Gadgetory

hey guys this is Tom Warren with the verge and we're looking at windows blue which is basically the upgrade to Windows 8 so it's a new version of Windows and from the lock screen and sign-in pages you won't notice a whole host of changes if we start to look at the Start screen you'll start to see some additions swiping through the tiles is pretty much identical to Windows 8 but if we go back and pick out one of the live tiles you'll see we're presented with some options to resize this to a smaller one that's pretty much identical to the small live tiles found in Windows Phone 8 and you can edit the tile sizes for all apps and there are large medium and small options available however the desktop tile also has an extra large mode - and it's the only tile that can be increased to this size Microsoft has also tweaked the way that you arranged live tiles on the Start screen moving away from the drag down on a tile movement towards the customize button that then lets you move tiles around and also name the groups of tiles as you please we suspect this is probably to prevent accidental movements of the new smaller live tiles there's not a whole host of new gestures here but one addition is the ability to swipe up on the Start screen to presume that all apps view the views identical to Windows 8 but simply more easily accessible you'll notice we're using the default color options here but my sisters added the personalization options into the settings charm for the Start screen is background wallpaper background color and even accent options and you'll notice that it's fairly easy to pick between all of them the color options are a lot different to Windows 8 allowing you to pick a number of different shades and the accent color will alter the colors that you see on the start button and elsewhere in the operating system there's also a lot of changes in the PC settings options within the Start screen Mike's off now includes frequently changed settings in a learning page providing quick access to regular settings lock screen settings also include a reference to a new picture frame option for photos and an option to enable camera access on the lockscreen Microsoft has also extended the settings to include access to display options you can set the resolution orientation and number of displays here without jumping into desktop mode there's also the ability to change some of the touch preferences moving on to account settings is not much to see here beyond the regular options and a sync section that's not currently in use a new addition to the same section is SkyDrive it appears that Microsoft is integrating I Drive even more into Windows with blue there are options to backup devices to SkyDrive and control how they're stored and there's even automatic uploads of pictures and videos taken with the camera and that's an option that's very similar to Windows Phone moving on to the privacy section you'll notice that you can change location preferences and have really granular options on privacy here the devices section is improved to include access to add and remove devices and autoplay options and a network section has also been added which lets you toggle connections very easily and you can also add in VPN settings there's also access to network options including proxy settings and homegroup management finally there's also a new app section that lets you control a new setting for quite hours to ensure notifications don't trigger at certain times you can also control individual app notifications and there's even the ability to view app sizes to see which applications are taking up the most storage space there's also a new Settings panel to change the app defaults to control how files are opened over all the settings are greatly improved from Windows 8 and it should prevent people from having to go into desktop mode Morstan in terms of new apps there's clearly an alarms app that Microsoft is working on is that occasional it's you add multiple alarms and it includes a neat looking radio menu to select the hours and minutes there are options to control when the alarm repeats and the sounds but overall it's fairly basic right now next up is also a calculator app and this includes a standard character that works as you'd expect there's also a scientific version and but muscles also including a converter option to quickly convert a variety of options including volume length and weight there's also a basic sound recording app that lets you record audio from a microphone and then share it to other applications so you can see here you can share it to SkyDrive and mail Aboudi expect our apps will be able to support that in future the final built in app edition is movie moments this appears to be a Windows Movie Maker replacement and is fairly basic right now B can add captions into videos very easily and the results are protest and then saved into the pictures library you'll see that the the end result of the video is extremely basic and but we do suspect that Microsoft's actually improving this quite rapidly although there aren't any other additional applications at the moment in Windows Blu Microsoft is also making changes to its existing ones elsewhere Internet Explorer has some minor changes that hint at further improvements for blue as a whole you can see that the layout is pretty much identical to the Windows 8 version with his settings menu and pin options but on the tab section which can be found at the very top there's also a new sync tabs option and we expect that Microsoft is building in tap sync functionality for Windows blue itself but you could also expand this to Windows Phone blue in the future to make Internet Explorer more like Google's Chrome browser the internet options here are fairly unchanged so it's only tab sink that's a new addition now this version of Internet Explorer in Windows blue is actually Internet Explorer 11 and you can see that if we switched to the desktop version that that's available in the about screen as for other changes in Windows blue and it looks like Microsoft is working on a shutdown screen that's similar to Windows Phone and the company has also developed new snap views and by default apps all snap into a 50/50 view that will basically allow you to open up two apps directly on alongside each other you can in drag drag apps to the snap view on the side and on higher resolutions you'll actually be able to drag as many as free or four apps alongside each other there's also improvements to the charm options in Windows blue if we bring up Internet Explorer and try to share a page you'll notice that there are options to share a screenshot of Internet Explorer or simply link to the page now the same applies for other charms and while the search charm hasn't been updated to include improved search to share the devices charm shows new options when you're attempting to play music or video the charm has been updated to include a play option which we suspect is the normal play - option that lets you play content exports and other devices and there's also the usual print and in quick access to projector options finally we also notice that Microsoft has tweaked its keyboard layout making it easier to access a number keys by holding down and swiping up and that was a quick look at Windows blue which we're expecting to be made available as an upgrade to Windows 8 later this year you