So, Microsoft has made official what was rumored towards the end of last year: the next version of Windows will not only run on x86 processors, but also certain ARM ones. Specifically, it will support certain ARM system-on-chip (SoC) designs from NVIDIA (with its Tegra family), Texas Instruments (with its OMAP 4 family), and Qualcomm (with Snapdragon).
The rationale for this is the claim of growing convergance in computing power across phone, slate, and PCs. SoCs—both x86 and ARM—take this convergence even further, packing ever more power into less space and a smaller power envelope.
And, for once, some of what it can do looks genuinely useful.
The blog post reads, “We’re introducing a new WhatsApp app for Windows that loads faster and is built with an interface similar to the app's mobile version.”
Since the middle of February, customers of AMD graphics cards have been reporting situations in which Windows installations were entirely bricked after installing new drivers.
