Windows 8: Empire Strikes Back

Microsoft to Launch Windows 8 in October, Report Says

Windows 8 is starting to look more like something more than a simple sequel to the respectably mediocre 7. According to the buzz we've heard repeated over and over again, Windows 8 is going to unite all the various fronts of the Windows platform, creating one giant OS that can expand and contract to any form factor, and allowing developers to make their software more easily portable from Desktop to Smartphone and back.

Currently, Windows 8 for desktops and Windows Phone 8 are the two converging areas, seeing more synchronization betwix the two, synching up various web services to integrate with each other in one way or another.

Microsoft Windows Phone 8 Unveiled: New Home Screen, Turn-by-Turn Navigation, Skype Integration

The missing link in this extreme weight loss/gain scheme is Windows RT  platform appearing on the new Windows tablet wave. This Windows Tablet is being ushered in on the brand new Microsoft Surface for Windows tablets, which I must say is a very classy product produced by those smooth operators at Redmond. It's a wholly unique tablet, a perfect blend of mobility and performance, held together by sexy innovation. Much like the Nokia Lumia 800 was, despite performance set-backs was a rose among daisies. Windows is sailing on some incredible flagship designs. Surface comes in two orientations, which are pretty much separate platforms, Windows RT for power-tablet performance, and it's butch partner Windows 8 Pro, which is closer to an ultrabook that crossdresses as a tablet, showing again the flexibility of the Windows 8 plural marriage.

Microsoft reveals its own Windows 8 tablet: meet the new Surface for Windows RT

What role will Xbox play? No one's sure. However, it's clear that Microsoft is heavily investing in the future of Xbox, as not just the money-printing game console, but as Microsoft's possible entrance into the Smart TV OS race of "10-foot" interface with the next generation of Kinect promising control of your entire entertainment set up, from television to Netflix to Skype to gaming, with a flick of the wrist. Kinect is an interesting technological mutation, originally braned as a gimmicky rip off of the Nintendo Wii's motion controls, it quickly proved so damned above and beyond it's counterpart that it had applications in healing sickness! Yes, it's helping surgeons make more precise surgeries! Yes, a gaming toy! Yea punk! The project for the third Xbox console, being referred to in the press as Xbox 720 (stupid stupid name), is set to appear before you know it.

With a robust software catalog on Digital Download, and a growing cloud infrastructure built on the Skydrive storage cloud being absorbed into the Windows Live network, Windows 8 is quite possibly the first real step toward a genuine boost in technological innovation in a long time, perhaps all the way back to Microsoft's last great miracle, Windows 95, which you gotta admit has set the bar for most OS interfaces since it literally conquered the market.

Windows 8: Going In-Depth With Microsoft's Massive Update to Windows

Perhaps I'm overstating the facts, this is Microsoft after all, not living up to the hype has been their encore for many years. However, this is Microsoft, default computing, the company whose most important product is on the near total majority of home computers. If Microsoft's goal is to push your phone, tablet, and gaming console requirements to be as complimentary to your computer as possible, which is a common trend in the industry these days, is it unreasonable to suggest that Microsoft may have the advantage?