Microsoft Windows Operating System Version 8 or in short Windows 8 – the next big in the line-up for the software giant and for all those too who are having any interest in technology have now seen or may be even had hands-on experience with Microsoft’s next big thing – Windows 8.
Launch Date:
It is strongly indicated that Windows 8 will be coming up during this October. The company’s CEO Steve Ballmer even mentioned during CES 2012 that Windows 8 is all set to launch in October this year. Director of Windows PR Janelle Poole stated that “One of the things that I think is a good guideline though is we’ve always said that Windows releases come round about every three years and this year will be three years in October since we launched Windows 7. So I think that’s a good guideline to consider.”
Refresh and Reset your PC:
Getting back to “predefined state” is what many consumer electronic devices are offering these days. Microsoft’s developer recently detailed Windows 8 two new features – Refresh and Reset your PC. With Windows 8, Microsoft targeted few key things set out to deliver:
- Provide a consistent experience to get the software on any Windows 8 PC back to a good and predictable state.
- Making sure that customers will do not lose their data in the process.
- Streamline the process so that getting a PC back to a good state with all the things customers care about can be done quickly instead of taking up the whole day.
- Provide a full customizable approach for technical enthusiasts to do things their own way.
- The company is setting the goal to make the process more streamlined, less time-consuming, and more accessible to a broad set of customers.
Windows Store Landing Page Anatomy:
When Windows 8 Beta made available for the public, it is expected to get an access to Windows store also, the application portal that Microsoft has been working on for the OS. The store will comprise of the most popular apps, which will include the highest quality apps in each category (or the apps that Microsoft considers to have the best quality). There will be applications for promising new developers, as well as from those who have an established track record of great apps. There are also recommendations based on the customer’s past purchase history.
Using the pinch gesture, people will be able to zoom out to see an overview of the categories. They can then tap on a specific category to go straight to it. The gesture is called “semantic zoom,” as one can view more or less details on a page when zooming out or in.
Changes based on early testers Feedback:
The changes which are taken care of based on early testers feedback – one is about identifying duplicate files during conflict resolution, other is about system changes, handling confirmations and interrupts, navigation pane scrolling issue and ribbon changes – which will replaces the traditional Windows file menu, are more fundamental.
Microsoft Office 15:
Microsoft’s next generation Office suite, codename “Office 15” entered the Technical Preview Program stage yesterday. Office 15 is the codename for the next Office products and services. The company is sharing its work with a small number of third-party customers under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). These customers play a key role in the development process by testing early builds and providing feedback, which the company incorporate into the final release. There are rumor that Office 15 for Windows 8 will be desktop apps, not fully Metro style.
ARM’s CEO takes over Windows 8:
According to ARM’s CEO Warren East, “Microsoft may have some solid advantages over Android in the tablet market.” He added, “Tech observers should give Android tablets more time to gain traction in the market. However, he also notes that Microsoft may have a branding edge with Windows 8 tablets.”
ARM processors power the numbers of tablets and smartphones sold globally. And for the first time with Windows 8, a mainstream Windows operating system will run on both ARM and Intel chips. The point that strikes here is that as per East – Microsoft could possibly have “branding advantages” with ARM-based tablets.
Microsoft Windows Phone 8 ‘Apollo’:
The device which is not directly related to Windows 8 but still make an important part of discussion. Microsoft Windows Phone 8 – the to-be upcoming phone from software giant Microsoft, details have been revealed. The phone codename “Apollo” – will be based on the Windows 8 kernel and not on Windows CE are current versions. The company is expecting to have 100,000 Windows Phone 7.5 compatible app available in the market at the time when WP8 make its debut.
Start Button:
Windows 8 is not including the traditional Start button. The Start button was first introduced in Windows 95 and has been present in every version of Windows since – replacing with a “hotspot” in the corner that will duplicate the functionality offered by the Old button.
