tasks, whether summarizing content, writing reports or finding up-to-date information.
Now, Opera has highlighted that it has introduced improvements to Aria’s features, based on the most relevant results of the AI Feature Drops testing program.
One of these improvements is the ability to generate images, with which users will be able to request the creation of images directly through text descriptions from the browser command line or from the Aria chat.
Likewise, in addition to being able to generate images, AI will be able to understand them to analyze them and answer related questions. To do this, users will be able to upload files and images to the chat and then have Aria provide context about, for example, a famous monument.
In addition, Aria has also added voice output in Opera One R2, so that users can hear Aria’s responses out loud, improving accessibility to this technology.
Finally, this update also introduces page context mode that allows you to summarize, extract certain information or translate content from the web page you are browsing.
With all this, Opera has detailed that Opera One R2 is now available in the developer version, and that its full launch is scheduled for the end of this year.
