Highlights from the Windows 8 preview event at Computex 2011

Ok, what a freakin day.

Yet even more Microsoft news..

Microsoft also demoed Windows 8 at the Computex 2011 event.

Here are the salient points as well as the photos..

• The new OS is Created on Windows’ new application development platform. Based on HTML5, JavaScript and CSS.
• “The first thing you notice is that the apps are chromeless, they immediately take up the whole screen.”
• “On day one, when Windows 8 ships, hundreds of millions of developers will already know” how to develop for it.
• If you’re holding a tablet, all the controls are right under your thumb.
• You can switch between apps by just dragging them in from the side.
• IE10 will be introduced with Windows 8
• Switching between the live-tile UI and the usual desktop is instantaneous.
• You can also do a split-screen interface, where you see both the new and the old UI side by side.
• with Windows 8 is that when you get into the apps, they’re all optimized for touch.
• PageUp and PageDown buttons will allow you to move between tiles on non-touchscreen devices.
• “Windows 8 will be able to run on a wide range of machines because it will have the same system requirements or lower.”
• A new mode called “always on, always connected.” It’ll permit for instant wake-up from sleep and keep the ARM tablets constantly connected to the web.
• They showed a USB stick connected to one of the dev devices and shows that it works just as it does on the desktop.
• UEFI engagement will help with speeding up boot times. “I’ve seen systems with SSDs inside them that can go from a cold boot to the Start screen in under 6 seconds.”
• OEM Activation 3.0. A seamless activation experience for end users and it’ll streamline things for hardware partners.
• Minimum of 1366 x 768 resolution for the best Windows 8 experience. 1024 x 768 will be the absolute minimum for the new UI fanciness and 1024 x 600 will let you run Windows 8 in the classic desktop mode.

Tags: Computex 2011, event, featured, Microsoft, preview event, Windows 8