Microsoft Announces Windows Phone 8, Won't Support Current Handsets

From DailyTech: Microsoft may be down in the single-digits when it comes to worldwide smartphone market share, but the company is not going to sit by on the sidelines while the competition from Apple and Google pass it by. Today at the Windows Phone Summit, Microsoft announced the follow-up to Windows Phone 7.5 -- Windows Phone 8.

While Windows Phone 7.x is based on Windows CE, Windows Phone 8 shares its NT kernel with PC-oriented Windows 8 operating system. Thanks to the shared codebase, developers won't have to do "double duty" developing programs for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8.

Windows Phone 8 will support dual-core processor at launch, and quad-core support will come at a later date (Windows Phone 8 can theoretically support up to 64 cores
). In addition, Windows Phone 8 will support three screen resolutions: 800x480, 1280x768, and 1280x720. Although we question the need for both of the latter screen resolutions, we'll give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Other features include microSD support for removable storage (movies, videos, photos, apps), VoIP/Skype integration, in-app purchases, Internet Explorer 10 (complete with anti-phising technology), native NFC support, and a mobile Wallet Hub to store credit/debit cards, and deals/offers, (it sounds quite a bit like Apple's Passbook from iOS 6). Nokia's NAVTEQ mapping technology will also be built-in to Windows Phone 8 including offline maps. Another new feature, Tap+Send, allows users to "bump" phones to share data. However, we've seen this functionality before in Android devices.

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