The new more Standards Compliant IE8 was on the fast track by all accounts back during the holidays. This seems to be one of those true rumor thingies as the Windows Super Site Blog has posted various links to stand alone installers for Beta 1 of the new web browser. A warning if you will though. Remember that this is a new browser and no one in Blindness AT is supporting it at the moment. Also Microsoft may redirect you to a page asking you to beta test Silverlight as well. On the page where it asks you if you are interested in trying the SL beta it clearly states that at this time the beta version does not support Access/AT products. Therefore "Downloader Beware!".
Here is the link to Paul's blog if you want to get the betas of IE8.
http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/03/05/here-comes-ie-8-beta-1.aspx
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Hello Everyone,
This is Kelly Ford from the IE team at Microsoft. IE8 beta 1 is definitely out. If you do opt to take it for a test spin, please take note of the assistive technology section of the release notes. They talk about two reg keys you will likely need to set to avoid some compatibility issues we are working on with various assistive technology vendors. The release notes can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949787. There's a heading titled Assistive technology that goes into more detail.
You can read the blog post talking about IE8 from the IE team blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/internet-explorer-8-beta-1-for-developers-now-available.aspx and a post talking about various feedback options at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/ie8-beta-feedback.aspx.
On the technical side you can read about some of the accessibility changes at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc304059(VS.85).aspx. Perhaps most notably is that IE8 beta 1 contains our initial support for Web ARIA. This is a way to make web applications more accessible. You can learn more about ARIA at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-aria-20080204/.
Finally, if you are interested in an exciting career opportunity to join the IE team and help with our accessibility testing, you can read about an open position we have at http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx?JobID=EDC85083-8FD9-4E16-BE2B-1B736C30E3AC.
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