Today at the MIX conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced the first beta of Internet Explorer 8.  This release of IE targets web standards in the agressive way the IE team should have done this years ago.  While beta 1 is a release mainly targeted at the developer sector, some of you may want to check it out.  One thing I will say though, the new rendering engine is still rather buggy and “IE7 Emulation” mode is almost a necessity on some sites.

Just a few notes though, since I noticed people complaining that IE8 doesn’t pass Acid2.  First off, it does pass, you guys are just using a knockoff of the original, here’s a better explanation from the IE team themselves:

IE Team Blog post about Acid2

This version also includes a slew of new features that many users should enjoy, including Activities and Web Slices.  You can find out more about all of this over at the IE8 Start Page.

Enjoy!  And feel free to comment with your feedback.