Directly from IE Teams Blog,
Weve also continued to add web developer platform features and fixes: weve continued to fix CSS and other web standards bugs, but weve also rebuilt the <select> element as a windowless control, so it can be visually layered under other elements. IE 7 implements a native XMLHTTPRequest object for Javascript applications, instead of requiring an ActiveXObject to be created. This also means XMLHTTPRequest will function on machines that have ActiveX disabled. Weve providing support for International Domain Names weve also done some thoughtful work to prevent spoofing of URLs by using similar characters from other languages.
There will be a navtive XMLHTTPRequest object in IE7. It is definatly not in Beta 1, so lets hope it is in Beta 2! I would love this to be in ASAP because I keep running in to security issue having to always insure that browsers are set up correctly for ActiveX.
On a side note, it is also amazing to hear that they are producing a SELECT input box that can be layered properly!!! hopefully it will also be able to be styled better.
