Microsoft gives a first look at Windows 8 and its new interface

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Windows8 - Start Experience

Last night at the AllThingsD conference, President of Windows/Windows Live Steven Sinofsky gave a hands on look at the next release of Windows - codenamed Windows 8.  In his own words this was a “reimaging of Windows” , a “coloring outside the lines” and one of the “biggest change since at least Windows 95.”   I’d have to agree!  If you have been waiting on Microsoft’s vision for a modern touch operating system this will not disappoint.   

The official Microsoft press pass gives a break down of just a few things that were shown yesterday:

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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.
    • 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 the full video of Steve talking about the next release of Windows here.

Sinofsky - AllThingsD

 

COMPUTEX Windows 8 devices

After the AllThingsD unveiling by Steve, Corporate Vice President Mike Angiulo, showed a room full of partners more of Windows 8 but running across multiple devices. You can catch the full 30 minute video of what was shown here.  This video shows off some more of the new interface, apps as well as Windows8 running across desktops, laptops and slates/tablets.

Windows 8 running on multiple devices at COMPUTEX

 

Build Windows 8 – Video Series

The Windows Team also released the first in an ongoing video series that is intended to introduce you to the new Windows 8 experience.  You can watch the first 4 1/2 minute episode on YouTube here.

Paul Thurott over at WinSuperSite as an insightful analysis of the video you can check out here.

Windows 8 UI Analysis

 

BUILD Developer Conference

We also announced that the upcoming Developer Conference in Anaheim, California will be called BUILD.

BuildWindowsChanges

This will be the place where we show our development story and you will want to be part of it!  Registration is now open so don’t delay.  With some of the biggest changes to Windows in the past decade I imagine this conference is going to sell out fast,