Microsoft has posted two new web pages related to Internet Explorer 8 beta 1. The first page outlines some of the new features you'll be able to find in the next generation web browser, while the other page offers download links. Unfortunately the download links don't seem to be live yet, but we wouldn't be surprised if they start working later today as the MIX08 conference gets underway.
In the meantime, here are some of those new features:

• Automatic crash recovery works much like the crash recovery feature in Firefox. If IE8 crashes, the next time you load your browser it will attempt to restore your tabs and other data
• Activities feature which makes it easy to send a link, web page, image, or snippet of text to Digg, Windows Live Maps, Facebook, Dictionary.com or other online services without copying and pasting. Users can install and manage their activities.
• WebSlices allow users to subscribe to just a portion of a web site. Web publishers can add WebSlices to their web page and IE8 can automatically discover WebSlices and add them to your favorites bar. You can view them in a drop-down window like the one you see in the image to the right.

Internet Explorer 8 also has a redesigned favorites bar and improved phishing filtering.
[via Neowin]

You're on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Digg, Flickr, and a thousand other social networking sites. But keeping up with your friends and contacts on each site could be a full time job. Or you could sign up for a single service that lets you view your contacts' activity on a single page.

FriendFeed is a service that launched last week, which does exactly that. But the service didn't get hog the spotlight very long, as Yahoo!'s MyBlogLog has launched a feature this week that lets members track their friends' activity streams.
Existing MyBlogLog members should notice the change right away. Your new profile page will feature all of your recent blogging activity. And if you've already added other social networking service to your profile, you should see updates for those as well. When you click on the "my neighborhood" button you'll see an activity stream with updates from your MyBlogLog members who use those services.
[via ReadWriteWeb]