Since our big story on Seven a few days ago, leaks and information have continued to come forth.

We'll just summarize them all here since nothing is conclusive yet, but there are lots of interesting tidbits:

• Windows Mobile 7 session at MIX 2010 announced: Evidently Microsoft is going to host a session on how to make apps and games for Seven in March at the big MIX '10 conference.  Looks like that Mobile World Congress debut is quite likely. (via MobileTechWorld)
• Twitter comments are coming from some Microsoft/Danger employees. Mention WinMo7 team, doughnuts, private testing, and milestones. Tweets originate not from a Sidekick client but from Microsoft. Project Pink lives? (via EngadgetMobile)
• Part II: List of those tweeting from Danger/Microsoft: Carlos Picoto, Director of program management at Microsoft; Jeff McKean - Senior Product Planner at Microsoft; Bruno Silva - Director of Development at Microsoft Corp., Zune; Daryl Welsh - Director of Test -Premium Mobile Experiences at Microsoft; Michael Ducker - Program Manager, Premium Mobile Experiences at Microsoft; Namrata Bachwani - Release Manager at Microsoft (Thanks azimmerm)
• Our leak of the HTC Obsession gets backed up by another anonymous source at WMPU, who says that it is really the Diamond 3, which seems kind of obvious. Also AT&T may grab it too. (via WMPU)
• Our own source reveals to us that Seven is backwards compatible with WM6.x applications (contra an earlier rumor), but it is limited to resolution restrictions. A security warning pops up on launch, but the program will work.  That info leads naturally to...
• ...the idea that Seven is based on WinCE 7 aka Chelan, which our man with the knowledge Conflipper confidently states.
• Finally, commenter drphysx, mentions this article from a few months back, which we think dovetails nicely with our big post.  It seems to fill in the background info on decision making. It's all theory, but we think its well thought out.

We're sure that's just the tip of the iceberg and we're expecting a lot more info to come forward in the next few weeks.  Stay tuned!

It pretty much goes without saying that a lot of us are (or already have) plan on dropping several hundred dollars later this summer and fall on the latest Windows phone, be it from Samsung, HTC, whomever.

But before you shell out your hard-earned cash and wait patiently for the release of Windows Mobile 6.5, a word of warning. Big things are afoot with Windows Mobile 7, and the two may not play nicely together.

More on that, after the break.

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So at this point we're ready to accept the fact that Windows Mobile 7 probably is further along than we thought. One recent slide leak by UX Evangelist shows it going to testers later this year, with a launch in April 2010.

Bolstering that argument are a couple more of those slides decoded by ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley, who dives into the architecture of future versions of Windows Mobile. The slides show what may be the next version of Windows CE, from which Windows Mobile is built. This new version of Win CE may prove to be "Cashmere" (named for a city in Washington state).

What's that mean to you, the end user? We point you to Slide No. 2: Built into Cashmere would be support for FlashLite (and beyond, Foley says, the Flash support currently built into the new versions of Internet Explorer). An improved connections manager (huzzah!), built-in Live Messenger (finally) and support for those non-touch gestures Foley previously wrote about would all be onboard.

So will all of this end up in Windows Mobile 7? Foley doesn't know for sure, and Microsoft isn't telling. If Cashmere isn't used to build Windows Mobile 7, it's possible, she says, that the "Chelan" version of Win CE is being prepped. And with it would come IE7 support, Silverlight (which it's been said before would be in the next version of Windows Mobile), better ActiveSync (um, yay), and a host of other features.

Basically what we have here are a bunch of possible future features spilled onto a table, albeit wrapped up in nice little packages. What exactly will make it into Windows Mobile 7 is still anybody's guess. But we've got a good look now at what the future may hold.