While not quite gadget specific, this is still newsworthy. Microsoft announced today the release of the latest version of its Internet Explorer browser.
In response to extensive customer research and input from tens of millions of customer sessions, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 8 to focus on what matters most to people. The security enhancements offer protection against existing and emerging security threats online. It blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers; cuts down on the time it takes to complete common tasks on the Web such as searching, mapping and sharing, including navigating 15 of the 20 top worldwide sites; and blurs the lines between the services they use daily and the browser used to access the Internet.
Aside from a renewed focus on security, IE8 comes with performance enhancements, improved tabbed browsing, an improved Zoom, a better Back button, improved search tools, accelerators to speed up common online tasks, and more.
It will be interesting to see if IE8 is enough to stop or at least slow down the market share loss experienced by Internet Explorer at the expense of Firefox (now over 20 percent) and other browsers.
Internet Explorer 8 is now available for download in 25 languages and is available at www.microsoft.com/ie8.