Microsoft announced today on its blog that Windows 10 is launching this summer in 190 countries and 111 languages.
The company didn’t name an exact date, but at least we know it’s not far off. Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for 7, 8 and 8.1 users when it’s available.
It also confirmed that some partners like Lenovo and Tencent will offer “upgrade services” at service centers to get users onto the latest OS. We’d expect more of these partners to come onboard as the date gets closer.
Buried in the announcement was also a tiny mention that a small group of Xiaomi Mi 4 users will be able to download Windows 10 to their phone to test out the technical preview ahead of an eventual release this year.
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That’s big news for a company that’s traditionally shipped it’s own flavor of Android on its devices. It’s not clear if this means that Xiaomi phones could dual-boot between operating systems in the future, but we sure hope so.
Microsoft said over email to us that the two companies are partnering to test Windows 10 and get feedback. It says that selected Xiaomi Mi4 users “will get the ability to flash their phones with the new Windows 10 OS and provide feedback to Xiaomi and Microsoft on their experience” and “availability will be announced in the months to come.”
Xiaomi replied to us and said that “this is an experimental program entirely led by Microsoft, and we are happy that Mi fans with Mi 4 devices in China will be able to participate and provide feedback.”
Microsoft also announced today that you’ll be able to log in to Windows 10 with biometric details like a iris scan and reports emerged that Internet Explorer will not be a major part of the OS.
➤ Windows 10 Launching This Summer [Windows Blog]
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