An interesting story at tgdaily today. Microsoft will give a first glimpse at Windows 7 this week and will introduce developers to core components of the new operating system. Windows 7 may have a least one secret ace up its sleeve: GPU acceleration.

There are two dedicated presentations on this (Windows 7: Unlocking the GPU with Direct3D; Windows 7: Writing Your Application to Shine on Modern Graphics Hardware) and we don’t know many details yet, but these two tracks may be among the most interesting at PDC this year. I mentioned before that I truly believe that GPGPU/cGPU acceleration holds the keys to one of the most significant opportunities in software development for decades.Realistically, Windows 7 shapes up to be one giant patch for Windows Vista and Microsoft’s claims that 7 will be a major operating system release may be perceived as a bit silly in this context. A facelift for Vista, a new GUI and support for multi-touch do not qualify for the description of a new “major release” in my opinion. We will have to see how the topic of GPU acceleration pans out, but this could be a big deal and may become the big surprise no one expected.

Also, the name Windows 7 may also indicate Microsoft’s direction. The name is a departure from Vista, despite the close relationship of Windows 7 and Vista, and is inconsistent with any Microsoft branding we have seen (at least for Windows) over the past decade. It appears that Windows 7 will be a transitional operating system: The new OS gets rid of the Vista name and lays the foundation for a new operating system generation after 7 [via tgdaily]