(via Long Zheng)

Microsoft today broke their own NDA on a subset of the features in the upcoming Expression Web 3, which is a part of the Expression set of tools (and as a result will be in Dreamspark when it is released).

One of the big features that will come with Expression Web 3 (EW3 for now) is cross browser testing of a web page in development. The really big thing is that this is not restricted to the different versions of IE. EW3 will allow you to use IE 6, 7/8; Firefox 3, 3.5; Safari 3, 4; and a comparison with a bitmap image already made. (Great for when you’re cutting a Photoshop file and want to check if it matches up)

A really nice thing about this is the Overlay mode where you can find out what is different, and then make your changes within the same IDE.

This has currently been released in Preview mode, however it is only this feature (a SuperPreview), but we can expect it to be combined with the full Expression Web 3 product when it is released sometime later this year.

You can download it from Microsoft.com and watch the official announcement from the livestream at 3am Thursday (Sydney time), or if you like to wake up at a normal time, from the recordings which should hopefully be available after 24 hours.

Expect news about Silverlight 3, Expression Blend 3 and more later today!