Toshiba Shows First Windows 8 Hardware

Toshiba announced a handful of new Windows 7 devices at Computex, but the company's also ready to talk Windows 8. David Pierce got a chance to see some of the initial hardware prototypes designed to run Microsoft's next OS — reps told us Toshiba is an incredibly close launch partner for Windows 8 — and it looks like manufacturers are really starting to think about different ways Windows 8 can be used.

Toshiba didn't reveal a lot of details, but reps showed David Pierce very early models of three devices. He saw a Transformer Pad-like tablet / keyboard dock combination, a popular style so far at Computex that promises to be one of the most useful ways to run Windows 8, which is being heavily promoted as useful for both touch and non-touch input. Toshiba's also working on a slider PC, which lies flat and functions as a tablet or slides backward and upward to be used as a regular laptop — it looks just like the new MSI Slider S20.