Apparently Microsoft had a chin wag with computer makers in April about what Windows 8 might look like so they can make plans because a set of the "NDA" "Microsoft Confidential" PowerPoints used at the meeting seem to have turned up on an Italian web site called Windowsette over the weekend.

They are evidently real. At least they are widely accepted as genuine and seem to have been in the possession of an HP engineer named Derek Goode.

Not that they're all that revealing or even a "plan of record," but it looks like Microsoft is expecting to release the next-generation operating system some time in 2012 and that Internet Explorer 9 will hit beta this August.

Microsoft wants to have a cloudy "Windows Store" like Apple's App Store that would give developers and channel partners monetization opportunities and it wouldn't mind at all if Windows 8 "just worked" because according to the slide headlined "how Apple Does It: A Virtuous Circle" that kind of Apple-like perception sells.

The deck also indicates that Microsoft is not about to cede the tablet market to Apple or Google for that matter. It's prepared to give OEM more of a customized look across three main form factors: slate, laptop and all-in-one.

Microsoft is also apparently toying with the idea of using facial recognition as a log-in, which presumably might sell more web cams, getting screen lighting in sync with the ambient lighting, supporting "stereoscopic 3D," creating a reset button in case the system goes bonkers that will still preserve the user's settings, personal files and applications because it's tied to the App Store, and provide enough help and support that users "know with confidence how to respond and what actions to take" when things go wrong. Now that would be a treat.