As a team, we’ve spent the last year heads down working hard on IE8. Last week, we achieved an important milestone that should interest web developers. IE8 now renders the “Acid2 Face” correctly in IE8 standards mode.

Acid2 Face

If you’re not a web developer, the details of this blog post probably aren’t all that interesting for you. I’d like you to know that we’re building IE8 for many different customers (consumers, web service providers, independent software vendors, enterprises, web developers, and others), and we’ll cover more details of the non-developer oriented work (e.g. user experience, reliability, security, etc.) in other posts in the future, after MIX. While web developers will immediately recognize what Acid2 means, I want to step back and offer some context for other readers of this blog who may not be familiar with web standards. Briefly: Acid2 is one test of how modern browsers work with some specific features across several different web standards.

At first glance, this test seems simple. I think it actually offers a view into the subtle and complex world of web standards in a number of ways. Showing the Acid2 page correctly is a good indication of being standards compliant, but Acid2 itself isn’t a web standard or a web standards compliance test. The publisher of the test, the Web Standards Project, is an advocacy group, not a web standards defining body.

When we look at the long lists of standards (even from just one standards body, like the W3C), which standards are the most important for us to support? The web has many kinds of standards – true industry standards, like those from the W3C, de facto standards, unilateral standards, open standards, and more. Some standards like RSS or OpenSearch lack a formal standards body y ..]]> http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/51/Internet-Explorer-8-and-Acid2-A-Milestone Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:36:10 +0000 General http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/51/Internet-Explorer-8-and-Acid2-A-Milestone#cmt ]]> http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/50/2008-SANS-REPORT Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:25:07 +0000 General http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/50/2008-SANS-REPORT#cmt
While some might answer with Windows or Internet Explorer, others may answer with OneCare or Windows Defender, and still, some might answer with SQL or Server 2003 or even Office Word. These are all excellent examples of who Microsoft is and I can understand why you would think of them when hearing the name, Microsoft.

But, the name I was thinking of and the one that seems to be much less known is Microsoft Research. This division is changing the way technology is used across the globe. “We’re focusing more on research than ever. We’re building the technology that will enable computers to see, listen, speak, and learn so people can interact with them as naturally as they interact with other people” says Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect.

Let's take a quick look at some Microsoft Research facts:

• In 1991, Microsoft® Corp. became one of the first software companies to create its own computer science research organization. As part of a dynamic industry that is continually reinventing itself, Microsoft saw the need to support long-term computer-science research—research that is not bound by product cycles—so there would be new foundations and technology breakthroughs upon which future generations could build.

• Over the last 14 years, Microsoft Research has evolved into an organization with more than 700 researchers studying more than 55 research areas. These include speech recognition, information retrieval, user-interface research, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, graphics, natural language processing, machine learning, and mathematical sciences.

• Microsoft researchers work closely with product-de ..]]> http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/49/Microsoft-is-Investing-in-a-Better-Tomorrow Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:47:04 +0000 General http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/49/Microsoft-is-Investing-in-a-Better-Tomorrow#cmt http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/48/Hunting-Cybercrooks Thu, 01 Nov 2007 02:37:48 +0000 General http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/48/Hunting-Cybercrooks#cmt http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/47/n404-Exploit-URLs Thu, 01 Nov 2007 02:33:53 +0000 General http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/47/n404-Exploit-URLs#cmt ]]> http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/46/Phishing-Attempts-Detected-on-Equifax-Customers Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:12:33 +0000 General http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/46/Phishing-Attempts-Detected-on-Equifax-Customers#cmt http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/45/Remote-Code-Execution Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:56:39 +0000 General http://www.micaspecialties.org/blog/post/index/45/Remote-Code-Execution#cmt