New images have emerged over on Chinese site LiveSino which appear to be a leaked Internet Explorer 9 interface.

The interface appears to resemble the new minimalistic Metro interface found in the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series.

Microsoft has been tight lipped about the images, and has not yet released a statement. It is uncertain whether they are real, or part of an elaborate April Fools prank.

A second screen shot can be seen after the break.

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Microsoft has clearly been heard at work, and announced today at MIX10 the availability of Internet Explorer 9 “test drive” (IE9) Developer Preview.

The browser, which is clearly still in its early stages, is missing the expected Internet Explorer interface such as tabs and address bar, but it does allow users to test and see the new JavaScript and rendering engine in action.

Available at ietestdrive.com, the browser includes support for some HTML5 and CSS3 features, including the new video element and CSS3 border radius tags.

Video tag support appears to be limited to the H.264 and MPEG4, while audio is limited to MP3 and AAC, totally ignoring the OGG format for both video and audio.

Microsoft really seems to be pushing standards compliance, and performance with this relase, and it shows. While not perfect, the browser is already leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor, IE8. With the aid of the new JavaScript engine (codenamed Chakra), the early release browser is able to complete the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test with a score of 598.80, slightly faster than Firefox 3.6. The browser also scores 55/100 in the ACID3 test, while IE8 only scores 20/100.

Internet Explorer 9 will be limited to only Windows Vista and Windows 7 users, while XP users will miss out on release.

All round, Microsoft really seem to be putting in a lot of effort with Internet Explorer 9, and it really shows. The Internet Explorer 9 “test drive” is available from the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive website.

Microsoft is looking to push Internet Explorer 9 at this years MIX conference, with a Customer Technology Preview build of the browser expected to be released to the public at the same time.

Two sessions at MIX 2010 give clues as to what we might see in the new browser; HTML5 Now: The Future of Web Markup Today and Future of Vector Graphics for the Web.

“Couple these clues with a post from the IE team on its official blog late last year about increased JavaScript rendering speeds and CSS support, and the team’s recent push to provide better support for SVG graphics and animations, it looks like IE 9 will present a huge step forward for Microsoft into the realm of HTML5, CSS 3 and other modern technologies that drive the most forward-thinking web apps” wrote Scott Gilbertson.

This is good news for browser users, with signs that Microsoft is taking its falling browser market share seriously. It suggests Microsoft are trying to bring the browse back to the forefront of browser technology, something we have not seen since the release of Internet Explorer 6 back in 2001.

Microsoft has filled a patent that reveals it is looking at revamping the tabbed browsing experience with Internet Explorer 9.

The patent appears to be an enhancement of the quick tabs found in IE8,which allows users to see all tabs and close them individually. This parent covers:

• Drag and move the tabs within the Quick Tabs interface.
• Tab thumbnails will enlarge on mouse-hover.
• In case your tab row was over flowing with tabs and in Quick Tabs you were to hover the mouse on a tab not currently visible on the tab bar, the overflow icons would change appearance.

Will it be enough to stop IE from loosing market share? Only time will tell.

A technical preview of Internet Explorer 9 is expected by mid March 2010.

Development of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) seems to be going full steam ahead at Microsoft, with the first news starting to come out from the campus.

Firstly, it seems that IE9 will feature hardware accelerated rendering.

“We think that the hardware you run on should shine through the browser,” said Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live division.

This means that IE9 will be able to use graphics hardware to accelerate the rendering of images, videos and animations.

Early benchmarks of the JavaScript engine are also available, showing that IE9 is about the same speed as Firefox 3.5 in it’s early stage, more than 4 times faster than IE8.

A full run down on what to expect from IE9 can be read in An Early Look At IE9 for Developers.

With the recent release of Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft is now seeking suggestions and feedback from users about what they would like to see in Internet Explorer 9.

“Hi Everyone!
We have added a new feedback form on Connect designed specifically to handle improvements for the next version of Internet Explorer. This includes not just feature requests, but all types of feedback including issues that currently exist in IE. Please continue to rate the submissions since we will look at the top rated reports first.

Please be patient with the resolution of the reports you submit as we are in the research phase for the next version of IE. To shed some light on the status of your submissions, we’ll use a new field, Review Status, which will indicate whether we have reviewed the issue or not.

Please see the Connect site for more information.

The IE Team.”

Feedback can currently be left on the Connect website by anyone who was testing IE8.

Rumors have been circulating that the next version of Internet Explorer could possibly use Apple’s open source WebKit rendering engine.

It appears, as expected, that these rumors were indeed false.

Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer put to rest any speculation that IE9 would use WebKit. He also told Ars Technica that IE8 would not be the last version of IE.

That solves that mystery.