Posts Tagged ie9

15 days until IE9 Launch

Aug 31

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Uncategorized | No Comments

We’re just week’s away from the launch of IE9 and the team here are very excited about the impact this will have on how millions view the web.  IE9 is almost unrecognisable from previous incarnations of our browser – the step up is equivalent to upgrading from an old 14 inch TV to a bright, clean HD plasma screen. We can’t wait to get it out there.

The new browser is incredibly fast. Our current speed tests prove it is 11 times faster than IE8 alone! For web developers this is truly revolutionary. It means that webpages can become even more graphically rich and advanced websites (like Radian6) will feel like normal applications on your start menu in Windows.

If you really can’t wait for the launch then you might want to take the developer trial version of IE9 for a test drive. We’ve already had over 2.5 million downloads of the Platform Preview alone on the IE Test Drive site and love getting feedback we can take on board to make sure IE9 meets your needs better than ever.

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

This week we’re counting down to the IE9 launch and giving you more of an idea of what the browser includes to make the web feel more beautiful than ever!

It’s 15 days until IE9’s launch on 15th September. Get ready for a whole new way to experience the web…

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Fourth Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9 released

Aug 5

Posted by Blue E Blogger in In the news | No Comments

It’s time for the big news of the week… last night, we released the Fourth Platform Preview of IE9 over at our US counterpart IE blog and IE9 Test Drive site. It’s been a popular destination with 20 million page views so far and 2.4 million downloads of the three previous platform previews.

This Fourth Platform Preview sees improvement in three key areas:

Performance

According to Webkit.org SunSpider, IE8 came in with a whopping score of 3746 milliseconds. With IE9, Microsoft introduced Chakra, a new JavaScript engine, and using  the same SunSpider benchmark, IE9 Platform Preview 4 has a score of 326 milliseconds – making it 11 times faster than IE8.

Same mark-up

Developers have fedback and they want better interoperability so that the same markup (tags, script, language) works across different browsers. This means that developers can write once and have their site work everywhere. With this Platform Preview, Microsoft has submitted another 519 tests to the working groups at the W3C – bringing the total number of tests to 2,100.

A positive outcome of the investment to enable same mark-up has been IE9’s Acid 3 score. When Microsoft shipped IE8, its Acid 3 score was 20.  As a result of listening to feedback and focusing on what developers want, the Acid 3 score for Platform Preview 4 is 95.

Hardware acceleration

Microsoft has been working closely with its ecosystem partners to tap into the power of hardware through Windows to deliver the best hardware-accelerated video and HTML5 available. The Internet Explorer 9 platform continues to push what people can do with HTML5 in the real world, especially when you pair it with hardware acceleration.

There are plenty of demos and examples at the Test Drive site, so make sure you head over and take a look. Next stop: IE9 Beta!

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Internet Explorer 9 – Platform Preview 3

Jun 24

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Uncategorized | No Comments

Today Microsoft released the third Platform Preview for Internet Explorer 9.  This new instalment in a series of releases showcases some of the cutting edge features including improved HTML5 video and audio performance and hardware acceleration through the GPU. IE9 is the first browser to use this technology.

By using the full power of the PC, IE9 will enable developers to do more with HTML5. The new browser will also support canvas graphics technology and other audio-visual tags laid out in the HTML 5 standard.

Other key improvements include faster handling of typefaces, JavaScript performance and formatting.

This video reveals the capability of IE9 and demonstrates what’s in store for web developers thanks to Microsoft’s latest hardware acceleration technology.

To find out more check out Dean Hachamovitch, Internet Explorer general manager’s  blog IE9 preview touts enhanced HTML5 | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/358948/ie9-preview-touts-enhanced-html5#ixzz0rn6L4dzV

Why not test drive IE9 Platform Preview 3 today http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

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Microsoft Future Gazing Film

Jun 23

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Uncategorized | No Comments

Charles Arthur and Jemima Kiss point out that there is a ‘Star Trek’ effect in the technology world. Because a generation grows up watching futuristic gadgets in awe these actually shape the product design of the future. Motorola had a big hit with the Moto Razr (it was the biggest selling phone in its year of launch) but perhaps its design features were ‘inspired’ from somewhere else?

Microsoft have put together a great future gazing film looking at the future of interfaces. It’s really worth taking in. Thanks to Libin Pan for the mention

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The Future of Interfaces

Jun 21

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Whenever Microsoft launches something really cool it’s great for us here at Internet Explorer. We’ve been inundated with e-mails and buzz this past week following the spectacular launch of Xbox Kinect at E3 last week. No expense was spared – the show started with a 45 minute display from Cirque de Soleil to really communicate the freedom of movement you have with Kinect. Take a look below to see what everyone is getting so excited about.

Whenever a revolutionary new system comes into play – be it in consoles, mobile phones or even kitchen appliances the question is raised – when will I see this built into my computer? Kinect points to the future of interfaces and suggests that the vision in Minority Report is less far away than we ever imagined. Take a look at this fascinating presentation at TED from John Underkoffler (it really gets going about 7 mins in).

His prediction is that this style of interface will come as standard in your computer within 5 years. This week on the IE blog we’re going to do a bit more future gazing, showing Microsoft’s predictions for the future office and cool computers running IE that will amaze you even now.

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Working 9 to 5 with Web Slices

Jun 4

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Tips & Tricks | No Comments

With the emergency budget around the corner for June 22nd many businesses both large and small will be watching carefully to see what new ‘efficiency savings’ will be taken to reduce the countries £157 Billion deficit… and the effect it has on the FTSE and Dow Jones.

Continuing this week’s theme of working smarter with IE, we’ve highlighted a few more Web Slices you can use to make small efficiency savings at work.

http://www.ieaddons.com/en/details/finance/Finance_from_Bing/

http://www.ieaddons.com/en/details/news/CNN_Top_Stories/

If you’re a fan of The West Wing you’ll know that Pizza is the answer for a long night in the office.

http://www.ieaddons.com/en/details/shopping/Dominos_Pizza_Slice/

And if you’re really tired of working 9 to 5, then take a look at Dolly Partons’ own webslice. IE wonders if the song would have been as popular if she’d worked 8.30am – 4.15pm?

http://www.ieaddons.com/en/details/music/Dolly_Parton_News_and_Video_Diary/

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Bringing Home Practice into the Office

Jun 3

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Uncategorized | No Comments

We’ve had lots of people asking us for a bit more information on Web Slices and how they work. Take a look at the video below for a full tutorial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqXR79P_Uzo

Onto today’s post, then…  In today’s ever more connected world it’s easier than ever to work from home. But it’s a bit of a debate in the IE office as to whether it makes you more productive or not. Surely you’ll be distracted by the screaming kids or the washing machine??

Well the data’s in from RescueTime – working from home can boost productivity by as much as 22% with more time spent on the tasks that mattered for work. A full breakdown can be found below and on their blog at http://blog.rescuetime.com/2009/11/18/does-working-from-home-make-you-more-productive-yes-with-data/

A friend of ours pointed out that even though they’re at a FTSE 100 company (that we’ll keep nameless) their computers were so old “they literally have to crank them up in the morning, like a classic car.” This insight is telling – many companies do delay updating computers to a point that causes a worrying loss of productivity.

We’ve had a great response to IE 8 from the web community and reviewers have said “Upgrading to IE8 from IE7 is a no-brainer”. So this is another aspect where a homeworker can outperform an office worker – by have more up-to-date software at home.  If your office is a bit behind you might want to give your management a nudge… upgrading to IE8 and Windows 7 will boost productivity every minute you’re at your desk.

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Mash-Up IE with Bing Maps

Jun 1

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Tips & Tricks | No Comments

In our last post we hinted that the Internet Generation have pretty short attention spans. This new ‘slash/slash’ generation have multiple interests and expect knowledge and information at their fingertips because they’ve never known anything different.

So ask yourself this – how often do you become frustrated copying and pasting information from one page to another, only to return to the web page you were just at?! For today’s new generation cut and paste just doesn’t cut it anymore, which is where IE accelerators come in.

You’re probably surfing the net while listening to a new mash-up of Kanye West vs. Beethoven’s 5th and just don’t want to click away to bring up a map of the new underground club you’re off to on your weekend trip to New York. With IE accelerators just right click on an address and navigate to ‘Map with Bing’ and a map will appear in the page you’re in.

To download the Bing Accelerometer make sure you have IE 8 installed and send your browser to:

http://ieaddons.com/gb/details/mapping/Bing_Maps/

There’s loads of other time saving IE add-ons for the busy internet user – take a look at http://ieaddons.com/gb/

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Internet Explorer 9 “Platform Preview” Available For Developers

Mar 16

Posted by Blue E Blogger in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Today, at MIX 10 in Las Vegas, Microsoft has released an early “platform preview” version of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) to the website developer community ahead of public availability. IE9 will be Microsoft’s fastest browser experience yet, with improved graphics resulting in enhanced performance and applications will load quicker and run seamlessly. Internet Explorer 8 already delivers the best web experience on Windows offering great features, reliability and security and this next version, Internet Explorer 9, will make this even better. Microsoft is committed to rigorous testing and IE9 will be publically available once it has reached the quality bar for widespread release.

It’s been a year since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 and to date has blocked 560 million attempted malware downloads, equating to over 3 million blocks daily, making it the number one in malware protection according to NSS Labs and can be downloaded here http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/internet-explorer/browse-with-confidence.aspx

For more information on Internet Explorer 9 click here; http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/default.aspx. If you are a developer, please visit http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/11/18/an-early-look-at-ie9-for-developers.aspx for more information.

To experience IE 9 during this testing phase, go here: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

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