Silverlight 4 Beta is already available. What's inside?

Silverlight 4 beta for Windows and Mac OS X was introduced at PDC09 yesterday. It was announced that Silverlight is already installed on 45% of computers with Internet access.

New features include webcam and microphone support, printing, official Google Chrome support, integration with the local computer, interaction with Office and other COM objects, HTML-code rendering, drag-and-drop support and other features.

In addition to the runtime itself for developers (this version is not for end users), updates to other components are also available:

• Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 or Visual Web Developer Express 2010 Beta 2
• Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2010
• Expression Blend for .NET 4 Preview
• WCF RIA Services (formerly .NET RIA Services)
• Silverlight 4 SDK CHM (offline documentation) - or online
• Silverlight Toolkit for Silverlight 4
• Silverlight Media Framework
• Actually runtime: Windows and Mac (included in Tools)
• Silverlight 4 SDK - included with Tools

Silverlight 4 Beta comes out just four months after the release of Silverlight 3 - based on the feedback and suggestions left by developers from around the world.
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So, what appeared in Silverlight 4 Beta:

• Business Application Development
  
  • Printing contents of Silverlight applications
    
  • Over 60 customizable controls, including RichTextArea for full text, link, image, and editing
    
  • Localization support, including into languages ​​with hieroglyphs and writing from right to left
    
  • Common code for server and client side
    
  • Improvements in data binding
    
  • MEF (Microsoft Extensibility Framework) support
    
  • Updates in RIA Services
    
  • Full Visual Editor in Visual Studio 2010
    
  
  
• New features in interactivity
  
  • Webcam and microphone support
  • Local video and audio capture without server side
  • Buffer and drag-and-drop support
  • Software processing of the right mouse button and mouse scroll wheel
  • Doubling performance at startup compared to Silverlight 3
  • Animation improvements for more dynamic interfaces.
    
  • Support for gestures and other aspects of multi-touch
    
  • Multicast streaming support and integration with Windows Media Services
    
  • Content Protection with PlayReady, including for H.264
    
  
  
• Work outside the browser and integration with the local computer
  
  • Now applications are divided into sandboxed (normal) and trusted (with greater access rights to the local computer)
    
  • For sandboxed applications
    
    • Integration of HTML code inside Silverlight applications
      
    • Reminder windows in the corner of the screen (as in Outlook)
      
    • DRM protection when disconnected from the Internet
      
    • Full control over window size when working outside the browser
      
    
    
  • For trusted applications (in addition to the previous)
    
    • Reading and writing files in folders with documents, music, pictures and videos (“My” folders on Windows, equivalents on Mac OS)
      
    • Interaction with COM objects (integration with Office, USB access and other features)
      
    • Access control through group policies in organizations
      
    • Full keyboard access in full screen mode
      
    • Cross-domain interaction without additional permissions
      

In English, a detailed description of the new features is available, as well as video tutorials on individual functions. In the near future more and more materials will appear, including in Russian.