Neither of them explains how they managed to get their hands on this alleged early build, but they did call out three interesting features.
One: A revamped lock screen, heavily influenced by Microsoft's recent mobile efforts. "This is based, quite clearly, on the Windows Phone 7 lock screen and is just as attractive," the two wrote in a pair of connected postings on Rivera's Within Windows blog. "The display includes the time, day of week, the date (month and day), and icons for power management (for portable machines only) and ease of access."
Two: The addition of Microsoft's ribbon interface to Windows Explorer. "If Microsoft goes through with this change, the Ribbon will replace the menu and toolbar in today's Explorer windows," Rivera and Thurrott wrote, "and as in Office, it will make many more features visibly discoverable, albeit at the expense of onscreen real estate and, we think, attractiveness."
Based on the accompanying screenshots, the Windows 8 ribbon apparently includes tools for viewing libraries, manipulating images, and managing drive assets.
"In the current pre-release builds we've seen, the Ribbon is a serious work in progress and is quite unattractive," the two bloggers wrote. "It's unclear whether Microsoft intends to move forward with this UI as-is, or whether it will appear only in certain UI types." There are indications that, if Microsoft holds to something approximating this design, users will have the option of disabling the ribbon.
Three: A built-in PDF reader, with nifty functionality such as zooming, a page scrubber, side-by-side page views.
Microsoft has made it clear for months that the next version of the operating system will support System on a Chip (SoC) architecture, in particular ARM-based systems from partners such as Qualcomm, Nvidia and Texas Instruments. In turn, that would give Microsoft increased leverage for porting Windows onto tablets and more mobile form-factors, currently the prime market for ARM offerings.
Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, suggested during this January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that "under the hood there are a ton of differences that need to be worked through" with regard to SoC-supported Windows. Nonetheless, he added, "Windows has proven remarkably flexible at this under-the-hood sort of stuff."
Microsoft isn't anywhere close to officially announcing a release date for the next version of Windows, although there's a lot of online chatter suggesting it could make an appearance sometime in later 2012. With that in mind, the features uncovered by Rivera and Thurrott, even if accurate as an early build, could change radically by the release date. In any case, the pair may have uncovered pieces that give an interesting glimpse into Microsoft's thinking as it tries to create a version of Windows conducive to a rapidly evolving marketplace.
One thing I do know for certain: if this early build leaked from somewhere in the halls of Redmond, heads are going to roll.
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