Microsoft is
not the only fruit
When Microsoft announced that it wanted to use hardware
based acceleration for its next flavour of Internet Explorer, the tech mags
were quick to praise the outfit for being jolly clever.
However it turns out that the world + dog is doing the
same thing and it is not particularly clever or original. Mozilla has been on the blower to us saying that it is
planning to do the same with Firefox. Already its developers have posted a prototype
demonstrating the ability to take advantage of Direct2D and DirectWrite.
Google is also looking at techniques to
hardware-accelerate Chrome, although it
is being less forthcoming with details. However while Microsoft might have scooped the headlines,
Mozilla folks believes it will be the first to deliver a hardware-accelerated
browser.
Redmond hints that a final version of IE9 will appear in
spring 2011 probably at the next time as Windows 8.