Microsoft announced the availability of Silverlight 4 in beta at its Professional Developers Conference ( PDC ) today. Some of the new features include more fluid animations, Webcam, microphone and printing support, 200 percent faster start times than Silverlight 3 , deep zoom and multi-touch support and more. It now also supports Google Chrome, even though it's just a r ounding error of a browser. One of the big capabilities of Silverlight 4 is its ability to take rich-media experiences outside the browser in client apps which will compete with Adobe AIR. The non-browser apps fully support HTML, allowing tight integration with content from the Web. It also supports notifications.