Microsoft Announces Hardware-Accelerated HTML5, Pushes Boundaries on Web and Cloud Development

“LAS VEGAS — March 16, 2010 — Industry standards and
innovation took center stage at MIX10, as Microsoft Corp. made a
series of announcements that underscore the company’s
commitment to interoperability and performance on the Web. Dean
Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer at Microsoft,
unveiled the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview including
expanded support for HTML5, hardware-accelerated graphics and text,
and a new JavaScript engine. Together these allow developers to use
the same markup and deliver graphically and functionally rich Web
applications that take advantage of modern PC hardware through a
modern operating system.

“Microsoft also announced that it will contribute to the
development of new features and enhancements in the jQuery
JavaScript Library and shared the release of new software
development kits (SDKs) for the Open Data Protocol (OData) that
make it easier for developers to access data from the cloud to
create more compelling cross-platform Web applications.

“Raising Developer Expectations With Hardware Acceleration,
Increased Interoperability

“As part of its commitment to interoperability, Microsoft
detailed its support for a number of HTML5 specifications,
including CSS3, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), XHTML parsing, and
the video and audio tags using industry-standard (H.264/MPEG4 and
MP3/AAC) codecs, among others. In addition, Microsoft demonstrated
a new JavaScript engine that uses the multiple cores of
today’s modern chips to effectively manage computing
resources and improve Web performance. By combining increased
interoperability with a new JavaScript engine and Direct 2D
technology, Internet Explorer 9 enables Web developers to provide
users with richer experiences that render more quickly and
consistently.”

Interop. Standards. Right. Haven’t we heard this before?
–ed

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