Just seen this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I&feature=player_embedded

Just need to buy a ton of screen cleaner. I don't want a touch screen on my desktop, windows 7 works great. Going to stick with that, I hate this from what I seen so far.

:devil

Thanks for fixing it Sanchek, I was meaning to do it, but the power in my area went out .. Some drunk guy took a turn too fast and ran his suv into a pole :( Drimb drunk guy is ok, but his car isnt

Just need to buy a ton of screen cleaner. I don't want a touch screen on my desktop, windows 7 works great. Going to stick with that, I hate this from what I seen so far.

The focus of the touch stuff will be when this is running on tablets and laptops with multitouch touchpads. For typical desktop productivity stuff, they're not going to be trying to force a touch-only approach, don't worry.

Using multitouch with a nice touchpad works surprisingly well though. You'd think it would be weird since the pad and screen are so far apart, but it feels very intuitive.

The focus of the touch stuff will be when this is running on tablets and laptops with multitouch touchpads. For typical desktop productivity stuff, they're not going to be trying to force a touch-only approach, don't worry.

Using multitouch with a nice touchpad works surprisingly well though. You'd think it would be weird since the pad and screen are so far apart, but it feels very intuitive.

I'd imagine it would be pretty similar to using a wacom tablet or something, no? I really don't like the look of this, but I've read you're able to switch desktop environments so that's cool.

Capacitive multitouch feels a lot different. With more fingers and more accuracy, you can use simple gestures that feel natural, instead of complex/contrived ones that we've seen with stylus based touch interfaces in the past.

I have no idea how Win8's interface will pan out in the end, but the gesture stuff on the newer MacBooks' touchpads is really great. Same with the iPad, with the iOS 5 gestures enabled. It has potential if they implement it well.

This has some better info, including plenty of talk about using keyboard/mouse with the new interface. They definitely understand that no one wants to do the gorilla arms thing on desktop PCs. http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-preview-analysis-computex-announcements-136358

Capacitive multitouch feels a lot different. With more fingers and more accuracy, you can use simple gestures that feel natural, instead of complex/contrived ones that we've seen with stylus based touch interfaces in the past.

I have no idea how Win8's interface will pan out in the end, but the gesture stuff on the newer MacBooks' touchpads is really great. Same with the iPad, with the iOS 5 gestures enabled. It has potential if they implement it well.

This has some better info, including plenty of talk about using keyboard/mouse with the new interface. They definitely understand that no one wants to do the gorilla arms thing on desktop PCs. http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-preview-analysis-computex-announcements-136358

One thing I noticed wasn't demonstrated was how well it handles tablets that are equipped with accelerometers (are there any that aren't?) to switch between landscape and portrait mode. Quite frankly, that UI doesn't look like it'd be particularly nice looking in portrait - it seems very much designed for landscape.

In general, I'm not sure how well this is going to directly compete with iOS and Android (which seems to be the ultimate intention.) It really sounds like they're trying to design the OS to be a universal one for all devices, but history has taught us that that will only ultimately cause fragmentation. It seems to be a desperate attempt at gaining meaningful market share outside of the PC world which, in a way, is good, because it's forcing them to start trying to innovate. At the same time, well - the 'one size fits all' promise is a bold one. A touch-based UI, by nature, is MUCH different from a keyboard/mouse interface. You expect very different things from both of them. The way information is displayed also tends to be different.

We'll see.

I had the same thought about the emphasis on landscape orientation at first, but I think it does make sense to primarily focus on that. It's pretty rare that you see anyone using an iPad in portrait mode and you can barely find 4:3 LCDs anymore. Outside of phones, it seems like most everything has gone 16:9/10 landscape.

I'm not sure I understand your point about fragmentation. Device capability fragmentation across the OS, like Android has ended up with?

It's worth also considering that Apple is doing similar with Lion, bringing a lot of the iPad interface up to the Mac.

I had the same thought about the emphasis on landscape orientation at first, but I think it does make sense to primarily focus on that. It's pretty rare that you see anyone using an iPad in portrait mode and you can barely find 4:3 LCDs anymore. Outside of phones, it seems like most everything has gone 16:9/10 landscape.

This is true enough. I don't know their stance on legacy devices, though and besides, there are some applications (like word processors) where portrait mode might be better suited.

I'm not sure I understand your point about fragmentation. Device capability fragmentation across the OS, like Android has ended up with?

Yes. The way they make it sound, Windows 8 is looking VERY vulnerable to this.

It's worth also considering that Apple is doing similar with Lion, bringing a lot of the iPad interface up to the Mac.

I've seen that. The difference is that Apple has kept control (Hackintoshes aside) over the hardware their software runs on. The way I see it is that Apple sells appliances and their OSes (both OSX and iOS) serve more as the firmware for their devices rather than a standalone piece of software that could legally be installed on any x86(-64) machine.

Microsoft, on the other hand, sells an OS. They're not trying to sell hardware - at least, that's how it used to be - so the goal was to make it as compatible with as much modern hardware as was feasible and provide a decent enough environment to write drivers in for newer hardware. I wonder if that's going to change.

Will MS ultimately eventually go the Apple route and start selling the hardware to run their software and sell it as an appliance? Hell, if nothing else, that might be the year of the Linux desktop that the nerds seem to be waiting for=)

I figure if anyone can overcome fragmentation, it's Microsoft. No one has more experience or success than they do when it comes to unifying a fragmented hardware ecosystem.

As I'm writing this, there's a mix of people running Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 7 x64 viewing the board, seamlessly using one of the same two third-party browsers (Chrome 11 or Firefox 4), with probably not an identical hardware component shared between us. So, I think it's safe to say Microsoft has a leg up on the fragmentation issue already.