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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    Microsoft releases beta 2 of Internet Explorer 8

    SEATTLE
    Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:21am EDT

    SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp released on Wednesday a second test version of Internet Explorer 8, delivering a feature-complete upgrade to the world's most widely used Web browser.

    Technology

    The world's largest software maker said the latest version -- beta 2 -- of Internet Explorer, which has a market share of about 75 percent, comes with new features to enhance privacy, ease-of-use, and security.

    Microsoft first released a test -- or beta 1 -- version of IE 8 in March, but that was aimed at letting Web developers take a first look at the new browser. This latest version is aimed at a broader consumer audience.

    The company would not disclose when it planned to officially launch IE 8 nor how many people are expected to download the test version of the new browser. It released Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006.

    Microsoft has pledged to deliver more regular updates of Internet Explorer, whose lead has been chipped away by Mozilla's Firefox browser.

    The latest version of Internet Explorer replicates features found in Firefox 3, the latest version of that Web browser, including a "smart" address bar that remembers and redirects user to website addresses they have visited before.

    Internet Explorer 8 also offers a mode called "InPrivate Browsing," which ensures that history, temporary Internet files and cookies are not recorded on a user's PC.

    There is also a security feature that allows a user to block content coming from third-parties trying to track and aggregate the user's online behavior.

    Microsoft also updated already announced features such as "Activities," which allows a user to use information found on one page, such as an address, in conjunction with an online service such as mapping without leaving the original site.

    The latest test release of Internet Explorer 8 is available for download at www.microsoft.com/ie8.

    (Reporting by Daisuke Wakabayashi; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
    Technology


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