Two significant features are coming to Opera Mobile for Android, the Oslo company's higher-end smartphone browser: playing HTML5 video and accommodating Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in.

"New Web technologies aim to replace it, but Flash will be around for some time. If you have Flash player installed on your phone, Opera will support it," mobile team member Pavel Studeny said in a blog post on Saturday.

HTML5 video, one of those technologies that encroaches on Flash's turf, lets developers embed video directly into a Web page, as happens with images. It's also en route Studeny said. He didn't say when the two features will arrive.

Opera Mobile for Android is in beta testing. It competes most directly with the built-in browser that comes with Android, but also with a mobile version of Firefox that's also in beta testing (a third beta of which should arrive soon) and a handful of other browsers. Google permits other browsers to be installed on Android; Apple only permits alternative browser user interfaces that use iOS's browser engine under the hood.

More: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20024664-264.html