launch

Rogers has unveiled in a portion of its media event in Canada today that it's the preferred carrier in the country for Windows Phone 8, which is a claim we can certainly believe with the arsenal of handsets it's taking through to 2013. It's also set to be the first carrier in the world to sport the Lumia 920.

Just a quick reminder that today Microsoft will officially launch Windows Phone 8.  The launch event is being held in San Francisco and is slated to start at 10AM PST / 1PM EST.  Microsoft will show off to the world their new mobile OS originally code named ‘Apollo’.

Along with all the Windows Phone goodness, maybe availability and pricing will come into better focus from the various carriers slated to carry these new devices.

Whatever may develop, Windows Phone Central will of course be there in sunny San Francisco to cover the event and bring you all the news as it happens. Afterwards, we're off to BUILD 12 the very next day to continue our Windows Phone 8 coverage.

Google has announced that its Android event, planned to be held this coming Monday in New York, has been cancelled due to severe weather concerns. The move comes just after Microsoft has created buzz with the launch of its Surface family of Windows RT tablets (Windows 8 Pro Surface hardware still on the horizon). 

A fan snapping the opening event with a Windows Phone

Last night, Microsoft finally kicked off the Surface RT here in New York City and they did so with great enthusiasm.

We were there for the event, which kicked off at about 9:45PM EDT right in the middle of Times Square.  Some folks had begun lining up earlier that day and Microsoft gave them some free Surface jackets for their trouble. The line itself had a few hundred people and it took about nearly two hours just to get into the Store as they had it very controlled--only a specific number of people could enter at a given time, pending others exiting.

In case you were at work or preoccupied, you can now go back and re-watch the Windows 8 and Surface RT demonstrations and announcements from this morning. That’s the good news.

The bad news is this is still in Silverlight and you have to manually rewind back to the 1:17:45 mark (or 3:33:00 for Surface). And sorry for those scroll bars but you can blame Microsoft for that one. Hopefully Microsoft will have a YouTube version up later in the day for the rest of you living in a non-Silverlight world aka probably most of you. (You can also watch it on Microsoft's site here). 

Watch after the break...Thanks, Marco300, for the tip 

Microsoft is set to hold an event on October 29th for Windows Phone 8 in Madrid, Spain. The company plans to unveil the next version of its mobile operating system to the world, which will pave the way for hardware to be released and carriers to begin rolling out new plans for Windows Phone 8 devices. Much like Munich, Germany and Milan in Italy, Microsoft appears to be attempting to synchronise each event to progress simultaneously.

Windows Phone 8 is almost upon us but before that we still have Windows 8 launch to get through. Looks like retailers in the Singapore are going to use that weekend to start pushing the HTC 8X in a promo sale.

The offer is set to last for three days only from 26^th to the 28^th of October, this is way ahead of the official launch on 3^rd November so this could be one to look out for.

Windows 8, the much anticipated PC OS, was just launched in China a few hours ago, although many are still waiting for October 26 - the fateful day. As we understand, the global launch of Windows 8 will be marked by not one single event, but a whole series of them. The launch will start in China (October 23rd 10:00am local time), and end with the US party on October 26.

Rogers has published a blog post detailing what hardware the carrier will be sporting from Microsoft for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, as well as any exclusivities Rogers will hold on said devices. We're already aware of which Windows Phones the carrier will be taking, but the blog post also touches on carrier apps that will be pre-loaded.