This browser controls your lights, makes your room the colour of the internet
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The Vivaldi browser is taking a step towards controlling devices that form part of the Internet of Things (IoT), allowing users to control their Hue colour lights from Philips.
The company said the browser "will synchronize your physical surroundings with the color of the web". This means the coloured bulbs will reflect the colours of the browser window you are currently viewing. It's an unusual tie-up, but one that shows how the digital and physical worlds could become more tightly coupled.
"This is just a first step for us, but imagine a world where you get notified for a new email or web notification through a lightbulb," said Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner.
Users enable Hue in Vivaldi Theme Settings, and tap on the Philips Hue Bridge to confirm the connection and make it work.
Other features in the 1.5 release of Vivaldi include an update to its tab management -- the browser is aimed at web surfers who tend to keep large numbers of tabs open at once. Users can now select multiple tabs, apply commands to them in bulk, and drag the selected tabs into stacks, or drag tabs between windows on the desktop.
The browser's Notes functionality allows users to make notes and grab text without leaving the browser, and will now automatically take screenshots of web pages too. The new release also adds a reader mode button to the address bar for users who want to see web pages without clutter.
Finally, the company is promising smoother updates through its Delta feature, which will only download and install parts of the browser that have changed.