Rumors have been swirling of late regarding development work on Microsoft's latest operating system, codenamed Windows 7. Enthusiast site UX Evangelist reports this morning with an actual screenshot from MS Paint in Windows 7 M3 Build 6780 (screen grab after the jump!). Who cares? It's more exciting than it sounds, since the lowly image editor sports the fancy new Ribbon interface from Office 2007, which will purportedly coat the entirety of the next operating system in funky goodness.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft-watcher Mary Jo Foley reports getting a brief glimpse of M3: "The latest build seems quite stable. The Ribbon user interface from Office 2007 is now part of WordPad and Paint. Home Groups -- the functionality formerly known in "Longhorn"/Vista as "Castle" -- is part of the new Windows 7 build. I also noticed that the "Graphical Console," a k a PowerShell Version 2, seems to be part of the latest pre-release Windows 7 build."

Needless to say, Microsoft had no official comment on any of this. Will the company release a public beta by WinHEC, or the Professional Developer Conference? Vegas odds are 10-1. What do you think?