Windows 8 tablets will be put through the same strict regime as Windows Phone 7 devices as to what hardware goes in them and what OEMs are allowed to put. This was to be expected from Redmond, as the company has set a goal to keep solid user experience across its different devices. Interestingly enough, Microsoft seems to be allowing both tablets and convertibles to run its tablet version of Windows 8.

Requirements

Tablets running Windows 8 are reuired to have five hardware buttons: power, rotation lock, Windows Key, volume up, volume down. Note that the back, search and camera buttons from Windows Phone 7 are not included in the specs. For the Displays, the minimum native resolution required is 1366 x 768 at a depth of 32bits. Microsoft oblige OEMs to make the dimensions of the display panel to match the aspect ratio of the native resolution. However, the native resolution of the display panel can be greater than 1366 x 768 so we can Expect a Full HD 1080p Tablets to come soon enough.

Other requirement includes at least 10GB of space to be at the user disposal as well as WLAN, Bluetooth 4.0, Direct3D 10 GPU w/ WDDM 1.2 driver, camera capable of shooting 720p videos and all kinds of sensors including a light sensor, magetometer, accelerometer, gyroscope, Also USB 2.0 and stereo speakers are required.

Windows 8 is shaping up to be the best OS Microsoft has had in years, but limitations around ARM-based tablets and concerns over x86-based model pricing could sour the platform launch later this year. Microsoft has mandated that ARM Windows 8 machines expected to be the bulk of low-cost Windows 8 tablets must have their Secure Boot system locked down, ComputerWorld reports or in order words users must not be allowed to load non-Windows platforms onto ARM hardware.

According to a document titled Windows Hardware Certification Requirements, which Microsoft released last month, the company confirms that it is up to manufacturers as to whether Secure Boot is locked down or not. For x86-powered PCs, notebooks and tablets, OEMs are free to decide which way to leave the settings

ASUS has confirmed that there will a 3G-equipped version of the Eee Pad Transformer Prime in March, with the company also saying it plans to launch an ARM-based Windows 8 slate by the end of the year.

CES 2012 will bring a 7-inch tablet potentially this leaked model and a 10-inch "high resolution" model, according to ASUS Samson Hu, while two further 10-inch models will drop in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, ASUS has a 150-strong team working on its Windows 8 model, though we are a little confused as to the mention of ARM chipsets given Microsoft is believed not to have the Windows 8 on ARM build of the OS ready until mid-2013.

Microsoft has posted to its Building Windows 8 blog details on the next-gen platform new Storage Spaces feature. Storage Spaces continues the Drive Extender concept from Windows Home Server, allowing the system to pool physical hard drives of various sizes and interfaces to redundantly store data for scale, resiliency, and efficiency.

The system works like a RAID setup but the physical hard drives are grouped into a larger storage pool, which is then split up into spaces. The disks in a pool can be of mismatched sizes and of different interface technologies, such as USB, SATA, and Serial Attached SCSI. New disks can be added anytime while others can be connected but kept on standby only to turn on when needed.

The spaces are virtual disks that function like the physical disks but has more powerful capabilities to ensure redundancy. At least two copies of all data within a space are stored on at least two different physical drives.

Intel is looking forward to powering Android-based phones with its Medfield platform,ITG still have not given up on the dream of running a proper desktop OS on mobile phones namely, the Windows 7/Windows 8 OS.

New Year and a New version of the xpPhone, xpPhone 2 has just been released in China with Windows 7. It is a device that ITG call a "post-smartphone" and have their sights set on beating the iPhone 4S and the other big names in the smartphone world.

The ITG xpPhone 2 packs a 1.6GHz processor (a single-core Atom Z530), which can be upgraded to 2GHz, plus 2GB of RAM, which is double what current smartphone flagships have. But then, Windows 7 uses more RAM than a mobile platform. The xpPhone 2 has a 112GB of SSD storage, which ITG brags is way more than what current smartphones offer (32GB internal storage plus 64GB microSDXC get pretty close).