Microsoft's preview version of the Internet Explorer 8 Web browser, released this week, isn't likely to differ much from a final version that's expected to be shipped later this year, according to a company official.
"The technical community should expect the final IE8 release to behave as the Release Candidate does," Explorer general manager Dean Hachamovitch wrote in a blog post. "The IE8 product is effectively complete and done."
Some users who have downloaded the Release Candidate, however, say the browser could still use some work. Posters responding to Hachamovitch's blog reported that IE8, in its present form, has, among other things, problems rendering tables and print views, and trips over tabs in some instances.
Microsoft has delivered a preliminary release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to testers and is again on track to
offer another public preview next month, according to several reports on the Web.
Previously, TechARP had said Vista SP2 would reach RTM -- a milestone at which the service pack is officially finished, and
sent to computer makers and duplicators for retail copies -- as late as June.
Vista SP2 will be released for download from the Web at an undetermined date after Microsoft slaps the RTM label on the service
pack. In the past, Microsoft has waited to post service packs anywhere from just two weeks after RTM to more than six weeks after.
Microsoft has confirmed that it won't issue a second beta of Windows 7, saying that the next test version of the operating system will be a near-final release candidate.
Windows engineering head Steven Sinofsky announced the move in a blog posting on Friday, confirming that Microsoft would stick to earlier plans for just a single beta.
"The next milestone for the development of Windows 7 is the Release Candidate or 'RC,'" Sinofsky wrote. "Historically the Release Candidate has signaled 'we're pretty close and we want people to start testing the release, especially because all the features are done.'"
Microsoft has made source code for its Live Labs Web Sandbox project for securing Web content through isolation available
via open source under the Apache License 2.0, according to a report this week on Microsoft's Port 25 site.
Web Sandbox builds upon Microsoft's experience with DHTML, Windows, Windows Live Web-based gadgets, and the Microsoft BrowserShield
project, which leverages JavaScript virtualization through rewriting.
Microsoft and IT services provider Infosys Technologies revealed on Thursday an alliance around improving supply chain visibility and collaboration.
"This goal of getting simplification into what is an increasingly complex environment is not going away," said Tyler Bryson,
general manager of the manufacturing sector at Microsoft. "At a time when our industry needs to improve, the complexity is
increasing." Each incremental supplier, for example, adds seven new touch points to an organization, Bryson said.
JPEG XR, an image format created by Microsoft that promises a number of advantages over JPEG, has cleared a key standardization hurdle.
The Joint Photographic Experts Group, which standardized the original and still ubiquitous JPEG format, sent JPEG XR to the "final phases of standardization" after a vote at a January meeting, the group said Thursday. That means the standard's future is more certain.
"The committee expects the JPEG XR International Standard to be published later this year," the group said.
A Windows enthusiast is calling for Microsoft to release Windows 7 now, only a few weeks after the company made available
the software's first public test version.
So far, the campaign, which has been reported on a few other Microsoft-centric blogs, has garnered only a limited response.
At the time this article was written, the campaign to release Windows 7 now had 72 votes.
Microsoft did not respond immediately on Thursday to request for comment about the campaign.
Early reviews of the first beta for Windows 7, released on Jan. 10, have said the software fixes many of the problems users
reported with its predecessor Windows Vista. Microsoft on Saturday -- the day it originally planned to take the beta down
from the Web -- extended its general availability until Feb. 10 due to what the company said was high demand.
Remember that teenage trick of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, "I can't hear you"? That's how I felt on Thursday morning when I talked to Adam Sohn, the marketing director for Zune.
No retreat, baby, no surrender.
I don't mean that Microsoft is oblivious to reality: Sohn admitted that the latest Zune sales figures were bad (though apparently in line with Microsoft's very low expectations) and that the company would prefer to be selling millions of the things instead of having them pile up in warehouses. It's more like Microsoft doesn't care what the world thinks.
Although the economic crisis won't change his focus on global health and U.S. education, Bill Gates said the woes are making his work harder.
In particular, Gates said that beyond the prospect of lower aid budgets, the biggest factor in reducing disease and hunger is actually the underlying growth in the area in question--something that is now stalled globally.
Bill and Melinda Gates visit demonstration plots at the IITA Research Station in Abuja, Nigeria in October 2006.
"Economic success has been this phenomenal thing," Gates said. "Whenever that clock is running slower or even briefly goes into a period where it is going back,
it is really a very negative thing. It blocks a lot that is important."
Gates' comments came during a conference call with reporters, following the release of a public letter on the foundation's progress.
Microsoft on Monday released a near-final "release candidate" version of Internet Explorer 8, the next version of its Web browser.
The software maker plans to say more on its Web site around noon, but, as noted by enthusiast site Neowin, the code is already available from Microsoft's download center.
Among the new features in IE 8 is a browsing mode known as InPrivate, designed not to leave fingerprints on a PC. With IE 8, Microsoft is hoping to regain some lost ground by adding features such as private browsing, improved security, and a new type of add-ons, called accelerators.