Windows 8 Will Have An App Store And Possibly Kinect Integration

Microsoft may have inadvertently confirmed some details on Windows 8 today when Windows chief Steven Sinofsky posted a list of teams working on the next-gen operating system. The post, titled "Introducing the team," was published on Microsoft's recently inaugurated Building Windows 8 blog and revealed that the next-gen platform will indeed have an app store as well as possible Kinect integrations.

In the post, Sinofsky explained how the Windows project is fairly broad and is comprised of a set of smaller projects with various teams that work together and independently. The work is organized into "feature teams" that take charge of specific features of the platform. For Windows 8, the company has about 35 feature teams with 25 to 40 developers in each working together with test and program management.

But what's interesting is that in the full list of teams, one is called "App Store," making this the first time that Microsoft has confirmed an app store for Windows 8. Microsoft did previously have a marketplace, but it will be interesting to see if in Windows 8, this becomes branded as Windows App Store instead. Additionally, there's a team called "Human Interaction Platform," which sounds awfully like some sort of Kinect feature. This could mean integrated motion and voice controls in Windows 8.

Below is the full list of teams:

App Compatibility and Device Compatibility

App Store

Applications and Media Experience

App Experience

Core Experience Evolved

Device Connectivity

Devices & Networking Experience

Ecosystem Fundamentals

Engineer Desktop

Engineering System

Enterprise Networking

Global Experience

Graphics Platform

Hardware Developer Experience

Human Interaction Platform

Hyper-V

In Control of Your PC

Kernel Platform

Licensing and Deployment

Media Platform

Networking Core

Performance

Presentation and Composition

Reliability, Security, and Privacy

Runtime Experience

Search, View, and Command

Security & Identity

Storage & Files Systems

Sustained Engineering

Telemetry

User-Centered Experience

Windows Online

Windows Update

Wireless and Networking services

XAML

[via Business Insider]