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Tuesday 19 July 2011

Microsoft Thinking for Launching Windows 8 Yet in 2012

Windows 8 is the codename for an upcoming version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs.At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced that it would be including support for system-on-a-chip (Soc) and mobile ARM processors in Windows 8.


Features

The main feature that was shown is the extensively redesigned user interface, optimized for touch as well as use with mice and keyboards. The Start menu is replaced by the new "Start screen", which includes live application tiles. The user can return to the regular desktop by choosing the "Desktop" application, and go back to the start screen by using the start button. Certain tablet computers can use a menu button to switch between the two modes. Examples of applications on the Start screen include a weather application, Windows Store, Investments, RSS news feeds, user's Personal Page, and user's Windows Live Account. The new interface is primarily designed for 16:9 screen resolution, with 1366×768 and larger screens able to display two Windows 8 applications using "Snap". 1024×768 screens can display one Windows 8 application in full-screen, and 1024×600 screens can only use the traditional Windows desktop.Windows 8 has a new developer platform according to Microsoft Vice President Julie Larson-Green, who described a new weather application and said that the application uses "our new developer platform, which is...based on HTML5 and JavaScript."

Microsoft says Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, "from the chip to the interface".

It says that "a Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse."
Indeed, the new OS appears to have two completely separate interfaces - one, a traditional (and, on the surface of it, unchanged) Windows desktop and the other a new touch-based interface that borrows heavily from Windows Phone.
Actually, as you'll see, it basically is Windows Phone. You can move seamlessly between the interfaces and even have both on screen at the same time. So that leads us to believe there will be a single OS for tablets and traditional PCs.
This shows the transition between the interfaces:
 
 
 
 




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