Windows 9 news recap: Notifications Center, Threshold feedback and a unified Windows

It’s been another busy week here at WinBeta, with more Windows 9 (Threshold) news breaking through all the time. This week, we learned about a few new things regarding Windows 9 and its upcoming technical preview, and speculation began regarding a unified Windows brand across phone, tablet and PC.

Starting off with the most juicy news of the week, it was revealed that the Notifcation Center in Windows 9 will be coming to the desktop too. WinBeta exclusively revealed not too long beforehand that a Notification Center would be coming to the Modern UI side of Windows 9, this new report detailed its existence on the desktop and how it will work. Right now, it’s a simple window in the bottom right hand corner and is accessed from the system tray. WinBeta can confirm that more features such as an Action Center is said to be coming to the Notification Center in Windows 9 in the future, but it will not be present upon launch of the Preview.

Next up is feedback. As expected, the Windows 9 Technical Preview will focus heavily on feedback. It wasn’t too clear how eager Microsoft were about this feedback, until multiple reports earlier this week began explaining Microsoft’s plans. Feedback will drive this preview more than any preview Microsoft has ever conducted in its history, so much so that the feedback you submit could alter your version of Windows with a distinct set of features, different from those who submit different feedback.

Finally, speculation began this week regarding the actual product name of Windows 9. We all know that the upcoming version of Windows is codenamed Threshold with a rumored final name of Windows 9, but what if it isn’t? What if Microsoft is planning to name it just “Windows”? If you look at the adverts for many different Windows Phone and PC devices, Microsoft has already begun adapting this way of marketing, using just “Windows” instead of “Windows Phone” if it was a phone or “Windows 8” if it was a laptop.

This month is Threshold month, meaning you can expect a whole lot more Windows Threshold news to pop up over the coming weeks. Microsoft is rumored to be holding a press event on September 30th which will see the company openly talk about its plans for Threshold for the first time, and perhaps even release a preview for the public.