A confidential presentation gives us some clues as to what to expect from the next version of Microsoft's desktop operating system. But are they true or false?
You would have thought that after the Apple iPhone 4 drunken-bar-discovery debacle, the Sony PSPGo pre-launch leak own goal and endless other tech disasters, that anything relating to a company's important future project would be written down on rice paper and the executives forced to eat them after every meeting.
Instead, Microsoft has tried to hide its plans for Windows 8 by writing "confidential" and "under NDA" over a few PowerPoint slides in the hope that the collective Internet wouldn't notice. Assuming they are genuine, and the source seems to be Francisco Martin Garcia, a Windows VIP Tester, and someone from HP, this appears to be the case, then they make interesting reading.
Inside the machine, how Microsoft plans to take the best of Apple and others
The
document pages (still live at the time of writing) are all rather high-concept, and are rapidly being splashed across the Web. They highlight how Apple has succeeded, where Microsoft should focus and what it needs to do to succeed. From logging on being done by facial recognition software and a camera, to appealing more to consumers, it covers a wide range of ideas (and at this stage, that's all they are).
Another idea is that of a built-in application store (stop us if you've heard this before) to make buying programs, games and content far easier. 3D and multitouch is mentioned and would make for a fun, if short-term-use user interface, while multiple sensors would allow for other levels of interaction (proximity and so on). None of the proposed concepts will make your head explode with their originality, but it seems that the next Windows will cater for all device types (although mobile isn't mentioned) and all levels of user.
With the company back on the ball and being seen to succeed with Windows 7, it looks like the Microsoft can now sit back and experiment a bit more with its next OS opus. What would you like to see in Windows 8 that would make you sit up and take notice?