OStatic

Although Research in Motion (RIM) has more than held its own in the smartphone market, it's been plagued by the fact that both the iPhone and Android phones have better browsing experiences. In what looks to be a move to become more competitive in mobile browsing, RIM has acquired Torch Mobile, which has the Iris mobile browser, for an undisclosed sum. As CNet notes, Torch Mobile relies on the open source WebKit engine for mobile browsing, and this acquisition looks to be a smart move from RIM. Microsoft may also want to pay attention.

Both Google's Chrome browser and the iPhone browser rely on WebKit, among many other browsers that do, including the Palm Pre's. WebKit has, in fact, become one of the most influential of all open source platforms because of its ubiquity in browsers, and its flexibility. In addition to WebKit, some reports are coming in saying that RIM intends to include full Flash and Silverlight support in a new browser slated for 2010. These moves could make a big difference for the company in the mobile browser competition.?

Is innovation in browsers where it should be? We've reported before on how most of the innovation is going on in open source browsers, as Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to lose market share. This week, at two separate conferences, officials from Google and Mozilla have weighed in on how browsers need to improve. Notably, they primarily agree, and their focus doesn't seem matched by Microsoft with Internet Explorer.

Are you interested in taking the job of Director of Open Source Desktop Strategy at Microsoft? If so, here's the LinkedIn job description. Matt Aslett at The 451 Group notes that Microsoft is looking for a strong team member to lead Microsoft?s global desktop competitive strategy as it relates to open source competitors.? The language used in the job description stays vague about whether the successful candidate's job will be to stave off open source competitors or grow an open source strategy internally, but this is yet another sign that Microsoft has open source directly on its radar.

Google is moving along at a fast clip updating its open source Chrome browser. Now, as noted on the Google Operating System blog, there is a pre-beta version of Chrome 2.0.156.1 available. This version is intended primarily for developers, but you can get it by subscribing to the developer preview channel here. (Note that if you are subscribed to this channel, the iterative developer updates will be pushed to you as they arrive, which you may or may not want.) There are a lot of updates to the browser in this new release, and a post on the Chromium Developer Blog outlines them. Here's what's under the hood.

Wow, the competition among open source browsers is getting so heated that you have to stay on top of the day-to-day goings on with the pre-release versions. We've written before about Google Chrome winning speed tests, and I keep hearing people cite it as the fastest browser. Meanwhile, CNet has been posting speed results showing very strong performance from the beta version of Firefox 3.1 (it is indeed snappy).? Now, there are some new performance results out that show the nightly builds of Webkit--the open source rendering engine within Safari and Chrome--posting the fastest speeds of all.

How many web browsers do you run? If you're like me, you regularly use Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. Each of those browsers, of course, has its own underlying rendering engine: Gecko (in Firefox), Trident (in Internet Explorer), and Webkit (in Chrome and Safari). Today, a Japanese startup called Lunascape has released an alpha version of its Lunascape browser, downloadable here, that allows you to switch between all three of these prominent rendering engines. The company says that the Japanese version of Lunascape has been downloaded 10 million times and touts it as the fastest browser available. Is it?