Opera has released an alpha build of its next generation web browser, and with 100 percent Acid3 compliance and a 30 percent speed boost to the rendering engine it's pretty darn good.

Internet Explorer 8, with its strict standards compliance, is due to ship to end users by the end of the year according to Microsoft. A second beta is also scheduled for next month.

Microsoft's Office Open XML document format has been given the ISO stamp of approval as an official international standard, much to the dismay of fans of rival ODF.

Microsoft's next iteration of the Internet Explorer browser will default to rendering pages in a standards-compliant mode that rejects broken sites written for earlier versions.

A new set of privacy standards could be agreed upon in the near future if Google has it's way - the God of Search is now pushing for a public debate on the issue.