So, we have just released Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta 2 to the web and wanted to share some of the features around it. There are a lot of new features added to the browser and it just takes usability to the next level.

Some of the new features are things like Web Accelerators, so that users can highlight a piece of text right click and choose things like map or translate. Web Slices is another new feature that allows users to add a section of a website to IE so that you can reference it quickly.

Search and Privacy are also major improvements and with the ability to search multiple engines and even Wikipedia from one location is pretty impressive. Security has improved and things like developer tools have been added as well. There are a ton of other features as well when it comes to tabbed browsing, and rendering and the look and feel. Try it out now.

Microsoft finally release Photosynth and it is now live for people to use. This was previewed a while back and now it is finally available as something that is free to use. Users can go to the site, and register with a Live ID, and then start creating Synths.

It is pretty neat and some of them are pretty amazing. With the ability to take anywhere from 30 pictures to 300 and being able to fly from one to the other, as well as being able to see a mesh frame like below it is pretty neat. Hope people enjoy and try it out. The way that it works is that it sees what is common between sets of pictures and groups them up to give you a 3D feel to your pictures. I have used it a couple of times and its just amazing.

It has been a while since I last made an update, and hoping that I can keep it up again, I wanted to give a quick update about a new website that went live earlier this month.

It is a new community portal which brings all the Live Technologies together so that users understand and learn about the product as well as see tips and tricks from community members on how they work and what you can do with them to give you that ultimate experience.

Check it out, as I know that I have learned a lot more from reading some of the posts up there. Enjoy.