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Microsoft explains mystery of Windows 9 with super-geeky joke

Microsoft has given us a glimpse of its light-hearted side with an extremely geeky tech joke.

Staff at the Build 2015 conference last week were spotted wearing t-shirts emblazoned with a Microsoft logo made up of binary code, and one developer decided to take a closer look.

After capturing a screenshot of Joe Belfiore in his little blue number, Kévin Gosse translated the 1s and 0s on his chest and discovered four sentences, one in each segment of the logo.

As well as realising that he’s got far too much time on his hands, here’s what else Gosse found:

  • “There are 10 types of people in the world.”
  • “Windows 10, because 7 8 9.”
  • “Congrats on being one of the first.”
  • “Windows Insiders help us develop the future. Talk to us @ Windows.”

The first is a classic programmer joke playing on the fact that ‘10’ is binary for ‘2’, while the final two are relatively dull.

The second statement, meanwhile, is a cheeky reference to Windows 9, the operating system that never was. In case you don’t get it, the t-shirt insinuates that it was eaten by Windows 7. Japes galore.

Microsoft, rather bafflingly, decided to jump straight from Windows 8 to Windows 10, leading to people to joke that it wanted to put as much distance between itself and Windows 8 as possible.

Related: Windows 10 release date and rumours

The new operating system is due out in July, and will come free to Windows 7 and 8 users who choose to upgrade during the first year of release. Follow the link above to learn about its new features, including Cortana, Continuum and Microsoft Edge.

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