Microsoft have just announced Silverlight 4 beta today at PDC09, that is available for download today. Silverlight 4 promises to enhance the overall user experience, improving speed, performance and rendering for browsers.
Silverlight 4 was demonstrated today with some practical applications that are able to take pictures and modify the image in real-time, using a web-based service. The service lets you take a picture of yourself and modify it in real-time to adjust your appearance, and even change the colour of your shirt.
Microsoft released some statistics on Silverlight 3, being installed on 33% of all computers and mobile phones during summer 2009. Silverlight 3 is now installed on approximately 45% of all computers and mobile devices around the world today.
Silverlight was also demonstrated with Microsoft's own search engine, Bing, where it was able to split the image into a puzzle and scatter the image around. This application was also used with a YouTube video, being able to scatter the page and still being able to play the video in real-time.
A new desktop Facebook application using Silverlight was demonstrated using a drag and drop feature for images, including folder groups. The application demonstrated smooth scrolling through images and comments without any interruption.
Silverlight also showed off a video on-demand video third-party video application that allows the user to rewind, fast-forward and even pause live or recorded TV, all using your browser. Microsoft also showed off a demo of a football game that allowed multiple camera angles, even available for a live broadcast.
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