Windows 8 Beta arrives in late February

Microsoft announced during their final CES keynote that the Windows 8 beta will be released to their darling public late next month. On top of the release of the public beta of Windows 8, Microsoft will also launch the Windows Store.

Microsoft's Windows Store is their central repository for Metro applications. Windows Store will be available globally, and will support every language that Windows supports, which is great. At this point in time, there was no talk of the release candidate, but if we're seeing a public beta next month, we should expect a single release candidate of Windows 8, just like Windows 7 had.