Windows 10: release date, price, news and features

Microsoft's big reveal on January 21 has ended. Check out a digested version of all the announcements below, and keep it locked here for future Windows 10 news as the OS progresses.

With Windows 8 and now Windows 8.1, Microsoft tried – not entirely successfully – to make tablets part of a continuum that goes from number-crunching workstations and high-end gaming rigs through all-in-one touchscreen media systems and thin-and light notebooks down to slender touch tablets.

The general consensus is that it still has a long way to go to produce a unified OS. Recently, Microsoft publicly made the first steps to doing just that, with Windows 10. Skipping the Windows 9 name entirely, the Redmond, Wash. firm aims to step into the next generation of computing with the right foot forward.

Microsoft's Windows 10 Technical Preview is available through its Windows Insider Program website. You'll need a Microsoft account to get it, and it's worth bearing in mind that it's not the finished product, so it will be a bit rough around the edges.

• Is the new OS any good? Read our hands on Windows 10 review

While information regarding the Windows 10 Road Map slowly trickling through with each reveal event, this is what we know so far regarding the stymied release of Windows 10:

• The event on September 30, 2014 announced the release of the Technical Preview of Windows 10 for laptops and desktops, often referred to as WTP.
• Microsoft released its Windows Insider Program on October 1, 2014, designed to keep early adopters up to date with the latest preview builds of Windows 10.
• As of October 7, 2014, the preview build is available to Windows 7 users as well.
• Starting with Technical Preview for laptops and desktops, the preview build will extend to smartphones some time in February, Microsoft's Terry Myerson announced on January 21.
• Consumer preview builds will not be available until early 2015, according to Microsoft's Terry Myerson, but the next WTP build for PC will launch some time during the week of January 25.
• The Technical Preview will end sharply on April 15 of next year, which conveniently leaves right off at...
• Microsoft's Build 2015 conference next April, at which the company will have even more announcements and likely issue a Windows 10 release date.
• Finally, the company promises that Windows 10 will ship to consumers and enterprise "later in the year" in 2015, Myerson said.