Microsoft gave a “platform preview” for Internet Explorer 9 this morning at the Mix10 conference in Vegas, a tech conference for web designers and developers. There are still many stages to go before IE9 hits beta — the address bar is missing, browsing buttons and security features are not there yet either. Since “this build is simply a first look at the work Microsoft has done so far and is ready to share with its developer community,” Microsoft announced, it still “loads and renders Web pages using the Internet Explorer 9 platform.” Feel free to check it out for yourself at the test drive site or, to get you started, here are the highlights:
- Heavy focus on HTML5 support — IE general manager Dean Hachmovitch says, “Done right, HTML5 apps will feel more like real apps than Web pages.”
- New Javascript engine, “Chakra” — ZDNet tells us this new engine is “built to take advantage of two cores” due to the demands of heftier HTML5 apps
- Accelerated HTML and graphics rendering
- Support for Vista and higher — no Windows XP support…
IE9 appears to be promising. Molly Holzschlag, a web standards advocate, says it’s going to “kick butt.” If you are interested in a play by play from this morning’s presentation, Ina Fried at CNET’s Beyond Binary has a live blog of the event.
