Windows 8 cloud features uncovered

After the leak of Windows 8, we expected to find out more about features as users across the internet got their hands on the bits, and some users have already pulled apart Windows 8 and discovered interesting references to functionality that we haven't seen yet.

Windows 8 Italia has uncovered the cloud features by comparing the registry to previous versions. References to Mobile broadband experience account, File Server Resource Manager, Setting Synchronization and Streaming Manager were uncovered.

Mobile broadband experience account appears to be a reference to allowing the user to log in via the cloud, but not too much more detail was available. The File Server Resource Manager will "synchronize files and folders between the local computer and a cloud service," which is likely to be integrated Windows Live Mesh, which was previously rumored to be included.

Setting synchronization is simply the synchronization of the users' settings across the computer (and devices) using the cloud with Windows Live ID (it even appears there's a new group policy object to deal with this already). Finally, streaming manager appears to be technology similar to the type that we saw in the Office 2010 "Click-to-run" beta, which allows the user to install software and use it as parts are being downloaded.

The article also points out a number of new linguistic capabilities that are available in Windows 8, including "text prediction."

Microsoft is expected to launch Windows 8 in 2012 with the current rumored retail availability for January 2013. Another rumor also suggests that there may be a beta as soon as this fall.

The article is associated with ‘Windows 8 cloud features uncovered’ available on http://www.neowin.net.