UPDATE: The story hit engadget as well, but the story isn’t quite as positive. The comments are though, here’s the story.
I saw an interesting article on Gizmodo, ( http://gizmodo.com/536.. ) discussing some apparently new top secret laptop/tablet at Microsoft called Courier. The funniest thing is they mentioned what team it is, E&D, who is developing it, and who the head of the team is. Quite specific I think. I doubt if even half of it is true, but I must tell you. It is beautiful, … from the pictures of course.
As a Natural User Interface Designer working at Microsoft. I can tell you, this has piqued my interest. Things to note, they mention Multi-Touch and Stylus support.
I also particularly loved the comments. Quite surprising actually.
If this works exactly, and lives up to the video, as shown Ill buy it. and if they can beat Apple to the market, I’ll forget the iSlab (even as a mac user).
add mp3 capability, and why would i need a laptop at all?
I can see this being HUGE in schools. I know Drexel just replaced all their medical textbooks with iPod Touches (and I’m surprised to see nothing on Giz about it) but I’m sure if they knew this was on its way from Microsoft, they would have waited to see some prices.
Two Words, BAD ASS. I’ve been wanting to get a new laptop, but if this thing is truly on the horizon I’ll be saving up.
I love Apple and their products so much that I (Ed. pee)Ā apple juice, but this… this would have my money damn near instantly.
(All quotes taken from http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet)
Does anyone else have any comments they would love to share? Or how about a Feature Wish List? Thinks that you absolutely MUST have or you will die a slow and painful death. I know I have my list of things I would want in a product like this, but I would like to compare mine to yours. So, Asus if you are reading, here are a few tidbits for you. š
As a graphic artist and photography enthusiast, I would love the idea of being able to use courier as a digital sketchbook and and photo album.
The dual screen would also be perfect for photo editing, having side by side comparison of before and after images or comparisons between two photos is very helpful.
If there were a wish list, this would be it for me. It’s a total book replacement.
I have to say this is exactly what we need to see from Microsoft. They really have the ability to push out amazing, exciting, and in-depth products. And lately they seem to be on a roll: Windows 7, Zune HD, Bing, Xbox, WinMo 7, Surface, Server, etc. MS is showing that they can bring great products that are beautiful, work well, easy to use, and just seamless in there design.
If I had three motifs that Microsoft needs to keep doing do for all their products they would be.
Seamless
Interconnected
Elegant
I absolutely love what Iām seeing with Microsoft these days, and I foresee a great master plan to come to fruition soon. Awesome work to everyone at Microsoft, keep it up!
Professional artist’s perspective here (yes, there are a lot of us, and yes we’ve been wanting a “digital paper” tablet PC that isn’t the size of several housebricks for quite a while).
I’ve been using something similar in the form of Wacom’s Cintiq for years now.
Things I need are right and middle click on the pen. It gets used for so many things. Access to decent drawing software would be great too, just the basics of sketching, colour and layers are all that’s needed.
In general, just making the stylus accurate and feel as close to pen/paper as possible, and not having too much of a gap between the surface and the pen is best… even a 2mm gap is visible when viewed from an angle, the closer the nib of the pen is to the display, the more realistic the replication of paper/pen becomes.
No scratching on the screen too.. the 21″ cintiq suffers after heavy use, they’ve fixed the problem in the newer models though.
Pressure sensitivity would be a nice feature, but not essential. The important thing is replicating a physical pen or pencil as well as possible.
Offering alternative pens or nibs that feel different would also be neat.
Excellent product to be, i hope š
Would be great with multi-language input especially the asian languages – big market
not IME per se, but actual handwritten character recognition – like the ipod/iphone has very ez to use & opens up this device for a lot more customers.
(have IME but in addition to)
Allow me to write apps for it using WPF or Silverlight…
Then you would have legions of apps that could be ready to go quickly.
Love the concept and hope MS can pull it off, but disappointed to see some of the OneNote-type functionality for organization disappearing for a prettier design that seems to be more InkSeine-based.
Not sure if it’d be running an ARM-based embedded Windows or on Windows 7, but the software is what’s most important on it. It needs to be able to view and edit PDFs, markup eBooks (preferably the open ePub format), an art program (something like ArtRage would be great), and maybe even include a few of the better games for tablets like Ink Crosswords and the similarly Ink-based Sudoku that Microsoft made as an example.
I love my tablets now… but I’m really hoping MS can do this right.
This is what I think a “notebook computer” should be-a digital version of the dead-tree notebook, only without all that clunky paper.
It’s certainly very intriguing as a dedicated OneNote/InkSeine booklet sort of device with other functions attached.
However, the lack of a physical keyboard does concern me somewhat. It won’t be as much of a problem if I can use a USB or Bluetooth keyboard, but the option would be nice-even though I always use handwriting in OneNote rather than the keyboard despite being a fast touch-typist. On the other hand, what a device like this really needs is software designed around the touch+pen paradigm, not existing software meant for keyboard+mouse that the current Tablet PCs don’t handle all that well, convertible models with keyboards aside.
I definitely want to see a drawing app on the level of SketchBook Pro included on the Courier. Basically, just the essential brushes, layers, and a minimalist interface designed to be driven with touch and pen. Of course, this assumes that you’re already using a nice Wacom pressure-sensitive pen with the device already-or maybe it’s N-Trig for all I know.
Speaking of the pen, an eraser on the other end and two side buttons are definitely essential in my book. It would save me the hassle of having to switch tools to erase or lasso select, among other things.
Most of all, though, what the Courier really needs is long battery life. I like my current HP TC1100, bought used at a lower price than your typical new netbook and later spruced up with more RAM and a larger hard drive, but the battery it came with only lasts 1 hour and 45 minutes. Fortunately, I’m usually not away from AC power for longer than that, but it would be nice if I could get at least 5 hours of constant battery life with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on, as well as full screen brightness. Just the reassurance that it won’t run out of power in the middle of the workday will help it go a long way toward replacing pen and paper.
as a completely average computer user, not a designer or anything, my absolute number one requirement for this device for it to be usable as an e-reader. I currently read all my books on my ipod touch, but to have something like this, so reminiscent of a traditional book, would be a dream come true. The rest of my wish list includes an SD Card slot, all day battery life, and the ability to play avi files. I would watch so many movies on this thing. If they could get textbooks on this device, I could see it completely changing how kids do school.
Lots of of bloggers not too happy with the new iPad.There was too much hoopla regarding it and alot blogers got disapointed.Thing is, I can actually see great deal of the cool potential uses of this gadget. Third-party apps for doing tunes, games, newspapers and magazines and FFS books, all sorts of awesome stuff, but IMHO they failed to sell it very well (excluding the books). It feels kind of incomplete
this thing is just so awesome. i showed it to my mom, and now she’s just DYING to have one!
what i want is the ability to import and photoshop photos, with like a light-weight adobe lighroom or ps elements, and this thing would be dang awesome. i think i’m actually gonna hold off from buying a tablet until this thing comes out. iPad sucks.
this thing is serious stuff! what’s awesome too is taht you’ll be able to share stuff online with people on pc’s etc.
Hey, I came across this blog post while looking for help with Microsoft Silverlight. I’ve recently switched internet browser from Google Chrome to Microsoft IE 6. After the change I seem to have a issue with loading sites that have Microsoft Silverlight. Every time I go on a site that needs Microsoft Silverlight, my computer crashes and I get a “npctrl.dll” error. I can’t seem to find out how to fix it. Any aid getting Microsoft Silverlight to function is greatly appreciated! Thanks
IE 6 is your whole problem. get rid of IE 6 and upgrade to IE 8. IE 6 is SOOOOO outdated!