Two number one albums, half a million record sales and now a Classical Brit - it has certainly been a busy year for Katherine Jenkins.
Around 18 months ago, she was giving singing lessons to children in Neath, dreaming of topping the classical charts and singing at the Sydney Opera House.
The 24-year-old mezzo-soprano has already done both, and that is not all.
As the Wales rugby team's mascot, she has played at the Millennium Stadium more times than Chelsea, and has raised her UK profile with performances at the VE Day celebrations and the Tsunami Relief Concert.
Although it seems as though she has appeared from nowhere, she has a solid classical background, and her path to fame has been anything but an overnight phenomenon.
As a schoolgirl, she was named Welsh choirgirl of the year, and after training at the Royal Academy, she was quickly snapped up by Universal Classics, who gave her a six-album £1m deal.
She recognises the importance of promotion - not every artist is like that
Since then, the albums Premiere and Second Nature have propelled her into the classical music hierarchy, but experts said was not just about having a good voice.
Mark Wilkinson, marketing director at Universal Classics, said Jenkins was one of the hardest working artists on their books, who was easy to work with.
"She is an utter professional, a wonderful singer and has a team utterly committed to her," he said.
Better browsing on Windows Mobile
Looking for a better Windows Mobile browser? Opera today released the improved Opera Mini 5.1 for Windows Mobile. The new update brings better support for high resolution handsets, accelerometer support and the ability to set Opera Mini as the default browser.
Brazil sings the Opera Mini tune
Opera Mini, the world?s most popular mobile browser, is now available on more than 60 mobile phone models in Brazil through a partnership with TIM ? one of Brazil?s leading carriers. Dubbed as ?Navegador TIM,? the co-branded application will be available either as a free download or will be preinstalled on phones used by TIM subscribers.
Get smart.
Opera Software today announced Opera Mobile 10, its full-feature mobile browser", has landed on on MediaTek's platform. MediaTek Inc., a leading semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, has chosen Opera Mobile to power its feature phones. Starting from now, MediaTek's new chip solutions for 2.75G and 3G feature phones will be shipped with Opera Mobile 10.
Giving the freedom to choose
Opera Software today announced that its browser has been selected to be preinstalled on Toshiba?s Android-based tablet computer ?Folio 100?, which will be available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the fourth quarter of 2010. Users will now have the option to select the browser they want to use, either Opera Mobile or Android?s default browser. The Folio 100 will be available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa only.
Women flock to the mobile Web
In just two years, the number of women on the mobile Web has risen 575%, according to Opera?s State of the Mobile Web Report, published today. South Africa leads the world?s push for gender equality on the mobile Web, with women accounting for nearly 44% of mobile web users.
Telenor and Opera to co-operate on mobile Internet growth worldwide
The Telenor Group and Opera Software announce a non?exclusive Global Frame Agreement aiming to stimulate rapid growth of mobile Internet services across Telenor?s business units. Telenor?s business units can co-brand, distribute and run the Opera Mini mobile browser across its mobile handset and subscriber portfolios. As a result, Telenor?s customers in all geographies will be able to enjoy a fast, affordable and user-friendly mobile web experience on their favourite handset.
Opera.com welcomes Vietnamese speakers
Starting today, all Opera.com visitors who have Vietnamese set as their browser language will be automatically redirected to the native language site (vn.opera.com).
HTML5 ? more web for more people
Open web and mobile technologies are two hot topics among the open-source developer community in Taiwan this year. Opera Chief Standards Officer, Charles McCathieNevile, will deliver the keynote presentation, titled ?HTML5- more Web for more people? at this year's COSCUP / GNOME.Asia, the largest annual free and open source software conference, organized by the local communities. This year, the conference will be jointly held with the GNOME.Asia Summit on August 14-15, bringing the exciting development of open web and mobile technologies and the GNOME desktop environment, as well as how they leverage the world-leading hardware industry in Taiwan. More than 800 people are expected to attend the conference this year.
A browser with unlimited possibilities
One of the great features of Opera desktop browser is customization. Opera Nalakuvara, an Opera browser made by the Taiwanese community, today received official recognition from Opera Software. This is the first Opera browser designed especially for Taiwanese Internet users and there are currently nine packages available for various operating systems including Windows, Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, and generic Linux), and FreeBSD. Download it from http://jedi.org/opera/download.html
One billion reasons to use Opera Mini every day
Opera joins the exclusive one billion served per day club. According to Opera Software statistics, Opera Mini users viewed more than one billion pages on July 25, 2010. Every second, Opera Mini servers compressed more than 11,500 pages before sending that content to phones around the world.
Africa?s mobile web explosion
Mobile web use is exploding in Africa, according to Opera?s State of the Mobile Web Report, published today. Triple-digit growth rates are routine in the region where page views in the top 12 countries in Africa increased by 182% year-over-year, unique users increased by 124%, and the amount of data transferred increased by 160%.
Put your mobile on the map
Nokia smartphone owners rejoice! Opera today released the first beta of Opera Mobile 10.1 for Symbian Series 60 phones. Opera Mobile 10.1 beta features accelerated speed and geolocation capabilities. Download the beta directly to your mobile phone from m.opera.com/next.
Lightning fast browsing on Android phones
Opera spreads the love to Android mobile phone users. Opera Mini 5.1 is now available for phones built on the Android platform, offering better browsing performance and improved user experience.
Opera browser shines in Seznam colors
Opera 10.60, the fastest browser on Earth, hits the Czech market in the Seznam.cz colors. The first Opera browser designed especially for the number one Czech portal comes for machines running Windows. Download it from http://software.seznam.cz/.
One browser. 3000 phones.
Opera Mini, the world?s most popular mobile phone browser with over 61 million users worldwide, delivers the best Internet experience possible on more than 3000 mobile phones.
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