Microsoft Offering Beta of Deepfish Mobile Browser

Microsoft Live Labs has opened a semi-public beta of a new web browser for Windows Mobile devices. The goal of this application -- code-named Deepfish -- is to bring desktop-like browsing to mobile devices.

Dr. Gary William Flake, a Microsoft Technical Fellow and the founder and director of Microsoft Live Labs, said:

Deepfish provides users with a full "as-designed" view of virtually any Web site on their mobile device and looks as you would expect it to on your desktop, allowing much more of the Web to be easily viewed on a mobile device than is possible today. The interface lets users zoom in and out on the parts of a Web page that interest them in an intuitive way, making it easy to use these large-screen formatted pages on a mobile device.

This browser has also been designed to use less bandwidth than typical mobile browsers. "The Deepfish architecture only loads the user-specified portion of the page, providing much quicker page-load times, as detailed information is only retrieved as needed or in the background, " said Flake.

Coming When?

Microsoft has made a limited technology preview available to the public on a first-come basis. Once the limit is reached, access to the beta will be closed. Those interested can sign up for the beta on Microsoft Live Labs' web site.

It is available for both the handheld and smartphone versions of Windows Mobile.

The company is not saying when a final version of Deepfish will be released.

Update: Microsoft Live Labs has all the beta testers it wants, and is no longer giving out activation codes for this application.

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