The Silverlight news just keeps on a'comin, this time in the form of Deep Zoom. No, it's not some sort of Apple mole feeding inside information back to Redmond. To put it simply:

Silverlight Deep Zoom allows users to explore collections of super high resolution imagery, from a 2 or 3 megapixel shot from a digital camera to gigapixel scans of museum pieces, all without waiting for huge file downloads. The simple zooming interface allows users to explore entire collections down to specific details in extreme close-up, all with fantastic performance and smooth transitions.

Couple Deep Zoom with the multitouch capability in the latest Silverlight beta, and it could have the makings of a pretty slick mobile browsing experience. And Microsoft basically says it intends to do just that. Microsoft VP Scott Guthrie told The Register that what you see in Silverlight on the desktop is what we also should eventually see on mobile phones.

"Deep Zoom will be in. Our goal is to keep the experience between desktop and mobile basically the same."

Read more about Deep Zoom here, and check it out in action with Hard Rock Memorabilia.

Thanks to theog for the tip!

Everybody gets to have fun except for me. First I missed out on the Deepfish Beta, which split my heart in twain. Now I'm not an Opera employee, which means I'm missing out on the upcoming Opera 9 for Windows Mobile (but the Beta of 8.65 is available now), which looks to be pretty sweet. It has the fancy zoom features that appear to be pretty much de rigeur for next-gen mobile browsers. It will also feature little widgets that call to mind this video of Vista's Gadgets running on WM5. Anyhow, Opera 9 will also be fully standards-compliant:

Opera 9 for Windows Mobile now passes the Acid2 test in internal builds of the browser (see screenshot below). Opera Mobile is on pace to become the first Windows Mobile browser to pass the Acid2 test, unless Pocket IE or Access speed things up.

Read: Opera Watch

Basically, Pocket IE is looking pretty long in the tooth. What do we want? Zoom-capable mobile browsers in wide public release! When do we want it? Now!