Microsoft Corp. has unveiled a web browser for cellphones and other devices with limited screen space that zooms into a page to make it easier to read and navigate. The prototype browser, dubbed Deepfish, displays an image of the page as a point of reference. Users can highlight a section of the page, which they can then zoom in and out of to quickly view it in detail, rather than scrolling through multiple screens to see the parts that interest them.

Microsoft says its prototype Deepfish mobile web browser makes it easier to display and read web pages on devices with small screens.
(Microsoft Corp.) Microsoft unveiled the browser Wednesday at O'Reilly Media Inc.'s showcase for emerging technologies, the ETech conference in San Diego, Calif.

"Think about your mobile browsing experience today," Gary William Flake, director of Microsoft Live Labs, said in a written statement. "It's often less than intuitive, the pages don't look like what you've come to expect on the desktop and it takes a long time for a page to load. Deepfish aims to solve that problem."

Deepfish maintains the page layout, rather than reformatting it to fit a small screen, which can sometimes interfere with the context that information on those pages may require for proper understanding or ease of use. For example, menus and other navigation elements are sometimes rendered unusable when a web page is reformatted to fit a smaller screen.