Editor’s note: Muhammad is attending the Microsoft BUILD conference this week. When he shared the following Windows 8 highlights internally, we knew we had to share his observations with Bamboo Nation.

Windows 8 highlights:

• The new Windows 8 is excellent! It’s all about touch screens and a rich/fluid user experience. The focus is on content and not the application.
• The new metro style (tile UI) completely blurs the desktop and web/mobile boundary.
• Microsoft mentioned XAML throughout the talk without any mention of Silverlight.
• JavaScript/HTML code works the same way as C#/XAML.
• Introducing a new concept, The Windows Apps, downloadable from Windows Store.
• Vigorous use of Windows Live ID and SkyDrive to manage roaming profiles and other connectivities.
• The WinRT (the Windows core) will drop support for the GDI API, so there will be no more message boxes or message loops. UI is rendered DirectX engine.
• Visual Studio 11 (express) makes writing code for Windows 8 a snap.

And one more thing: Microsoft gave away Samsung tablets (similar to the Galaxy model) with the Windows 8 preview pre-loaded, and AT&T 3G service for a year to all attendees. Now that’s awesome!

Tomorrow I will attend a few hands-on sessions to try out some cool features.

Lam