Mobile landgrab: Microsoft releases Deepfish, follows Minimo Project
Jockeying for control of the so-called third screen is intensifying, now that most people are carrying around a phone with them, and will consume more and more information from them.
The move to the cellphone may be one of the biggest trends of the decade.
Microsoft has just released Deepfish, a browser that aims to preserve the layout of documents on mobile devices and making Web navigation more easy — enabling you to zoom in and out of a page, and downloading only areas you are interested in. It uploads a thumbnail of pages initially (see image below), and keeps navigation menus, lists of search results or news headlines more intact. It has limited its client release for now; we tried to sign up but were shut out.
It is an answer to the popular Opera mobile browser, which has shown momentum lately. It also follows the release Tuesday by the Minimo Project of another browser (hosted by Mozilla) that boasts faster access, support for modern web standards Javascript and AJAX, some of which Deepfish doesn’t have yet, and things like social bookmarking, tag browsing and RSS support (but still looks like it has some way to go).
Next Story: The courtesan sisters of comparison search, and Thefind
Previous Story: Kontrib, a Digg clone with translation
About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
