Skip to main content

Windows 8 Comes With New Look, Touch And Start Screen

Microsoft has given a demonstration of their next generation operating system calling Windows 8. It appears to be a complete revamp of the Windows interface, designed around a tile system like that of Windows Phone 7, and focused on being equally accessible via touchscreen interface or mouse and keyboard.

 

image

 

Earlier, we saw many posts related to Windows 8 in this blog, detailing leak plans, 8 minutes of installation and restoration, etc.

The first thing of note to come out of the interview is Windows 8′s new Start screen which bears more than a passing resemblance to Windows Phone 7′s tiles. While not quite WP7′s Metro UI, the similarities are certainly there, with apps being represented by large tiled icons, perfect for stabbing at with a finger.

Other features include Store icon, IE 10, full touch browsing, etc.

According to the official press release, here are a few aspects of the new interface -

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.

• Live tiles with notifications, showing always up-to-date information from your apps.

• Fluid, natural switching between running apps.

• Convenient ability to snap and resize an app to the side of the screen, so you can really multitask using the capabilities of Windows.

• Web-connected and Web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC.

• Fully touch-optimized browsing, with all the power of hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 10

You can watch following video of all this action on YouTube below:

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Your Google Apps Account is Changing

Google is about to make more of its services available to organizations with Google Apps accounts. This is an early adopter phase, and all domains may not get this option to move to the new infrastructure. What this means for you: In addition to the core suite of messaging and collaboration applications, Google Apps users may now access many more Google services with their Google Apps accounts.     Those who are eligible for this early adoption, Google Apps administrator will be presented with the above banner to start with the migration. In your organization, you can transition selected pilot users and admins, or you can start the transition now for all your users. The transition for pilot users can be reverted if necessary. After successful transition, your users will now be able to use other Google popular products like AdSense, AdWords, Alerts, Analytics, Android, Blogger, Finance, Google Desktop, News, Orkut, Reader, Voice, YouTube (Full list here ). Als...

Windows Phone 7.5 Tango Officially Renamed As ‘Refresh’

The next version of Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system after Mango 7.1 is officially renamed as ‘Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh’ – according to the head of Windows Phone division for Microsoft Italy.     According to Italian version of the post , 7.5 Refresh update will mostly be an update to the minimum specs of the devices it’ll be able to run (minimum RAM requirements is dropped from 512 MB to 256 MB). Other updates which may include in this release are better media messaging, location awareness icon, export and manage contacts to SIM card. The next major update after ‘Refresh’ is called Windows Phone Apollo (probably Windows Phone 8) could certainly be an exciting release from Microsoft. This Apollo update may have BitLocker kind of support on mobile devices, multi-core support. [ via ] [ Image ]

Google Wallet: The Future Innovative Mobile Payments

Earlier few months, Google unveiled future innovative way of payment technology – Google Wallet. Today, Google released its first version of the Android app with Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over the air update. Google Wallet is an app that lets you pay for things using your phone, either by tying your credit card or gift or pre-paid cards. It works using an near field communication (NFC) embedded chip and there is no swiping required.   According to Techcrunch , Google Wallet will not work everywhere your credit card will. It won’t work everywhere there’s an NFC-friendly card reader, either. Wallet requires an NFC reader based on a new-ish specification, and only a select bunch of retailers have gotten around to updating. The post also had some great review and walkthrough in real life. This app is now available to Samsung Nexus S owners on Sprint, through PayPass sensors at Radio Shack, Foot Locker, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Sunoco, CVS/pharmacy, etc. retailers. ...