Microsoft обяви официално името на следващата версия на Windows

Мисля, че "разтапянето на границата" между настолни компютри и таблети няма да се случи скоро, ако изобщо се случи. Колкото и оптимизирани чипове/SoC да се произвеждат, винаги ще могат да бъдат произвеждани 4-5 пъти по-мощни (и на производителност и на отопление) на почти същата цена, които да държат тази граница заради цената и вечната жажда за ресурси. Сливането на iOS и OS X според мен не би било разумно. Microsoft са предприели доста добра стратегия и тепърва всички ще се убеждават в това.

Ами, там е идеята. На кой му трябва още една ОС за тебелти? Потребителите имат нужда от иновации, нови идеи, които да разтопят границата между Desktop и таблет. И както върви, Майкрсофот пак прави всичко само на думи, докато Apple е все по-близко до сливане на iOS и OS X и няма да се изненадам това да стане в близките 1-2 години. Андроид винаги ще си остане за таблети и ще си върши работата що-годе добре, защото не цели и повече. А къде е мястото на 8-цата? Някъд епо средата ще се чуди какво е- кон или птица.

Е как без прекомпилиране ще подкараш нещо на коренно различни instruction sets? Само с емулация и виртуализация. Ето какво казват по въпроса: [Quote]Previously we have detailed that [B]WOA will not support any type of virtualization or emulation approach, and will not enable existing x86/64 applications to be ported or run.[/B] Supporting various forms of emulation runs counter to the goal of delivering a product that takes a modern approach to system reliability and predictability—by definition, existing code has not been optimized for the platform the way WOA has. Virtualized or emulated software will consume system resources, including battery life and CPU, at unacceptable levels. Emulation and virtualization of existing x86/64 software also require the traditional PC environment of mouse and keyboard, which is not a good assumption for WOA PCs. If we enabled the broad porting of existing code we would fail to deliver on our commitment to longer battery life, predictable performance, and especially a reliable experience over time. The conventions used by today’s Windows apps do not necessarily provide this, whether it is background processes, polling loops, timers, system hooks, startup programs, registry changes, kernel mode code, admin rights, unsigned drivers, add-ins, or a host of other common techniques. By avoiding these constructs, WOA can deliver on a new level of customer satisfaction: your WOA PC will continue to perform well over time as apps are isolated from the system and each other, and you will remain in control of what additional software is running on your behalf, all while letting the capabilities of diverse hardware shine through. ... Developers wanting to reach WOA with existing apps have two options. Many apps will be best served by building new Metro style front ends for existing data sources or applications, and communicating through a web services API. This approach will be quite common for line-of-business applications and many consumer web properties, and represents the best way to tap into the power of a rich user interaction model where you can also interact across and share information with other new apps. Of course, these do not need to be just front-ends, but could operate on local data too, since WOA provides full access to files and peripherals. Other existing applications will be well served by reusing large amounts of engine or runtime code, and surrounding that with a Metro style experience. This will take some time, and represents a way for applications that are composed of significant intellectual property to move to WOA and WinRT. In all cases, WinRT represents the new set of Windows OS services that developers can use to build software that is Designed for Windows 8.[/Quote] WOA = Windows on ARM

[Quote]Напротив, от Майкрософт винаги казваха, че ще има две различни версии за арм и х86. Като тази за х86 ще е достъпна и без закупуването на хардуер. [/Quote] Напротив. Главната причина за Win8 беше факта, че тези програми които вървят на х86 не вървят на АRM и Windows искаха да обединят и направят ОС на която да вървят програми без значение дали са правени за ARM или х86 архитектура. След това излезе новина, че в крайна сметка програмите няма да могат да вървят еднакво на два процесора с различни архитектури и ще трябва да се компилират наново. Сега (всъщност преди известно време) излиза и новината, че всъщност версиите на Win8 за х86 и АRM ще са си съвсем различни... еми да им пикая на Виндолса. http://www.mobilebulgaria.com/old/news/view.php?id=18240 [Quote]Идеята е, че използвайки мобилна версия на операционната система, потребителите трябва да се лишат от някои функции и възможности на настолните системи, [u]а възможността настолните системи да бъдат съвместими с мобилни устройства ще бъде чудесна[/u].[/Quote] Като под това се имаше предвид една операционна система както за х86 така и за АРМ архитектура.

[Quote][B][i]Booting the core of Windows[/i][/B] Once we had the tools, we could start porting the Windows boot environment and developing system firmware specifications. We even prototyped the firmware ourselves. There are several pieces to this: • [B]UEFI firmware[/B] is the lowest layer of a WOA system and provides consistent services for loading the OS. For WOA, we created firmware to bootstrap the system that we handed off to our partners. WOA systems also include a firmware-based TPM for [u]trusted boot and storage encryption[/u]. Using the TPM, for example, we’ve implemented trusted boot [u]which verifies that the system hasn’t been tampered with by malware[/u]. • [B]ACPI firmware[/B] is used for plug and play enumeration of devices in the platform during boot, and is also responsible for power management of devices outside the SoC (such as sensors, touch controller, etc.). Over the years, the PC has standardized with plug-and-play busses and ACPI, so that operating system software and drivers can “walk the tree” to find everything in a PC. [u]With SoC embedded designs, there is no “tree” or ability to discover what is connected to a SoC, or even how the SoC is connected.[/u] During Windows 8, we worked to define a new standard to describe the configuration of the system with tables, so software can simply read the table and configure the system. [u]From the firmware, the system can then load the boot manager, boot loader, and in turn the kernel, HAL, and boot device drivers.[/u] • The [B]Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)[/B] supports variations in core system resources (timers, DMA, interrupt controllers). Windows was designed from the beginning to support multiple instruction set architectures (ISA), and the HAL is key to adapting to different system architectures that often come with a new ISA. [u]By abstracting the hardware layers, the OS itself doesn’t have to be modified to accommodate a new SoC for core system resources. The variation across ARM platforms is significant[/u] enough that we architected the HAL to support a new level of capabilities of abstraction. New to the Windows 8 HAL is the [u]ability for each of the core system resources to be plugged in via an extension to the HAL, kind of like a driver for the interrupt controller[/u]. [/Quote]Повече тук: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/09/building-windows-for-the-arm-processor-architecture.aspx

Напротив, от Майкрософт винаги казваха, че ще има две различни версии за арм и х86. Като тази за х86 ще е достъпна и без закупуването на хардуер.