Microsoft relaunches Hotmail as Outlook.com with new UI and features [video]

Hotmail is no more! The world’s first webmail service that was launched in 1996 and acquired by Microsoft is being phased out as Microsoft inches closer to launching its next generation Windows 8 platform. The Redmond-based software giant today announced a preview of Outlook.com, which is essentially the latest generation of Hotmail with Metro UI and social integration. It is a smart move by Microsoft to club its native Outlook email client on PCs with the webmail service from a branding point of view and at the same time adding some much-needed features to take on rivals, especially Gmail. Read on to find out what’s new.