[Editor: We are currently going back over the news of last week - you may remember we had a bit of technical hitch then]

Apparently its going to be powerful, familiar, reliable (and a whole bunch of other woffle words):

Built on Windows 7, Windows Embedded “Quebec” will offer developers a powerful, familiar and reliable experience that will include the following benefits:

. Rich user experience. The latest Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation tools deliver the next generation of media experiences and rich Internet applications for devices.

. Enhanced security and control. Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption and key management to protect data on embedded devices provide greater security. In addition, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 will provide defense from malicious Web sites and keep data private with improved security and InPrivate Browsing.

. Enhanced stability and improved performance. The new platform will offer enhanced stability and improved performance with investment in multicore architecture, including 64-bit processor support.

. Extended Web capabilities to the embedded device. Customers will have the ability to enable Web capabilities to their devices with Internet Explorer 8 accelerators and Windows Web services, benefitting from powerful, efficient Web applications, including offline capabilities.

Source: Microsoft PressPass

This is actually pretty exciting. Seeing Silverlight and WPF getting first point attention in the press release is pretty telling. If you’ve been unsure about Silverlight, then wake up – it’s the future.

And yes, Windows powered coffee machines are coming.

As we recently posted, the .NET Micro Framework marketing hacks have their Dare to Dream Different challenge, and now the Windows Embedded team, not to be outdone, have their own challenge. At least they’ve been sensible enough to admit it is a contest.

It’s call the Sparks will Fly 2009 Challenge, and it involves

1. Submitting a 3 page paper with your idea
2. Building a working prototype (and providing a 3 minute video)
3. Demonstrating it (if one of the 3 finalists)

As usual there’s a stack of cash ($15K) and a trip to TechEd 2009 (which they seem to include in all their competitions these days since it makes to the total $50K prize value seems so much bigger!)

Yet another example of Microsoft trying to drum up interest in their products in entirely the wrong way. But this is just the beginning. Expect more and more ‘challenges’ from Microsoft in the coming months as it tries desperately to get the cool kids involved. Good luck with that one.

Entries are taken from now until January 9, 2009. Full details on the site.