Silverlight, Tools Announced at MIX '09

The next versions of Microsoft’s Web technologies and tools were revealed at the MIX ’09 Web developer and designer conference in Mar. 2009. Much of the conference focused on announcements and discussions of Silverlight 3 and Expression Blend 3, both of which are now available as public test releases. Improvements in these upcoming products may lead to further developer and designer adoption of Microsoft’s rich Internet application (RIA) platform. Microsoft also announced general availability of Internet Explorer (IE) 8, showed the next version of Expression Web, and demonstrated incremental additions and improvements to other tools and technologies, including Windows Azure.

Improved Video in Silverlight

Silverlight is Microsoft’s platform for RIAs, which are interactive graphical applications delivered over the Web that run in a browser plug-in. Silverlight 3, planned for late 2009, improves on video capabilities by adding support for video encoded in the popular H.264 standard (also known as MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding). It will also deliver graphics hardware acceleration and high definition video playback. Also previewed was the new Smooth Streaming feature of IIS Media Services (formerly IIS Media Pack), which improves Silverlight playback by continuously adjusting the bit rate of video delivery to optimize for available CPU and bandwidth.