Widgets Updated With Opera 10.50

Most of the cool features introduced in Opera 10.20 alpha have now made it into Opera 10.50 final so here's a reminder of the extra power and flexibility the latest generation of our widget runtime offers. ...

First, a quick recap of the benefits of widgets:
<ul class="bullets"><li>A standards-based way to build cross-platform apps — HTML, JavaScript and CSS knowledge are all that's needed.</li><li>Being installed locally means they don't need to eat bandwidth by downloading resources with each use.</li><li>Your information does not need to be stored by a third party on a web server.</li></ul>
This is already encouraging, but there's more! With the latest 10.50 improvements, widgets offer even greater advantages for those looking to easily develop useful and enticing applications for a broad range of users:
<ul class="bullets"><li>Independence from the browser: you can run widgets from the start menu without starting Opera.</li><li>OS chrome: integrate with the user's environment by using the operating system's window and titlebar.</li><li>Access to the filesystem: read and write to local files, with the user's permission, of course.</li></ul>
These enhancements pave the way for compelling, native-feel applications built with web standards. Coupled with our improved HTML5 and CSS3 support, it's now easier than ever for developers to delight end users, show off to their peers or simply scratch their own itch. To help you on your way, we've rewritten our widgets style guide in the Opera Widgets SDK.

As if further encouragement were needed, we're also holding a widget contest with laptops, mobile phones and Nintendo DSi's to be won. Let your creative juices flow and upload the results to widgets.opera.com for all to enjoy…