Microsoft has an event coming up in a little under two hours (2PM GMT or 5PM East African Time).
We expect the company to announce a couple of new products as well as shed some more light on the next big Windows 10 update, Redstone 2 which is slated for an early 2017 rollout.
The new products include updates to Microsoft’s Surface lineup. Whether that means that we’ll get to see successors to the Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Book (Surface Pro 5 and Surface Book 2 anyone) we really don’t know at the moment as there hasn’t been much in the way of leaks along those lines up to this moment. With Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processors yet to make it to the Surface lineup, we’re crossing our fingers for something from Microsoft’s hardware team.
What we do know, however, thanks to a couple of leaks in the run up to this evening’s event, is that there is likely to be a new Microsoft All-in-One (AIO) computer with those new Intel processors. Some have hinted that the machine will be called Surface Studio.
To add on to the above sketches that have been making rounds on the internet for a while now since they appeared as part of a patent filing, there’s this: (thanks Latiff for the tip)
Finally caught Surface Studio in our logs. Looks like 4500×3000 screen res. Hit coming from China. #surfacestudio #MicrosoftEvent
— Alan Mendelevich (@ailon) October 26, 2016
The Surface Studio is set to feature a touch screen as well as a stylus for those requiring more precise input.
Microsoft is also tipped to be following Google into the smart voice-activated speaker market that has so far been dominated by Amazon’s Alexa with its own device reportedly called “HomeHub”. As you may expect, if HomeHub does indeed exist then it will be powered by Cortana.
This is also where we may finally get to see the Windows Mobile version of Alcatel’s Idol 4, the Idol 4 Pro that has been leaking left, right and centre for a while now (we’ve been hearing about it since February!). The only lingering question is, will this make it to the rest of the world or will it just be restricted to the American market?
Oh, and that new Paint app.
We have a few minutes to have all these questions answered. You can watch the livestream of the event which is taking place in New York on Microsoft’s event page.
