The time has come to raise the curtain on yet another exciting new Opera technology release. The drums are playing a low roll, which increases in intensity as the onlookers stare in antici … pation; the lights begin to come up, along with the curtain; the stage is all set for passion and the energy of today’s performance; the narrator spoils the mood by talking through it (that’s me…)

So what is Opera Unite? In a nutshell, Opera Unite is a collaborative technology that uses a compact server inside the Opera desktop browser to share data and services. You can write applications — in the form of Opera Unite Services — that use this server to serve content to other Web users.

Why is this exciting? Well, it allows you to interact with contacts, sharing data and services without the need for any third-party Web sites/applications to be involved at all. Think of the possibilities:
You could play games and chat to your peers directly using the service
You could share photos and videos with peers, straight off your hard drive, without needing to use third-party Web applications
You can work collaboratively with others on files such as data and images (think wikis or drawing applications), and then work with those files offline if you wish, before sharing them again at a later date
You could even start creating some crazy hacks, like an application that controls a remote car across the Web (I’ve seen a rough prototype in action)