Silverlight 3.0 Developer Beta / 2.0.40115

Silverlight is compatible with both the Safari browser and Firefox 1.5.0.8+ and Firefox 2.0.0.1+ on MacOSX 10.4.8. Silverlight is a powerful cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web.
Note: Applications built using the Silverlight 2.0 RC0 release will work off of the Silverlight 2 RC0 Developer Runtime only. This is not intended for public deployment, as end users will not have a way to install a suitable plug-in to view the application. No existing public versions (released or beta) of Silverlight 1.0 or 2 Beta 2 will be auto-upgraded to this runtime. This is only for developers.

Major Features:

1. Compelling Experiences:
   • Harness advanced support for 2D graphics, animation, layout, high-definition video, databinding, networking and controls to create richer experiences than previously possible.
   • Create applications with a custom look and feel through flexible skinning of controls and data. Manipulate parts, layout, states and graphic primitives for every control.
   • Deliver cutting edge user experiences, leveraging the power of modern hardware through multi-threading, hardware acceleration, and multi-core support to deliver the highest performance on the Web.
2. Powerful Technology:
   • Silverlight has the most comprehensive runtime on the Web today. Exploit all the richness of the .NET base class libraries including XML, Local Storage, Input/Output, globalization and generics
   • Develop Web applications using your existing .NET skills on both the client and the server—the .NET APIs in Silverlight are a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework. Full support for features such as LINQ, WCF, and ADO.NET make it even easier to build a client-server application.
   • Rapidly enhance existing SharePoint or ASP.NET sites incrementally by adding Silverlight components. Integrate HTML and AJAX with .NET using the rich APIs built into Silverlight.
   • Use Microsoft Use Microsoft's best of breed development tools to edit, profile and debug Web client and server applications.
3. Accelerated Results:
   • Use the tools and languages you already know and love. Code in Visual Studio using JScript, IronRuby, IronPython, VB.NET, and C#.
   • Enjoy rapid development with XML-based declarative markup and a full set of controls that have publicly available source code.
   • Work directly from a designer's implementation of the UI built in Blend. No more trying to interpret graphical mock-ups; just open the Blend project directly in Visual Studio.

Enhancements:

• Fully supported by Visual Studio and Expression Blend
• Major media enhancements
• Out of browser support allowing Web applications to work on the desktop
• Significant graphics improvements including 3D graphics support
• GPU acceleration and H.264 video support
• Many features to improve RIA development productivity.

• 128MB of RAM
• Firefox 1.5+ or Safari 2.0.4+
• PowerPC G4 800-MHz or higher processor
• Intel Core Duo 1.83-gigahertz (GHz) or higher processor