Opera to wrap WAP into browser

Opera Software says it will support the recently released WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) 2.0 standard in future versions of its browser. WAP 2.0, unveiled Aug. 1 by the WAP Forum, integrates technologies native to the Web, including XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Opera's pledge comes as browser makers angle to provide software that can surf the Web via mobile computing devices such as cell phones and handhelds. Early in the summer, the U.K.-based mobile software unit of Psion selected Opera as the browser for its handsets. The agreement came shortly after Opera took the wraps off its deal to supply IBM with small browsers. One new competitor to Opera is Bitstream's ThunderHawk software. In addition, Mozilla.org, funded by AOL Time Warner's Netscape unit, has ascribed repeated delays in its development to work on microbrowsing capacities.