While everyone was predicting and pontificating about Apple releasing a Tablet this month (which they didn’t but they probably will in February) Microsoft have been secretly working on their own tablet. Called Courier it it is more than a tablet, it has two screens hinged in the middle and looks more like a traditional book or filofax (remember those) than a tablet.
According to the technology site Gizmodo, Courier is a real device and is in the “late prototype” stage of development. It has two 7-inch multitouch screens which work with a stylus as well as your fingers for flicking, flipping and dragging.
The Courier, was until recently, a secret project inside of Microsoft with only a few people in the know about the project. It now appears that Courier is at the stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies which is something it has done before with products like the Zune and Xbox.
According to a video on Gizmodo’s website the Courier is quite sophisticated (maybe complex) using both screens simultaneously with a mixed use of stylus and fingers. The video shows contacts, images and parts of web pages being copied from the left main screen to a journal on the right.
Is it all fake? Probably not. Will it make it to be an actual product, maybe. Will it be released ahead of Apple’s tablet, almost certainly not.
[Image source Gizmodo]