Today's surprise release of the new Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10049 included the first public version of Project Spartan, the code name for Microsoft's next generation web browser. The company has gone over the features that are included in this version in a blog post and video.
Microsoft made a point of saying that this first release of Project Spartan lacks many of the features that will be in the final version when it's launched alongside Windows 10. That being said, the company offered a bullet list of what's been enabled in this first public build
- Cortana is built-in and ready to assist: Cortana in Project Spartan is a personal assistant that helps make Web browsing easier for you, with whatever you're trying to get done. Cortana offers help at just the right moment, based on what she knows about the Web, about you and what you might be trying to do. She remains in the background but provides additional information when you need it, making browsing easier and more efficient. Cortana in Spartan will be available in the US versions of this build, and available more broadly later.
- Inking and sharing so you can capture and communicate your thoughts: Everyone uses the Web routinely to share questions, thoughts, info and comments with friends and colleagues. Now with new inking capabilities, Project Spartan enables you to write or type directly on the page, comment on what's interesting or clip what you want – then easily share this "Web Note" via mail, or a social network. Researching and collecting information from the Web is just as easy, as you can save your notes directly to OneNote.
- Distraction-free reading with Reading List and Reading View: Keeping up with information overload on the Web is one of the challenges that we all have to manage. Project Spartan helps with a beautiful new Reading List to collect everything you want to read, including the ability to save any webpage or PDF for convenient access later, and an integrated, distraction-free Reading View that keeps you focused on the content.
- A new engine for the modern Web: Project Spartan's new rendering engine is built around the idea that the Web "just works," while being fast, more secure and more reliable. As we shared in our recent developer workshop, we made some changes to the rendering engine that you will see in this build.
Microsoft is still planning to include Internet Explorer 11 in the desktop version of Windows 10 to offer users legacy compatibility with older websites.
Source: Microsoft
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