Microsoft Silverlight 3 and new SDK

Microsoft has planned to launch Microsoft Silverlight 3 and its SDK today, 10 July 2009, but they decided to release it one day early. This third edition of Silverlight has a huge range of improvements, this ranges from the new GPU hardware acceleration to the latest codec support, such as H.264, AAC, and MPEG-4.

Ars Technica offers us a closer look into all the latest features from Silverlight 3 and the new SDK. The Silverlight 3 RTW build 3.0.40624.0 is a 4.69MB download and supports Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8, Firefox 2 and 3 and Safari 3 and 4. There are reports that the Xbox 360 is to get Silverlight technology.

Silverlight 3 SDK is a 9.5MB download and the Silverlight 3 Tools is a 32.2MB download, all of which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center. Ars Technica informs us that there are thousands of new APIs and hundreds of newly added features for this latest version, which you can read more about from the Ars Technica website.