Silverlight is a framework for providing rich applications to the Internet browser. It's a direct competitor to Adobe's Flash, the popular format that powers most of the video we see on the Internet. Silverlight supports the display of high-definition video files and, importantly, Silverlight's creator, Microsoft, will do the heavy lifting of sending them over the Net.
Silverlight apps will run on both major Windows browsers as well as on Safari and Firefox on a Mac. We're already starting to see some pretty good-looking Silverlight Web applications crop up, although the platform is both young and lacks some of the expert developers that Flash has under its belt. Given time though, this could be the next big thing.
