Microsoft published to the Web the session and speaker list for its Build 2012 developer conference, a day before the show is set to kick off in Redmond.
The biggest revelation I've seen from the newly published information so far is that Microsoft officials are now using "Microsoft Design Language" as the newest way to refer to the design language and tiled style formerly known as "Metro."
I had a number of my Twitter chums tell me in the past couple of weeks that Microsoft was now using "Microsoft Design Language" as the replacement for Metro, but a Microsoft spokesperson would not confirm, when I asked, that this was the official new lingo. (I believe Brent Schooley was the first to tell me Microsoft Design Language was the final replacement on which the Softies had decided.) I guess Microsoft's use of it on the Build 2012 site is as close as we'll get to an "official" confirmation.
Microsoft Design Language seems to be the way to refer to the look and feel/UX, but it isn't the replacement for what formerly was known as "Metro-Style" -- meaning applications built around the WinRT application programming interface (API). Metro-Style's replacement is "Windows Store," as in "Netflix has built a Windows Store app for Windows 8."
Read more: Microsoft Design Language: The newest official way to refer to 'Metro' | ZDNet