Microsoft this afternoon is releasing its third "platform preview" of Internet Explorer 9, giving web developers and designers a sense for the new technologies coming under the hood in the next version of its browser. It will be available for download on the IE9 Test Drive site.

New additions include support for the HTML5 Canvas element (which enables graphics and animations) and audio and video tags. Microsoft has worked with Amazon.com and the online retailer's IMDb site to create a pair of demonstration applications -- an interactive Amazon bookcase and an IMDb "video panorama -- designed to show the potential of HTML5 support and hardware-accelerated graphics.

Among other improvements, Microsoft says it has boosted JavaScript performance by 25 percent in the latest platform preview and added support for standards including the Web Open Font Format.

The platform preview is a bare-bones release not meant to suggest what the Internet Explorer design will look like. Microsoft hasn't said when it will release the first official beta of IE9, although the current speculation is that it could come as early as August.

Previously: Microsoft tepid in its support for Google's WebM video plan