Microsoft’s massive blog post this week describing Windows 8 on ARM-based processors is by far the most information it has revealed about its plans for the other version of the operating system. Read more…

Neowin.net

This morning Steven Sinofsky, President of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft, revealed in his blog post the first official screenshots from Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which gave us a glimpse of the new Office 15 suite and “Windows Communication” apps (essentially Metro-styled Windows Live apps). Furthermore, contents from the Windows Store is also revealed, showing what will be available in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Of particular note is the existence of the Zune brand within the store, see image below:

Reports around the internet seems to suggest that the Zune client isn’t dead yet, given the existence of the “Zune Music” and “Zune Video” apps, as shown above. However, we tend to think that these two apps merely provide access to the Zune marketplace, much like their counterpart apps in the new Xbox 360 dashboard. As far as the Zune client is concerned, we think it is dead, and media playback will be handled by the Metro-styled “Music” and “Video” apps – potentially a replacement of Windows Media Player:

If this seems to be the case, it ties in nicely with previous reports about Windows Phone 8 having a separate sync client other than Zune, further suggesting that the Zune client is gone:

Windows Phone 8 will reportedly scrap integration with the desktop Zune client in favor of a syncing relationship with a dedicated companion application.

The Verge even suggests that the Zune branding might not stay for long, and will be removed by the time Windows 8 ships:

We are hearing that [the Zune] branding will be removed shortly before the Windows 8 release, moving to Xbox Live for Windows as the entertainment brand for Windows 8 Music, Video and Games.

What do you think the future holds for Zune? Will it still exist as a branding for music and video services? Or will it be merged into the Xbox LIVE branding? Let us know in the comments below.

LiveSide.net

The February 29 deadline is quickly approaching and Microsoft is putting together builds of WIndows 8 at a feverish pace to make sure the Consumer Preview is a top notch representation of the platform Read more…

Neowin.net

Zune and Windows Phone owners rejoice! It appears Microsoft isn’t killing the Zune service in favour of a new one after all, with Microsoft’s latest post showing off Zune in the Windows Store. Read more…

Neowin.net

Today in an 8,000+ word epic on Windows on ARM, Steven Sinofsky finally lifted the curtains on some of what we can expect from Windows 8 running on ARM architectures, which he says will be available in the same time frame as the general availability of Windows 8.

Included in the blog post is a video showing off Windows on ARM (which is available only as a downloadable .wmv, but conveniently uploaded to YouTube by Tom Warren of The Verge:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

In the video, we get a quick look at not only the new “Live” Metro style apps like Mail and Calendar:

(nice and clean!)

…but also a peek at how Office 15 will look, also very clean:

We’ve seen some of this before, of course, but it’s nice to get a peek at what’s to come, and it gets us itching to play with the “Consumer Preview” when it launches on February 29th!

LiveSide.net

Windows 8 for ARM-based processors will come with a version of Microsoft Office 15 when it is made available on ARM-based hardware at the same time as the X86 version is released. Read more…

Neowin.net

Windows 8 Metro-based apps will be able to add web content into those apps with no performance hits, compared to iOS apps that use Safari-based web content, according to a new blog post from Microsoft Read more…

Neowin.net

So far it seems that Microsoft has avoided answering the many comments on how desktop users will benefit from Windows 8 over Windows 7, which leads me to thinking: Is Windows 8 really my idea? Read more…

Neowin.net

A web site has now leaked out the latest beta candidate build numbers for both Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system as well as its companion OS, Windows 8 Server. Read more…

Neowin.net

When Microsoft opted to not to use the beta tag on the upcoming Consumer Preview, it is taking a bold step of inviting the consumer to try a product that is not quite ready for retail. Read more…

Neowin.net