Gizmos Gal

It has not really been a secret that we’re expecting to see the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 launch this month, along with its smaller buddy the new Surface Mini tablet but more news adds weight to the rumours.

According to a recent report from The Verge, Microsoft will announce two new Surface tablets at a press event next week, the Surface Pro 3 and the Surface Mini which has already popped up on Amazon.

Microsoft are holding a press event in New York next week on the May 20th which is related to Microsoft’s Surface tablets, although the company has yet to reveal any details on what they plan to announce.

The new Microsoft Surface tablets are rumored to come a new power optimised Intel Haswell processor.

The Verge spotted a reference to a ‘Surface Pro 3 camera’ on Microsoft’s support site, which gives more weight to the rumour that the new Surface Pro 3 will launch next week.

The Pro 3 is expected to use the latest processors from Intel and a 2K resolution screen. While this new tablet is only a rumor right now, fans of Surface here in the UK can now get your hands on the Surface Pro 2 with LTE. This tablet actually launched in the US a while ago and has only just now landed in the UK.

As soon as I hear more firm details about the new Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and Surface Mini, including some actual pictures of each device, I’ll let you know.

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Even Microsoft knows that Windows Live Tiles have so much potential to be a lot better, especially on touchscreen devices. In fact, a group of the company's researchers in Asia have apparently been working on making Live Tiles interactive. As you can see in the videos after the break, the experimental tiles expand when touched, showing you its contents right on the Start screen instead of launching the app. For instance, touching the mail app automatically shows a list of your emails in an expanded view, which looks very similar to an Android widget.

That's not all, though: the team has also designed a feature called Desktop Interactive Tile, which lists the programs open on desktop mode, making them easily accessible from the modern UI. This tile can be accessed from the sidebar on desktop mode, as well, providing an easy way to launch programs or attach files to emails. Alas, Microsoft took down the project's page after briefly showcasing it on its website, but not before ZDNet managed to grab a copy of its official description:

This project features an Interactive-Tile UI system that enables users to access and manipulate Live Tiles in an interactive way with touch gestures. Interactive Tile's UI is responsive and flexible to an app's content and function. Users can provide quick input to the Interactive Tile on the Start screen. With a perception of Start as an entrance page, Interactive Tiles were introduced to empower the start screen with an intermediate access level to applications.

As one of the company's experimental ventures, this might not make it to production at all. But if it does, we'd love to see how it'll play with Windows 8.1's upcoming classic Start menu.

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