Windows 8.1 ready for OEMs ‘late August’ says Microsoft

Windows 8.1 will be ready to be loaded onto PCs by late August, says Microsoft on its official Windows blog. “This means OEMs will be able to get the RTM bits and begin preparing devices with Windows 8.1 just in time for the holidays!” the blog excitingly continues. The blog recounts Microsoft executives Tami Reller and Jensen Harris who took to the stage at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference earlier  today to explain how Windows 8.1 will integrate with OEM devices.

Onstage, features we already know of like an optimized small-form-factor view, the Reading List app and SkyDrive compatibility were mentioned alongside the new stuff. This includes a cool sounding search function for the new Xbox Music app: you’ll know be able to send a webpage to Xbox Music where the page is then “scraped” for song information, Xbox Music then creates a song list based on any scraped information.

Windows 8.1 is also going to include Miracast, a new technology that streams HD content over wi-fi to a TV. This was demoed with the Surface Pro essentially made the TV into a giant whiteboard, care of the OneNote app.

It’s also going to be mercifully easier for us to get Windows devices, thanks to a “new commercial channel incentive for featured Windows devices.” It’s called TouchWins and interested parties can find out more here.