Windows Phone 8 to get NFC, HD and Skype
Rumours confirmed, details emerge
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Following a leaked video which showed Windows Phone top dog Joe Belfiore listing the features adorning the next version of Windows Phone, beta testers have come clean on what we should expect.
The video was intended for device manufacturers, but got into the hands of PocketNow, which promptly shared the details. The information has now been confirmed by bloggers close to Microsoft, and shows Windows Phone 8 supporting four different screen resolutions and inter-app communications, as well as an electronic wallet for pay-by-bonk applications.
Like Google's Galaxy Nexus, the Near Field Communications component in Windows Phone 8 handsets will support a secure module embedded in the SIM – and thus under the control of the network operator – as well as having another secure module in the handset. That second module will be under Microsoft's control, giving Redmond the option of launching a Microsoft Wallet just as Google has done.
Windows Phone 8 also gets integrated Skype, apparently making VoIP calls indistinguishable from cellular connections, and a location-based-recommendation service. It also gets much closer to Windows 8, sharing in branding as well as core code, although not compatibility as some had suggested.
The support for NFC is no great surprise. Microsoft's inclusion of a secure module under its own control will annoy the network operators, but not very much – they'll probably be too busy complaining about the Skype integration to notice.
But it does leave Apple as the stand-out in the proximity-payment stakes: even Symbian has an NFC strategy, albeit one which will probably never reach fruition, so one can't imagine Cupertino being left behind for long. ®
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COMMENTS
@Jim Coleman -- I have actually, and Win-8 beta too.
Now where would you like me to begin?
- The lousy UI which can't easily be tailored by the user (and it's not backward compatible either)?
- The file system with attributes still no further advanced than those of CP/M (if you're old enough to remember what that was)?
- The continued lack of WinFS or database filing system? (A diabolical omission, yet albeit promised with Vista and still no sign of it in Win 8.)
- The archaic reserved character list where one can't use a question mark or a colon in a filename? (Instead, you have to use this '¿' if you really need one.)
- Filenames without UI attributes (highlighting, bolding, making, ordering, colouring, ticking, tagging etc.)
- That MSI files still won't load if you have a leading space in a directory name, or that Win Explorer won't allow entering leading spaces in dir names? (Leading spaces are needed to order lists as Windows STILL doesn't have an attribute system to do this, so one has to fudge it.)
@Jim Coleman -- I have actually, and Win-8 beta too. -- part 2
...continued.
- The ridiculously short file/path length limit? (Should be 2^16 - 2 at least--every single day the 254 limit causes me major hassles. It's such a problem one could write a book about it.)
- That the file system still lacks proper metadata support--authentication, encryption, history etc.?
- The fact that Windows isn't modularized, that subsystems such as IE, ActiveX, Media player etc. can't simply unplugged/disassembled/nuked?
- That other filing systems can't simply be plugged on and that Windows can't be installed on them.
- The removal of the ability to install on FAT32?
- That the drive ordering system--naming nomenclature can't be user set or user defined?
- That Windows still has no filing system that fundamentally differentiates between user, program and O/S files?
- That there's no superuser mode (in fact 'Administrator' has been downgraded rather than upgraded in W7).
- There's still no way for the end-user to set the method and extent of file locking.
Oh, hell this is getting boring, I've hardly started yet and I've only covered useability (there's pages more).
If these aren't daily issues for you, then perhaps you don't require your computer to do very much.
Why would you want to run Visual Studio on a tablet at all? 1366 x 768? Why?
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