Sept. 26, 2011
by Mark Ollig
A version of Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 10 (IE 10) was shown during the recent Microsoft Build Developers Conference.
“In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions. The HTML5 and script engines are identical and you can easily switch between the different frame windows if you’d like,” explained Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky in a recent Microsoft Development Network blog posting.
HTML5 is the latest version of the Hypertext Markup Language programming code. It is a scripted computing language used in the creation of web pages.
Microsoft is abandoning the need to incorporate Adobe Flash coding by using the HTML5 code.
Adobe Flash, which uses the Adobe Flash Player, is a cross-platform, browser-based application used for displaying video and multimedia content on computer web browsers. It is used in most computing and mobile devices.
“For the web to move forward and for consumers to get the most out of touch-first browsing, the metro style browser in Windows 8 is as HTML5-only as possible, and plug-in free,” wrote Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer group.
Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet, and is proceeding into the future without embedding Flash into their browsers; a bold move on their part, and not without its critics, I might add.
Windows 8 includes one HTML5 browsing engine that powers a user’s two individual browsing experiences: the Metro style browser and the IE 10 used with desktop applications.
Microsoft states this HTML5 browsing engine will provide support for today’s web standards, in addition to being a reliable, safe, fast, and powerful web developer programming tool when used for browser experiences, as well as for the new metro-style apps to be created.
The new IE 10 update includes support for on-screen touch-friendly websites and incorporates rich, visual effects technologies and sophisticated web page layouts.
IE 10 includes a built-in spell checker, along with an auto correct feature; so, when I type “teh” it will be auto corrected to “the.”
The history of the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser started in August 1995, with the release of Internet Explorer 1.0, which was used with Microsoft Windows 95.
Windows 95 included the technologies needed for connecting to the Internet, along with built-in support for dial-up networking to a Bulletin Board System (BBS) or other device.
During the mid-1990s, we used dial-up networking for accessing hobby BBSs and for our work.
Yours truly used dial-up networking for maintaining telephony devices, such as digital and electronic business phone systems and my hometown’s telephone digital switching office.
Internet Explorer 1.0 was originally shipped separately to retailers as the “Internet Jumpstart Kit in Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95.”
Consumers could also buy it pre-installed with Windows 95 when they purchased a new computer.
Internet Explorer 2.0 was released in November1995. It was a cross-platform web browser used in Macintosh and Microsoft Windows 32-bit computing systems.
Some trivia: Using Internet Explorer 2.0, one could view the famous “Trojan Room coffee pot,” which was the world’s first webcam. This webcam showed the current amount of coffee remaining inside a coffee pot in the computer laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
You might recall the column I wrote April 4 called “Computing ingenuity led to the creation of ‘XCoffee’.”
In 1991, at the University of Cambridge, a video camera was rigged to capture live, still-frame images of a working coffeepot every three seconds. These images were encoded and sent over the college’s local computer network.
The scholarly researchers (working in other parts of the building), could visually see the current status of the amount of coffee remaining in the coffeepot on a small image snapshot display in the corner of their computer screens.
The real-time XCoffee images made available to the world over the Internet in 1993 became an instant sensation.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0 in August 1996. It was also designed for Windows 95 and included Internet Mail, News 1.0, and the Windows Address Book.
Microsoft NetMeeting and Windows Media Player were later added to Internet Explorer 3.0.
Internet Explorer 4.0 was released in October 1997. It was used with Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT.
Internet Explorer 4.0 allowed web pages to be more interactive. File menus could be expanded with a mouse click, and icon images could be dragged around and repositioned.
Internet Explorer 5.0 was released in March 1999. One new feature included the Windows Radio Toolbar which could access more than 300 Internet radio stations broadcasting around the world at that time.
Internet Explorer 6.0 was released with Windows XP in 2001.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7.0 Oct. 18, 2006. It included Quick Tabs, which provided an at-a-glance snapshot of all open tabs on a single screen.
Internet Explorer 8.0 was released during March 2009. It was offered in 25 languages.
This year, Internet Explorer 9.0 became available for users of Windows 7. One of its many features includes automatic crash recovery.
IE 10 will be publicly released with Windows 8 on a yet-to-be-determined date, so once again; stay tuned everyone.
About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.
