http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211386
You can use either C# or VB + XAML or HTML/JS or C++.
That was the big announcement at the BUILD conference and the whole point of WinRT (God I hope they actually are serious about pushing WinRT for more than a year).
Otherwise it would be back to the Silverlight/.Net uprising that we saw after the first preview. . .
edit
You'll first need to learn the terminology of the MetroUI. You can also find more info under Windows Phone 7.
The Live Tiles can send tile notifications. That's how the socialite tile does the facebook feed. The OS will cycle through tile notifications that you've declared. This is all in the basic Tile sample and the advanced Tile sample.
Here is a link to all the samples from the BUILD event.
Start here for a step by step walkthrough of the platform. I would start there if the reference documentation is confusing.