On Tuesday afternoon, Microsoft stated that it would make two big announcements in two days. The first announcement came on Wednesday at 12:00AM in the form of the Xbox 360 Elite. The second announcement scheduled for 12:00AM today was thought by many to be details on the Halo 3 beta. Unfortunately for the rabid Halo faithful out there, this was not the case.

Instead, Microsoft announced Deepfish. Deepfish is a new mobile browser for Windows Mobile devices that provides a "desktop level" browsing experience to mobile users.

"Think about your mobile browsing experience today. It’s often less than intuitive, the pages don’t look like what you’ve come to expect on the desktop, and it takes a long time for a page to load," said Microsoft's Gary Williman Flake. "Deepfish aims to solve that problem. With the Deepfish technology, we capture the full layout of the page and deliver it to the mobile device, resulting in an experience similar to that on the desktop."

Deepfish allows mobile users to view a full internet page as they would on a desktop computer in a "thumbnail" preview. Users can then navigate around the screen and zoom in on relevant data.

"On current mobile browsers, it can typically take up to a minute or more for a Web page to render, however the Deepfish architecture only loads the user-specified portion of the page, providing much quicker page-load times, as detailed information is only retrieved as needed or in the background," Flake continued.

Deepfish is available now for download from the Microsoft Live Labs. The browser is currently compatible with Windows Mobile Smart Phones or Pocket PCs running Windows Mobile 5.0 or greater.