Silverlight 3 Is Out, Adobe Flash Look Out
For a long time now we have been waiting on Microsoft to release a final version of the would-be Flash killer, Silverlight 3 – but all we had until now was an announcement that the development team behind the software is pretty excited about Silverlight 3, then came the announcement that Microsoft needs feedback on what features to implement in Silverlight 3, and then came the announcement that Microsoft is making Silverlight 3 Beta available for download.
Now you can put all those previous announcements aside and focus on a new one: the development process of Silverlight 3 is complete and consequently a final and stable software product is now available for download. On a little side note, Silverlight 3 final was supposed to be rolled out this Friday, the 10th of June, but it seems Microsoft rushed it out ahead of time and Silverlight 3 was released onto the web on Thursday, the 9th of June.
Silverlight 3 comes with the following new features:
- High quality video and audio: support for native H.264/Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) Audio, live and on-demand IIS7 Smooth Streaming, full HD (720p+) playback, and an extensible decoder pipeline
- Rich Experiences: perspective 3D graphics, pixel shader effects, bitmap caching, new bitmap API, themed application support, animation effects, enhanced control skinning, improved text rendering and font support.
- Rich Internet Application Productivity: more than 60 controls with source code, deep linking, SEO optimization.
- Enhanced Data Support: element to element binding, data forms, new data validation features, business objects support.
- Improved performance
- Out of Browser Capabilities: desktop shortcuts and start menu support, Silverlight 3.0 runs outside the browser, it is sandboxed, it is more secure, it has a built0in auto-update feature, detects loss of web connectivity, comes wit ha consumer friendly non-administrator install (you do not need admin privileges to run apps because they are cached).
If you want to download Silverlight 3.0, you can grab it directly from Microsoft here or here.
Now you can put all those previous announcements aside and focus on a new one: the development process of Silverlight 3 is complete and consequently a final and stable software product is now available for download. On a little side note, Silverlight 3 final was supposed to be rolled out this Friday, the 10th of June, but it seems Microsoft rushed it out ahead of time and Silverlight 3 was released onto the web on Thursday, the 9th of June.
Silverlight 3 comes with the following new features:
- High quality video and audio: support for native H.264/Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) Audio, live and on-demand IIS7 Smooth Streaming, full HD (720p+) playback, and an extensible decoder pipeline
- Rich Experiences: perspective 3D graphics, pixel shader effects, bitmap caching, new bitmap API, themed application support, animation effects, enhanced control skinning, improved text rendering and font support.
- Rich Internet Application Productivity: more than 60 controls with source code, deep linking, SEO optimization.
- Enhanced Data Support: element to element binding, data forms, new data validation features, business objects support.
- Improved performance
- Out of Browser Capabilities: desktop shortcuts and start menu support, Silverlight 3.0 runs outside the browser, it is sandboxed, it is more secure, it has a built0in auto-update feature, detects loss of web connectivity, comes wit ha consumer friendly non-administrator install (you do not need admin privileges to run apps because they are cached).
If you want to download Silverlight 3.0, you can grab it directly from Microsoft here or here.
