Microsoft officially announced Windows Phone 8, the next major release of Window Phone OS at Windows Phone Summit held at San Francisco. Here is a quick lowdown on all the announcements: Windows 8 Shared Core: Joe Belfiore, corporate Vice President, Windows Phone Program Management, announced that Windows Phone 8 will be launched later this year and will feature a 'shared core' with the upcoming Windows 8 operating system. This means that Windows Phone 8 will share common networking, security, media and web browser technology, and a common file system with Windows 8. Platform Features: Belfiore previewed the eight key platform features which have been introduced in Windows Phone 8. These include hardware enhancements like multicore processor support, two additional screen resolutions (1280x720 and 1280x768) and removable microSD cards. Internet Explorer 10 (IE 10) will be included in the OS along with the same browsing engine that users will see in Windows 8 tablets and desktops, anti-phishing features like SmartScreen Filter, faster Javascript performance and improved HTML5 support. Windows Phone 8 will feature a new start screen with resizable metro-style live tiles which can be resized into three different sizes and a new set of theme colors. Nokia Maps will also replace the Maps app in Windows Phone as the default Maps app in Windows Phone 8 which will offer offline maps and turn-by-turn directions in many countries around the world. Note that Bing Maps is already using Nokia's mapping data to offer live traffic information and Nokia had then hinted that it will soon…
