Microsoft offered its first public demonstration of Internet Explorer 8 on Wednesday, and has released a beta for developers.
Microsoft said IE8 contains a number of new features including CSS 2.1 support, CSS certification, HTML 5 support, new developer tools, activities and WebSlices.
Microsoft also said that the first beta of the browser, intended for developers, is currently available.
One of the new features, WebSlices, allow users to break a Web site into parts and only get updates from the part they want.
Apple has its own Web-clipping subscription method that is part of Mac OS X.
Separately, Microsoft said it was making available a beta version of Silverlight 2, which will move the technology further beyond delivering video and into creating rich Internet applications.
Among the features of Silverlight 2 is what Microsoft calls adaptive streaming: the ability of the client PC to decide how large a streaming file it can handle at any given moment based on its CPU and network resources.
"If the network gets congested it can drop down to a lower bit rate," said Scott Guthrie a vice president in Microsoft's developer division.
