Everyone knows how important Windows 8 is, not just to Microsoft but the world enterprise world. The OS which is billed to be released next year will be the first full-blown version of Windows that will be able to run on the non-Intel Corp. processors that go into today’s tablet computers, like the iPad. That could help Microsoft catch up in this nascent market, which is starting to make a dent in PC sales. Here is the preview of Windows 8 from Microsoft.
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.
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And this isn’t just about touch PCs. The new Windows experience will ultimately be powered by application and device developers around the world — one experience across a tremendous variety of PCs. The user interface and new apps will work with or without a keyboard and mouse on a broad range of screen sizes and pixel densities, from small slates to laptops, desktops, all-in-ones, and even classroom-sized displays. Hundreds of millions of PCs will run the new Windows 8 user interface. This breadth of hardware choice is unique to Windows and central to how we see Windows evolving.
The demo showed some of the ways we’ve reimagined the interface for a new generation of touch-centric hardware. Fast, fluid and dynamic, the experience has been transformed while keeping the power, flexibility and connectivity of Windows intact.
Here are a few aspects of the new interface we showed today:
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Fast launching of apps from a tile-based Start screen, which replaces the Windows Start menu with a customizable, scalable full-screen view of apps. |
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Live tiles with notifications, showing always up-to-date information from your apps. |
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Fluid, natural switching between running apps. |
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Convenient ability to snap and resize an app to the side of the screen, so you can really multitask using the capabilities of Windows. |
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Web-connected and Web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC. |
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Fully touch-optimized browsing, with all the power of hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 10. |