Microsoft has unveiled the latest release of its flagship product, i.e. Internet Explorer (IE) 8. Since it is the beta version 1, it is only relevant to Web developers and designers looking to understand what made this version different from IE7, and possibly collect feedback from them. According to IE8 blog, several activities are on the way, Microsoft is trying to fulfill the following areas of its IE8:

1) Full CSS 2.1 support in the final IE8 product.

2) Better scripting performance.

3) Support for HTML5.

4) Delivered a better way for web services to integrate into the user’s workflow.

5) Delivered a better way for web services to enable their users to keep an eye on interesting parts of a webpage within the browser with WebSlices.

You can download this IE8 beta version by clicking here, temporarily only available for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. However, it should be noted that this version failed to pass the ACID2 test, as it is related to a cross-domain problem.

via [IE8 blog]

Last December when Microsoft announced its soon-to-be launched Internet Explorer (IE) 8 passed the Acid2 test, we probably know that this most popular browser will going to be released to the public in this year. Now, the IE blog reported the IE 8 public version will be released within the first half of 2008. However, I think what catch our eyes is an invitation email that posted by ActiveWin, talked about the IE8 Beta 1 is currently focused on the developer community, and assume you’re a developer and have been selected by Microsoft Connect, you can help out reviewing patches and getting them uploaded.

Nevertheless, this beta testing is conducted through invitation, that’s no way one can experience with a certain package and want to triage bugs without the Microsoft invitation email.

According to the IE blog of Microsoft, the upcoming version IE8 has passed a new milestone, now it can render the Acid2 Face in standard mode correctly. Acid2 test is very important to them as it is represents as a test that how a browser working with some specific features across several different Web standards. In particular, the IE8 will still be remained as a browser that aimed to be more standards-compliant, that mean they’ll only going to follow some preconceived right set of standards.

Nevertheless, the beta version of IE8 will only be released to the public in the first half of calendar 2008.

Yahoo! China is planned to relaunch the next generation of Yahoo! Assistant despite the criticism of its Internet Assistant, i.e. 3721 Internet Assistant amongst the China users there. 3721 Internet Assistant was a product that indeed disappointed a lot of Yahoo! users because of its difficulties in uninstallation. Though this browser helper object was the same as the one that formerly known as the above mentioned 3721, but Yahoo! China takes a much more proactive approach by building another Web site and also renames the 3721 Internet Assistant to Addresscn. With Addresscn, users can download a brand new and relatively small executable program file on their Windows platform. This software claimed to improve the users’ experiences by performing three core functionalities such as type in Mandarin, open in the original English URL site, Web pages filtering system and the removal of Internet history information as well as blocking ads.

Apparently, it’s hard for Yahoo! China to promote this Addresscn Internet Assistant, as this product characteristics could be labeled as “流氓软件”, i.e. “Hooligan” or “Zombie” applications. I still remember the old saying that first impressions are lastings, but we’ll see how Yahoo! China market and change the mindset of the China people in trying their newest release.

If you know what PayPal mean to eBay, then you’ll know the importance of Alipay to Taobao, a site owned by Alibaba. Alipay just announced that it will not permit the Firefox users to access its secure Web page and process the payment after this August 15. The main reason is that information layout on the Alipay site can’t be authenticated via Firefox browser, and the Opera browser as well. It is therefore, the Firefox users need to download an add-on, i.e. IE tab in order to continue using the Alipay system, as shown on this page (in Mandarin). I’m just wonder, for a site to succeed in the market, should Alibaba set up some restrictions on the site that tend to turn away the users who loved the Firefox or Opera. Some Chinese users believed this move will also bring the negative impact on the Linux users that Firefox browser is pre-installed in the Linux operating system.

Meanwhile, Alipay management seem very confident that their request for the IE browser in order to use its system will only bring about a dramatic increase in trading volume. With the strategic partnership between Yahoo! and Alibaba, and we know Yahoo! has released its own customized version of Internet Explorer (IE), it’s not surprise that Alibaba is now backing the use of IE on Alipay.

CoReap is hot in the Blogosphere, most of the well-known technology blogs are profiling on this startup recently. As stated in its landing page, CoReap: A social search and bookmarking add-on for the Web browsers. To better understand this, it was a tool that helps user to find and bookmark the Website of interest. In a form like a sidebar application, it offered several features, such as sharing your bookmarks with your friends, publish and share a RSS feed of your recent public bookmarks in a widget on your blog or Website. As a consequence, there will be a RSS feed button to be showed on your CoReap widget.

At this point, it provide a an extension for the Firefox and IE browser. However, the most powerful social search integration was not fully supported on IE yet. By any measure, it done a job with the search engine integration functionality with Google and Yahoo!

CoReap is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Update: CoReap was selected as one of the 25 start-ups on spigit, for their social networking and market simulation platform.

The other day I came across a new startup Polar Rose is entering its private beta testing phase. For those who are interested in trying their early beta version, they allowed a limited number of beta users to test their plug-in. Polar Rose, is expected to launch its browser plug-in version 0.1 for Firefox in the next few weeks. It is a public photo discoverer, which means you can detects people in the public photos and you have the options to name the person, do some tagging as well on the edit the name of the photos that you found by using their browser plug-in. Starting from 16th July, they will randomly select some email addresses, i.e. those who sign-up for the beta notification to test out their plug-in. As I read their blog entry, they having some plans to further upgrading their plug-in, such as release the adult content filter, bookmarking feature, pubic API release, and etc.

Polar Rose is a research project grew out of a university in Sweden. They have raised $5.1 million in funding from Nordic Venture Partners in November last year.

I just came across an interesting blog entry, the author is the COO of Mozilla, was wondering the browser market share in the future would only controlled by two parties, i.e. IE (Internet Explorer) and Safari.

Some of its excerpt:

This world view that Steve gave a glimpse into betrays their thinking: it’s out-of-date, corporate-controlled, duopoly-oriented, not-the-web thinking. And it’s not good for the web. Which is sort of moot, I think, because I don’t think this 2 party world will really come to be.

Steve asserted Monday that Safari on Windows will overturn history, attract 100M new users, and revert the world to a 2 browser state. That remains to be seen, of course.

I agreed with John’s viewpoint. For Safari, a newly released browser, it can’t get ubiquity. When Safari can’t get ubiquitous, or can’t get the volume on the web, I wonder how could they get the market share later.

Source: adapted from http://planet.mozilla.org/diggmirror/index.html, accessed 16 June 2007

Update: Found a clip on YouTube about the talk of Steve Jobs on Safari browser at the Apple WWDC 2007, as embedded in the below.