Microsoft has shown off its new operating system, Windows 8, for the first time yesterday, which, according to the big M, has been built from the ground up to take advantage of touch tablet-friendly capabilities.
No date has been given for the release of Windows 8 but it is expected to be available before October 2012.
The start screen for Windows 8 seen as the demonstrations closely resembles the tiled layout seen on Microsoft’s newest mobile operating system Window Mobile. The live tiles, that link to popular applications and data streams, can be manipulated via a group of on-screen gestures.
The demo suggests that Windows 8 will have a unified look even though it will run on phones and tablets as well as portable and fixed computers.
They new video shows the OS in the wild for the first time, the video demoes a tiled start screen showing off the OS’s tablet-friendly new look and shows that it has been "designed and optimised for touch".
Microsoft will combine regular Windows apps and the new-fangled HTML5 web-apps to reinvent the way you use your desktop with a slick and stylish new interface.
For tablets Microsoft has provided a virtual keyboard mode which pops up both in standard and horizontal mode.
Multitasking has been given a make over too and now utilises touch-gestures and allows you to organise at the swipe of your finger.
Micosoft aren't going to call the OS "Windows 8" that’s just the code name for now, but we all know what happened when they start giving Windows Operating systems fancy, supposedly cool names, like Vista, which was a disaster for Microsoft.
It's good to see that Microsoft have planned to take on Apple’s OS Lion and their king of tablets the iPad 2. How will it compare? We're excited to find out!