silverlight

Mix 09: IE 8, Silverlight in the spotlight

roundup A new browser and would-be Flash rival Silverlight have starring roles at Microsoft's annual conference in Las Vegas for Web designers.

Hands-on with IE 8: A giant step for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 takes another large leap forward for the world's most-used browser, but is it enough to make devoted Firefox, Chrome, and Safari fans switch? • Browser war centers on once-obscure JavaScript (Posted in The Download Blog by Seth Rosenblatt) March 19, 2009 5:55 PM PDT Are catalogs the killer app for Silverlight? Silverlight's Deep Zoom offers a way to view magazines and catalogs … Read more

Are catalogs the killer app for Silverlight?

LAS VEGAS--Just like its predecessor a year ago, Silverlight 3 is clearly one of the stars of the Microsoft Mix conference under way here this week.

Silverlight is a Web browser plug-in for Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. (Silverlight also supports Firefox and Safari browsers and Mac OS X in addition to Microsoft Windows. A primarily Novell-developed plug-in, Moonlight, runs on Linux.) Its initial iteration was narrowly focused on media. However, Silverlight's direction is toward enabling a broad class of "rich Internet applications."

So, for example, Silverlight 3 will allow developers to create lightweight Web … Read more

Netflix: Silverlight 3 could help with glitches

Netflix said on Wednesday that the next version of Silverlight shows some promise in helping ease recent issues that some users have had while trying to stream videos on lower-end computers.

"There are test configurations in our lab where we are seeing an improvement," said Kevin McEntee, vice president of Web development for Netflix. McEntee told CNET News that the company went out and bought computers such as an Asus Netbook that users had said were causing problems. In some cases, the low-end machines weren't able to keep up with the video and were dropping frames, McEntee … Read more

Mix 09: Silverlight 3 takes center stage

LAS VEGAS--After a design-focused beginning, the talk quickly turned techie here at the Mix 09 event once Microsoft corporate VP Scott Guthrie took the stage.

After announcing a few different Web tools (which I'll save for lower down), the discussion shifted to Silverlight and Silverlight 3. Guthrie noted that so far there have been 350 million installations of Silverlight and said Microsoft believes there are now 300,000 developers targeting Silverlight.

Among the new features of Silverlight 3 is the ability to tap a computer's graphics processor to offer hardware acceleration of the video (both PC and Mac). … Read more

Mix kicks off with Buxton touting design

LAS VEGAS--To kick off its Mix conference, Microsoft went deep into its bench to find a speaker that could connect with the crowd of Web developers.

Rather than start with a product pitch, Microsoft began the event with a speech from Bill Buxton, a computing pioneer who these days focuses on design for Microsoft research.

Buxton's chat had a very un-Microsoft feel, as he ran back and forth on stage, gesturing wildly and speaking passionately about the need to create better experiences. Buxton encouraged the crowd not to get hung up on programming tools at first, but just sketch … Read more

Silverlight 3 rears its head at Mix

LAS VEGAS--Silverlight 3 just couldn't wait to make its appearance here in Vegas.

Microsoft is expected to demonstrate the software later on Wednesday, but pieces of the beta code have already started to make their way on to Microsoft's developer site. As noted by Ars Technica and others, the documentation for Silverlight 3 beta and other supporting bits of code are available on MSDN.

The new version of Microsoft's would-be rival to Adobe's Flash is expected to be a focal point of the first-day keynote here at Microsoft's Mix conference.

I'll be covering the … Read more

IE 8, Silverlight 3 on tap for Microsoft's Mix

A correction was made to this story. See below for details.

The expected release of Internet Explorer 8 is likely to be the biggest headline out of Microsoft's Mix conference this week, though the company is likely to spend at least as much time talking about Silverlight 3, the next version of its would-be rival to Adobe's Flash.

Microsoft has already released a near-final release candidate version of IE 8 and is widely expected to declare the browser done as it prepares to address a crowd of Web developers in Las Vegas starting on Wednesday. Microsoft used last … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 923: Slumdog smell-ionaire

A company says it has made a virtual reality helmet that will give you sights, sounds, temperature, and even smell. Which makes us wonder if that's a good thing. Would you want to see movies with smell? We also talk about a new Internet TV box that's 50 bucks and carries major studio movies and TV shows. Is it the one?

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 923

Kumo coming? Live Search headed for overhaul, rebranding http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/live-search-rebranding-is-coming-will-it-be-kumo.ars

Amazon offers e-books on Apple devices http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10187752-93.html … Read more

Netflix stands behind Microsoft Silverlight

Netflix is trying to locate the source of a series of glitches that some users of the company's streaming service are blaming on Microsoft's Silverlight video player.

Over the weekend, a steady stream of angry messages was posted to Netflix's blog. The complaints range from choppy video, to audio that doesn't sync with the picture, to grainy image quality.

The complaints began accumulating soon after the Web's largest video-rental service switched to Microsoft's Silverlight in November. The posts appear to have trickled in until last weekend, when a score of customers began reporting problems. … Read more