It seems that finally Microsoft removed the 3 app limit "feature" from Windows 7 Starter, supposedly after the pressure from major OEM's.

From the Windows team blog announcement:

We believe these changes will make Windows 7 Starter an even more attractive option for customers who want a small notebook PC for very basic tasks, like browsing the web, checking email and personal productivity.

The thing that bugs me as strange is the fact that Windows 7 Starter does NOT include DVD playback support nor (I quote), Personalization features for changing desktop backgrounds, window colors, or sound schemes.

Well that's a bugger. Hopefully there aren't going to be a hole lot of notebooks with this version.

Gizmodo posted a small preview regarding the new Windows 6.5 interface.
Their concluzion ? Microsoft is back in the game

From the article:
While everything seems to have been touched up, simplified, and polished to no end, what really makes this version of Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't the new, revamped browser—which uses the engine deployed in 6.1 but feels a lot faster and has a good new interface—or the honeycomb start screen—which I don't find particularly impressive—or the cleaner UI designed for one-finger operation or the speed or the touch gestures.

Go to gizmodo for the full article + pictures.

I think that everybody had their doubts when they read that the next Windows version will be called 7. Mostly because the development team said that it will be an evolution of Vista's codebase (that has the kernel version 6.0).

It seems that in fact, the next Windows version will have it's kernel version at 6.1 not 7, so compatibility wise it should be a much smoother update (similar to the one from 2000 to XP).

Here's the official explanation, like it or hate it it's your choice.

Here's where things get a little more complicated.  Following Windows 3.0 was Windows NT which was code versioned as Windows 3.1. Then came Windows 95, which was code versioned as Windows 4.0.  Then, Windows 98, 98 SE and Windows Millennium each shipped as 4.0.1998, 4.10.2222, and 4.90.3000, respectively. So we're counting all 9x versions as being 4.0.

Windows 2000 code was 5.0 and then we shipped Windows XP as 5.1, even though it was a major release we didn't' want to change code version numbers to maximize application compatibility.

That brings us to Windows Vista, which is 6.0.  So we see Windows 7 as our next logical significant release and 7th in the family of Windows releases.