Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft. It was released on October 29, 2012, and like its predecessor, it features the interface known as Metro (or Modern UI). Windows Phone 8 replaces its CE-based architecture used on Windows Phone 7 devices with the Windows NT kernel found on many Windows 8 components. Current Windows Phone 7.x devices cannot run or update to Windows Phone 8 and new applications compiled specifically for Windows Phone 8 are not made available for Windows Phone 7.x devices.