Core facts: Windows 8 truthiness dissected, Mango sliced

MicroBite With 500 new features, Mango's a juicy release for Microsoft's Windows Mobile team: third-party application multi tasking, HTML5-compliant browser and video voice mail.

But with the iPhone 5 looming, technology alone won't help Microsoft close the gap on Apple or on Google's Android.

In this MicroBite The Register's software editor Gavin Clarke and All-about-Microsoft blogger Mary-Jo Foley look at how Mango's fate now rests with carriers and handset providers and how Microsoft's really betting on Tango to bring Windows Mobile to a mass market of smart-phone hold outs.

The biggest question of 2011 so far for Microsoft watchers had to be whether Windows 8 on ARM would run existing x86 applications. Well, the company released a Windows 8 preview in September and after months of speculation and having fallen out in spectacular fashion with Intel on the subject, it's still not clear.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's done nothing to address the growing concern that the Windows 8 security system will stop PCs running the operating system from also booting Linux. Will this be the black swan that overshadows Windows chief Steven Sinofsky's perfect career at Microsoft?

Join Clarke and Foley as they filter fact from fiction and attempt to get to the bottom of Windows 8.

As ever listen via The Reg's player below, or by downloading the MP3 here or Ogg Vorbis here. ®

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