Exclusive: Internet Explorer 6 to feature integrated media player. IM client

Microsoft has contacted the initial round of participants for the Internet Explorer 6 beta test, officially launching the testing phase of its next Web browser. IE 6 will build on the foundation of IE 5.x, adding new Explorer bars that will make it easier for users to work with digital media such as music, video, and images. Arguably not a major revision to the IE product line, IE 6 is expected to be released alongside the desktop versions of Whistler, the next version of Windows 2000. And of course, Whistler will ship with an integrated version of IE 6 when it's released next summer. In many ways, the new features in IE 6 simply copy functionality that was added to MSN Explorer, the company's rival Web browser for beginners. IE is now being marketed as a solution for more sophisticated users.

Microsoft first added the Explorer bars features to Internet Explorer 4 in 1997, and the company has integrated them into Windows Explorer as well. Current versions of Internet Explorer offer three such bars, including Search, for searching Web site content; Favorites, for storing and managing frequently visited Web sites; and History, for quickly finding sites that you've recently visited. IE 6 will add two more Explorer bars, the Media bar and an Instant Messenger (IM) bar. The Media bar will integrate a Windows Media Player control into the browser in the same way that a player is integrated into MSN Explorer. The Instant Messenger bar, which might be called the Online Buddies bar by the time IE 6 ships, will integrate the MSN Instant Messenger client into the browser, again in a manner similar to that in MSN Explorer.

IE 6 will also feature as-yet-unknown extensions to Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and other features for Web developers, as well as a My Pictures feature that will allow users to easily view, save, and email pictures over the Internet