In the image above the redesigned control/action centre can be seen, this is big enough news on its own, however, in this image there is a much bigger announcement than this new notification centre. If you were to look closer down in the bottom left you will see the date 10/20/2021, this date is in the American time format and shows the date as October 20th 2021. If this date had only appeared in this one image then we could just ignore it as a random date but it appears in almost all of the renders used by Microsoft to show off Windows 11 where the date is visible. Other images with this date can be seen below.

This suggests that some form of announcement will be coming on October 20th, with all of this coming during the Windows 11 event the natural assumption is that this is the release date for Windows 11. However, it could also be an event for another part of Microsoft’s buisness that is still related to Windows such as their Surface product line. This would make sense because Microsoft will probably want their signature device lineup to be using the most powerful hardware available. It would also make sense for it to be a day where both new surface hardware and Windows 11 is announced.

Also visible in the notifications section is a Microsoft Teams message from Steve Bathiche, an engineer on Surface devices, to Panos Panay saying that he “can’t wait for October” implying that a major announcement of some sort will arrive in October.