Microsoft Silverlight, a browser plug-in designed to help companies produce rich, web-based applications and user experiences, first arrived back in 2007 and was touted by many as the replacement for competing solutions such as Adobe Flash.
Today, some two years later, Flash remains the popular choice for animation and interactivity on websites - including the likes of the hugely-popular video-sharing service, YouTube.
That isn't due to a lack of trying on Microsoft's part, mind you. The software giant rolled out Silverlight 2 late last year, and has now made available the latest release, Silverlight 3.
The update, given version number 3.0.40524.9, is available to download at Microsoft.com/Silverlight and introduces a number of key new features including GPU hardware acceleration and support for H.264, AAC and MPEG-4 codecs.
Silverlight 3 also includes support for IIS7 Smooth Streaming - a technology that we bandwidth-starved Brits are likely to love. Smooth Streaming allows for near-instant playback of HD media. When bandwidth is sufficient, media will playback at full bitrate. Should the available bandwidth fluctuate or drop, Smooth Streaming will dynamically adjust bitrate to ensure you aren't greeted with the dreaded "buffering..." message. It's a pretty cool and useful technology, and Silverlight users can see it in action in an online demo by clicking here.
Want to know what else is new in Silverlight 3? Check out the what's new guide by Silverlight program manager Tim Heuer.
Microsoft lists Silverlight 3's minimum system requirements as follows:
| Personal Computer running Windows | X86 or x64 500-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor with 128-megabytes (MB) of RAM |
| Mac OS 10.4.8+ (PowerPC) | PowerPC G4 800-MHz or higher processor with 128-MB of RAM |
| Mac OS 10.4.8+ (Intel-based) | Intel Core Duo 1.83-gigahertz (GHz) or higher processor with 128-MB of RAM |
A list of compatible browsers is available at Microsoft.com/Silverlight.
