Microsoft used its keynote speech at the Windows Phone Summit to unveil the latest version of its mobile OS - Windows Phone 8.

The focus of the new OS is what Microsoft calls a Shared Windows Core - shared code between the phone and desktop/tablet versions of the OS.

This effectively mean that porting apps from Windows 8 to Windows Phone (and back) is made easier for developers, which should lead to more development (in theory) between the platforms.

WP8 will introduce multi-core support into the OS for the first time, with support for dual-core, quad-core, and beyond in the future. T

his comes alongside support for larger screen resolutions - 720p (1280x720) and WXGA (1280x768), alongside the previous maximum 800x480.

MicroSD support has now been introduced, so new handsets will (finally) be able to expand their storage. Stop laughing at the back, Android owners.

Exploring new boundaries

Internet Explorer 10 will be built into the OS (with claimed 4 times faster JavaScript, and double HTML5 performance compared to Window Phone 7.5's Internet Explorer), which - according to Microsoft - makes the browser faster than an iPhone 4S on Sunscript benchmarks.

Windows Phone 8 will support NFC, which is probably appealing to all but one of you out there. There's a Wallet app to help you pay for goods with your Windows Phone too, which works independently from carriers (to avoid them blocking it).

Of more interest, Nokia Maps has now replaced Bing Maps, and will appear on all Windows Phone devices, complete with offline turn-by-turn navigation.

Busy bees

In regards to security, Window Phone 8 comes with a bunch of encryption options for businesses to mull over, there's also the option of deploying apps away from the Windows Phone Marketplace (for the IT bods).

On a more normal phone user, Window Phone 8 has changed the Start Screen.

No, it hasn't gotten rid of tiles, far from it. Instead, it can now include even more of the little, self-updating boxes in different sizes - up to four where once there was one.

As for hardware support, the first wave of Windows Phone 8 devices will come in the autumn from Nokia, Huawei, Samsung and HTC, with chipsets - as previously - from Qualcomm (its Snapdragon S4 family).