IMHO, MS really, really doesn't know what's doing these past few years. They are making one wrong choice after another, they are scared to the bone with Apple's success, they fear google, they fking fear everything but want a slice in everything. I spent most of the last synergy here facepalming during the presentations.
Also, with most companies still on windows xp, they will now insist that we move to brand new operating system just so they can push it to tablet market which should bring them big bucks.
I myself will ignore windows 8, windows 7 is perfect for my and my company's needs, no need to change anything. My partners still use xp so I think I'll go with windows 7 when upgrading their hardware next time.

MS BOB video for all interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edlE4Yvv5-s

But anyways, I've never been that interested about Microsoft mobile Mosaic UI, but I actually liked how it worked on the video. As a full blown desktop UI it seems a tad ackward, but that would work well for a tablet device.

The guys at microsoft sure are paragliding fans :D
So, they're now pretty serious about getting a share in the tablet market with the ARM support and all...
I'm certain it will be the same 'horror' story as for their Win7 phones, Microsoft is quite archaic in its functioning. They're resting on their success and their marketshare which isn't the best condition to bring some innovations/good ideas to the world. I mean with their OS+Xbox service they are by far in no financial trouble, it's seems pretty redundant to try to gain some ground in the phone+tablet market. It also works against them in regard to their image me thinks.

I'm more looking forward to the upcoming 3.0 Linux Kernel :D

Can I ask why? 3.0 doesn't bring anything new except the new number and a few kernel patches, it's not a new revision in the sense the number jump makes you believe.

As for Windows 8, looks good so far; I understand the need for a touch friendly UI and I like it so far.

Too many useless features . ( even the touchscreen )

Because of the code cleanup (removing the old useless stuff in the process), CleanCache support (performance improvements fro various filesystems), SandyBridge improvements...
And most importantly a new versioning scheme which was really needed to be honest.
I'm always excited for new kernel releases even though I'm usually up to date to the latest git commit :P
Most of the time though I wait (or do it myself) for a new Zen-Kernel patch which incorporates a collection of very useful kernel additions or improvements which many desktop users could need.
It's not the thing I'd have complained about, and it's not that useless since there are already more and more touchscreen capable LCDs.

I'm sorry, but when did a PC start running "Apps"

last time I checked my good old Windows XP system ran "PROGRAMS"

ooooooh, wait! now I get it, that horrendous front end will end up taking up 90% of the systems resources so all your PC will be able to run after that IS cell phone apps.

... I mean, it's not like you should even be playing games on a PC when we have the glorious Xbox 360.

sweet Jesus when are developers going to wake up to the bright and shining dawn that DirectX development is a dead end because Microsofts interests line in complete opposition to PC gaming.

Linus Torvalds, your our only hope! Please start pushing the Linux comunity into blossoming as a gaming platform.

What horror story? :)

Same shit, different name; blame Apple for making that distinction, most of the people use them interchangeably.

As for that front end, you can't actually say anything about performance right now so just stop being a troll please. There are a lot of things you can complain about based on that video but performance/resource consumption isn't one of them.

As for DirectX development being a dead end, please stop spitting out bullshit :)

Now, going back to the interface itself, as long as I have the option to go to the non-touch one all is good (and that option is going to be there for sure considering all the businesses MS is catering to). Besides this, I can't count how many times I've heard people say "I'd get a tablet only if I could attach a keyboard + moues to it and run full-fledged apps" and this is exactly what MS is addressing: want touch UI and ease of access for touch-centric tasks? It's there; but there's also a full-fledged OS underneath to run your productivity apps (IDE, photo editing software, office suite etc.) without having to deal with the limitations of touch input.

Here's a more detailed demonstration of Windows 8.

Who, outside of tech illiterate soccer moms, interchanges "Apps" for "programs"?

... and the term stems from Java and it's "Applets" not the iPhone, so stop trying to sound like tech savvy elitist prick 'cause you failing at part of it and it's not the part you would like to fail at.

that bull shit touch pad front end sure does look like a supped up version of Vistas "Aero" gimmick, and we all know THAT was a resource hog, so it's not too far of a stretch to figure out that this thing is going to eat the shit out of your available ram ... not to mention be extensively dependent on hardware graphics acceleration.

If people want to play with a cellphone UI, they will go buy an Android or an iPhone ... hell maybe even an iPad is they are really desperate to look "hip" and don't mind paying $500 for a Mac version of a $200 Netbook ... not go sit down at their fucking laptop / desktop. Microsoft tried this glitzy shit before and it bit them in the ass for reasons that had nothing to do with it not being "glitzy" enough.

so yes, I see this a perfect opportunity to troll the shit out of yet another piss poor M$ product that you can damn well count on being the exclusive carrier for DX12 ... which still will not offer enough of a boost over the basic performance of DX9 to warrant game developers dropping it as a basic system requirement.

DX7 -> DX8: Massive boost in performance and functionality.
DX8 -> DX9: worlds apart.
DX9 -> DX10: whoopee, fucking, doo. you could even hack games into running under DX10 mode on a DX9 system with virtually no performance loss.
DX10 -> DX11: tessellation, a wonderful buzzword to slap on the feature list but still nothing more than a post processing option that OpenGL supported years before.

gee, I wonder what could have changed between the release of DX9 and DX10 that would result in Microsoft producing shoddy, superficial improvements in it's proprietary GFX API?

I don't know, maybe the fucking Xbox 360? A video game platform of which Microsoft has absolute control of, reaps 100% of all the hardware sales, dictates the entire software library of, has a complete monopoly on it's encapsulated network as well as the ability to charge whatever the hell the want to for access to said network, and dominates the shit out of the console market ... Nahhhh, Microsoft would never purposely constrict the development of a competing product that has a fraction of the profitability.

NO ... FUCKING ... WAY.

Continued exclusive support for DirectX isn't limiting the PC video game market in any way shape or form. I mean, on one hand you have got a product that generates around $300.00 for the base hardware, $10 monthly subscription fees from virtually all of it's users, a Direct cut from each piece of software sold, and all profits from it's exclusive online store ... on the other hand we have a product that generates maybe $200 - $300 one time IF people decide to upgrade to the latest OS, no one has to licence shit with them, they don't get shit from a single hardware sale outside of some cheap ass keyboards/mice that most people throw away as soon as they can, it's associated branch of your online store is a total joke to most users, and the potential of it's hardware base (that once again they get no profit from) beats the shit out of your other product.

What kind of a fucking moron would look at that situation and think that the company in question would have any kind of a bias between the two ...

you want to ride Microsoft's love pole, fine, but don't try to talk down to me like any of this shit is going to expand it's functionality as an OS, performance as a gaming platform, and productivity as a work tool.

I don't think I like it.

Tiles works great on my WP7 where I have a limited number of apps but at the moment I have over 180 games installed on my PC, not to mention non-game apps.

It just seems to be a smart phone OS re-designed to run on a PC and let's face it they are two very different types of devices.

Personally I like a nice blank desktop which I can use to slide show my pictures folder while having all my apps neatly filed in order under that start menu.

Maybe that's just me though.

Euhhmm... I thought that 'apps' was a commonly used abbreviation for 'applications'??!! Maybe...? And I call a program an 'app' sometimes you know...

For the rest: so much hate and rage... was that really needed? Can't we have a normal discussion without resorting to insults?
Yeah, 'horror' may be too much of an exaggeration in this case. I was pointing at its failure to establish itself in the mobile market and users experiencing several issues with it.

While touch-capable Windows 8 systems will exist in all form factors (Windows 7 ones do already) Microsoft's goal for this UI (reported dubbed "Immersive") is clearly for tablet and maybe TV use--and why buy an oversized phone that can only ever run second-class "apps" when you could get a comparable Windows 8 device that does all that and also doubles as a real PC? There are already Windows 7 tablets that can drop into a charging dock to use a mouse, keyboard and bigger monitor/HDTV, and I'd imagine a reasonable percentage of customers would be very interested in using a Windows 8 tablet as a full PC, perhaps their only PC; competing devices can't match this capability.

This dual mode also means that if you hate Immersive you can switch to desktop mode (no matter what form factor you bought) and never touch it again, possibly with the ability to disable it altogether like the Sidebar before it.

Actually, when you think about it the Xbox hardware itself isn't profitable at all. It was initially sold at a loss, and while the new model may be somewhat profitable (after recouping losses from initial sales and the RRoD disaster) it's still just a gateway drug to get you hooked on the Xbox ecosystem.

This lack of reliance on hardware profits raises the possibility of seeing the Xbox brand come to the PC at some point in the future, not just its GfWL form. Windows Phone 7 features an Xbox-branded games hub with gamertag integration and everything, and Microsoft has been toying with the idea of giving Windows more integration as well (as seen in the WGX internal video). Microsoft has set down hardware guidelines for ARM-based Windows 8 devices and it would be easy enough to have something similar for minimum gaming capability that earns the OEM the right to use the Xbox name when marketing that product.

I don't particularly want to see Microsoft treat the PC as a console but it's not like they will be giving it much attention otherwise and most developers and publishers already treat it as a console anyway.

Nvidia fanboys look away now...
you gone yet?
OK.
See heres the thing DX10 was orginally a hugely different beast than it ended up infact DX11 with all its changes and yes there are many not just "tessalation" is closer to the original DX10 spec than DX10.
You see DX10 was designed with ATI since NV decided to say "screw you microsoft we wont reduce our chip prices when they shrink you'll still pay full price" So anyway ATi and Microsoft came up with these HUGE changes to the way GPU's worked, no more fixed pipelines, tessalation, shared memory to allow better multi GPU use... the list goes on.
Then NV realising their shiny new chips won't be able to run DX10 slash their prices to MS in exchange for some changes to DX10. Away went shared memory, tessalation and all the other big changes that were planned and NV got their shiny 8800 chip to run at good speeds with the new DX10 while ATi who had designed one to work with the old DX10 were left with a more capable but slower chip the 2900 you'll notice once they removed everything we got the faster 3800 followed by the 4800 series.
So yeah DX10 was an abortive joke but don't blame MS for it.
The 360 became a non loss item after 2 years of sale and has since paid back it's design costs, Kinect has never been sold at a loss and has also made back it's initial design costs to MS.
Although 3Billion was set aside for the RROD most of that hasn't been touched since they refurb systems rather than straight replacing costs are lower than you'd expect.