Silverlight 4 Ships, Blend Previewed

Silverlight 4 has shipped, and a release candidate of Expression Blend 4 is available. The latest version of the Silverlight rich Internet application (RIA) platform focuses on Web media, business applications, and out-of-browser scenarios, while the next version of the Blend graphical design tool delivers improved capabilities for application user interfaces created with Silverlight and other Microsoft technologies. Although Silverlight and Blend face strong competition from Adobe products, they may take on increased relevance as the primary tools for creating applications on Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 devices.

Silverlight 4 Improves Desktop Features

Silverlight 4 adds many features not found in Silverlight 3, including the following:

User interface and media-related features. Silverlight 4 supports video cameras; microphones; User Datagram Protocol multicast streaming (an efficient method for sending a media stream to a large number of clients); offline digital rights management; printing; the clipboard, mouse wheels, and right-button clicks; text formatting (including bidirectional and right-to-left text); and the ability to host HTML output within its plug-in.