Gadgetory

oh hey this is Chris with The Verge and today we're looking at Windows Phone 8 the latest generation of Microsoft's mobile platform now Windows Phone 8 isn't necessarily about any one big major user facing change it's about a bunch of little things plus one big change under the hood Windows Phone 8 uses the NT kernel which is the same version of the Windows kernel used by Windows 8 in other words there's a lot more horsepower under the hood but let's take a look at some of the things that the user is going to see the first thing you notice when you turn on the screen is that you've got a new home screen experience gone is the black bar on the right side you now have a full width experience and you can also resize these live tiles to three different sizes the lock screen also has some key improvements you can set the background to come from any number of apps installed on the phone for example Bing which is famous for having a daily image you can use that image for the background of your lockscreen you can also show music controls which you could do in Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 rooms is one of the big features that Microsoft is touting for Windows Phone 8 besides texting you can also share locations you can share a group calendar you can share photos and then there's Kids Korner which is the feature designed to make Windows Phone 8 very kids safe if a parent or older sibling has a Windows Phone they can enable Kids Korner and then when the phone is locked the child can swipe from the left of the screen which enables what's called Kids Korner this is basically a limited function version of the phone only has access to certain games certain other apps that the the parent or owner of the phone decides mobile Internet Explorer has been revamped as well in Windows Phone 8 Internet Explorer is based on IE 10 it's using the same engine that you find on the desktop it's faster smoother and overall the experience seems to be pretty good and then there's wallet Windows Phone 8 finally includes proper support for NFC you can think of wallet a little bit like iOS as passbook different applications can plug into it not for payment methods that can be exposed through the NFC payments if the phone has that capability just tap to pay and there's a bunch of miscellaneous stuff in Windows Phone 8 as well Maps is now powered by Nokia's NAVTEQ which should make the the Maps experience a little bit better than it was before in the Bing world speaking of Bing the local Scout service which was introduced in 7.5 now had something called a for you mode which pulls in your preferences your history and that of your friends on Facebook to build a more personalized view of things in the neighborhood that you might like to do for music and video Zune has been replaced by X Box you have Xbox music and music paths which replace their equivalent Zune services you also have smart glass which is the very very cool controller for your Xbox console that's also compatible with Android and surface and alike but it works very well on Windows Phone 8 as well and the camera in Windows Phone 8 has been enhanced as well you have these things called lenses which sound like they're just Instagram filters but really they're a lot more than that there are entire apps that plug into the camera and do different things CNN I report is an example of a lens that allows you to export your photos directly to CNN's I report service all told Windows Phone 8 isn't about any one big feature it's about a bunch of little ones plus the new kernel that allows this platform to run hardware that's competitive with the latest that Apple and Google have to offer but we'll capture big holiday sales this year we'll find out