Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 release

A new release of Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 has been announced yesterday at ESC Boston during Kevin Dallas’ keynote (Kevin is the GM for the Windows Embedded group at Microsoft… my big boss :-))

This new intermediate release brings some really great features that OEMs were really looking forward to see available in CE 6.

Silverlight for Windows Embedded
The power of Silverlight brought to Windows Embedded CE to create rich applications and user interfaces.
This technology is in 2 parts.

• The first one is a XAML rendering engine that will leverage Hardware Graphics acceleration to provide a great user experience on devivces. Using Expression Blend, designers will be able to built XAML based user interfaces for Embedded applications. the XAML supported is a subset of the Silverlight 2 XAML.
• The second part of the technology is a native developing API. While in Silverlight you have a managed model, in Windows Embedded CE you will use C++ to implement the business intelligence of the application.

For more details on Silverlight for Windows Embedded, check out these videos:
Introduction to Silverlight for Windows Embedded
Working with XAML in Expression Blend
Create a user control in Silverlight for Windows Embedded

Internet Explorer Embedded
Internet Explorer with panning and zooming capabilities and a customizable interface to optimize the browsing experience on devices. To have an idea of what you can expect from this new browser, check out the new Zune HD browser which is based on the same IE (careful, the Zune HD is running on Windows CE 6.0 R2, NOT on R3, only the browser is common to the CE 6.0 R3 one) in this review of the device.

Flash Lite
Browser plug in to render rich media websites. This is the version 3.1 of Flash Lite that is now included in the Windows CE tools, meaning there is no need to acquire an additional license to embed it into your device

Touch and Gesture
Plug-in engine to enable natural input capabilities and gesture animations

Connection Manager
Infrastructure technology to manage multiple network interfaces on the device

Microsoft Office and PDF Viewers
Applications to render Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Adobe PDF content on the device

QQ Messenger
Device side client to connect to popular Instant Messaging service

This release should be available for download next week!
To learn more about Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3, visit the Web Site.