Steve Ballmer Announces 4 New Features for Windows 8

 

 Written by Doug Puccetti(Me) on www.techhog.com:

At the Dell Conference last Friday, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer revealed 4 new features to the new Tablet OS Windows 8. These 4 features are lock screen, Metro start screen, Metro live tiles and Windows 8 servers. I understand that these things have been talked about before but at the recent conference these were the four main features he highlighted.

Lockscreen: Even tho the lock screens are pretty standard, this is one of the things you see most often. When you’re away from your device, it locks like it should. However, even tho its locked, you still receive notifications, emails and social media updated right on the screen for when you get back (sounds like every other mobile OS?).

Metro UI Start Screen: Many people have complained about this start screen and the Metro live tiles. Windows developers have been doing their best to keep up and fix these issues as Ballmer reminds everyone that this is an early version of Windows 8, not the final product.

Windows Metro Live Tiles: Windows developers have stuck with the simplistic live tiles. But with Windows 8 they are showing off something new. You can make custom live tiles that display specific information from news or stock. So any information you might need could be instantly available. Now I can see that being a feature people use often.

Windows Server 8: This feature was available back in 2008 however, it was not perfected. Now with windows 8 in the works, Microsoft plans on perfecting this virtual server for IT administrators making it faster and smoother. I know not many people are worried about this but I’m sure there are developers and tech workers who are very excited.
Well that’s an update of Windows 8. One main feature that most of us are excited about is porting programs and information from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Will this be the next best step for Microsoft?

Windows 8. The new Touch Screen OS? Yeah, I think so

Yesterday (September 13, 2011) Microsoft displayed a sneak peak to the new and upcoming Windows OS, Windows 8. For the most part, its a touch only OS with the same live tile feature found on the Windows Metro OS(Mobile Windows phone OS).However, It will be available for the PC as well. Right now you can get a pre-beta version of this software here. This page includes installation instructions as well.

Other than the live tiles and metro like feel, Windows 8 will come with over 100 new features(wow, that's crazy. I guess they need to catch up to the other tablet OS). Phonearena.com states that during the press release, it was briefly mentioned that Windows 8 is compatible with a mouse and keyboard. Other features include, Internet Explorer 10, Cloud storage(All your settings and information are stored to your Windows Live ID), Picture password and many more. Read more about them here.

"Up until right now, tablets have been more toys than anything. Yea they can run a lot of apps, but there are tons of stuff that a regular computer can do that a tablet cant. If this OS can successfully be backwards compatible with Windows 7 programs... on a tablet... that will vastly change the tablet experience that we have today. Apple and Google will both technically be playing catch up to Windows 8 to add in whatever functionality they see as "missing", especially if Windows 8 tablets take off in sales.

That and maybe we get Starcraft 2 in tablet form.. :)"

-Comment by Remixfa on Phonearena.com

Starcraft 2 in tablet form would be amazing, I have to agree, but the best part is Windows 8 will be backwards compatible with Windows 7. So all the gadgets/widgets and programs you have on Windows 7 will work on Windows 8 as a third party application. And if this didn't get you hooked. Windows 8 only will take a few minutes to install and any windows tablet you get will last a full day on one charge! Now that's amazing!

Windows 8 still has about a year or more before it's official release. Some of the features they talk about in the near future might be dropped by the final release date and other things might be added as well. We will just have to wait and see, But I'm really anxious about the new Windows 8 OS.