To be released next year, Silverlight 3 will get major improvements in media and graphics. It is going to get 3D support and GPU hardware acceleration. 3D games and applications will simply run on the web, how cool is that? Maybe, just maybe, Web 3.0 would go three dimensions in mainstream because of Silverlight. Liden Lab would create Second Life Web Edition using Silverlight. Or maybe I'm letting my imagination run wild with all these web-based 3D social networking and web browsing.

Besides 3D, Silverlight is going to play H.264 video and include a zillion of new controls. But this is not it. It is still too early to tell whether Silverlight 3 will come with a free lunch or not. Scott Guthrie hinted that Silverlight team has surprises in store for you. So stay tuned.

Scott Guthrie breaks the silence today with an update on Silverlight download statistics. Silverlight 2 runtime has been downloaded over 100 million times in only four weeks! That translates roughly into one in four computers on the internet. This number should put a big smile on every Silverlight developer. I mean, what is better than that?

The adoption of Silverlight 2 is strong. TV stations around the world, to name a few, FranceTV, NOS, Sportbox.ru and RAI, are switching from Flash to Silverlight to take advantages of Silverlight video streaming and its lower CTO. America Online recently launched AOL Mail using Silverlight 2. Even Blockbuster and Netflix are rolling out their own Silverlight video players possibly to replace Flash. Who wouldn't use Silverlight when it can save thousands of dollars on streaming?