Microsoft offers Internet Explorer 9 sneak peak

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Microsoft has revealed a few more details about Internet Explorer 9, unveiling a platform preview at MIX10 in Las Vegas today.

The next version of Microsoft's browser will include support for HTML5, which is already supported by many of its rivals, as well as hardware-accelerated graphics, and a new JavaScript engine that takes advantage of multi-core chips, Microsoft said.

As part of its HTML5 support, IE9 will support CSS3, XHTML parsing, video and audio tags, and scalable vector graphics.

“Internet Explorer 9 is the first browser to take standard web patterns that developers use and run them better on modern PCs through Windows,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of IE, in a statement.

A speed bump is of course on the menu, as well. Speaking at MIX10, Principal Program Lead Jason Weber reportedly said: "IE 9 is crazy fast... so crazy fast we're changing the way you think."

While its speed scores are still not as fast as some of its rivals, it is an improvement on IE8 of about ten to 11 per cent, Weber said.

While a date for a beta is yet to be released, those eager to test out IE9 can check out the platform preview here.

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