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Microsoft Courier: A Booklet-Style Tablet
devoir
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Check this out: http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet
"Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre."
"Two screens, a mashup of a pen-dominated interface with several types of multitouch finger gestures, and multiple graphically complex themes, modes and applications. (Our favorite UI bit? The hinge doubles as a "pocket" to hold items you want move from one page to another.)"
I'd be so up for one of these. It looks like it could replace most of the mobile functionality of my work notebook/laptop, especially when I'm out and about and need to get project details. In fact the embedded video mirrors a lot of the functionality I would use out of such a device.
"Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre."
"Two screens, a mashup of a pen-dominated interface with several types of multitouch finger gestures, and multiple graphically complex themes, modes and applications. (Our favorite UI bit? The hinge doubles as a "pocket" to hold items you want move from one page to another.)"
I'd be so up for one of these. It looks like it could replace most of the mobile functionality of my work notebook/laptop, especially when I'm out and about and need to get project details. In fact the embedded video mirrors a lot of the functionality I would use out of such a device.
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man, I have been hankering for an XO-2, but I think this is what I really always wanted
This is all kinds of wonderful. I hope that they actually make it leather-bound (even if it's just some limited edition). And do my eyes deceive me? Could these be pie menus at long last?
I'm sure there will be after market slip covers. And yeah, those pie menus are great.
Frankly, IMO Onenote is the best thing to come out of Redmond this decade, and this looks like it's custom built to get the most out of it. The only thing it's missing is the ability to scan documents like the touchdesk surface
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
There's software now that can learn your handwriting. As long as you actually have a handwriting style that has distinctive, consistent elements, it should theoretically be able to be trained fairly swiftly.
ahahaha
Yeah, pretty much. There was little consistent about my cursive when I was in school, and since leaving it the only use I've had for it is signing my name. I type much faster than I write and I remember all too clearly how my wrist and hand hurt when teachers would make us write faster than most of us could keep up with. Now Microsoft brings out an otherwise awesome device that wants me to write again instead of type, and on a shiny surface where my writing at least has always gotten worse than it is on paper.
Not for me.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
Nonetheless, a mode where you can bring up a virtual keyboard to the foreground on the screen at any point and then banish it, would be wise. Also like mentioned above, being able to turn it sideways and use the bottom screen primarily as a keyboard. It pretty much has to be able to orient into landscape to accommodate watching full screen videos anyways. I imagine a lot of people would switch to a landscape orientation and leave it that way. People like widescreens.
IE8 open on the top screen and taking notes in One Note on the bottom works just as well and doesn't have the issue of switching settings for left and right handed users. Like my wife and I for example, we'd likely share the use of one of these and she's right-handed and I'm left. Going into the device settings would be tedious at best, so likely they'd have user profiles with your preferences defined. Still we usually share a user profile on all other devices and logging in and out just when handing the thing back and forth for a few minutes each because we're IMDB'ing some actor while watching a movie on the TV from our couch isn't optimizing our experience.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
I take all my meeting notes in cursive. :P
In which case if someone's handwriting isn't recognized and therefore worse than yours it's more a failure of the person than the software, isn't it? I mean all they have to do is TRY to write a little more legibly.
Most people who have horrible handwriting to the point that this software won't recognize it are only writing that way out of laziness. If you can't be bother to put in a modicum of effort then we'll just settle for this device not being FOR YOU.
I think $500 has to be the ceiling for launch price with expected drops within the year.
Really?
I would be SURPRISED if it were cheaper than 799.99. We are talking two decently sized LCDs, two WACOM-style tablet screens that include multitouch finger recognition, an impressive software suite, at least decent web browsing capabilities, and book sized.
500 bucks is unreasonably low for that much cheddar.
And Microsoft; don't be a dick. Let there be an easy way for this to play nice with us mac users out there.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I see this costing $800 and if it's all I hope for and doesn't fall flat I'd gladly pay that.
It's called boot-camp :P
That totally doesn't count.
I am speaking more along the lines of whatever file format it writes to be part of the docx/pptx/xlsx world they set up in 2007 and more than adequately offered up in 2008 for the mac.
Or even better, make it part of their cloud initiative, and have everything go to the Windows Live drive or Sharepoint or whatever else you have to plug in to.
And if it uses OneNote, then for the love of Abraham Lincoln give mac users a version of that app. Most popular college laptop, and no access to the best notetaking app out there. Fucking shame.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Speaking of which, IS it like a Wacom tablet, namely pressure sensitive, or is it just touch sensitive?
No matter what, if that comes out soon, and you KNOW MS would love to beat Apple to the tablet punch, I'll probably be first in line. That thing just looks like the Hitchhikers Guide. It may be nice if it came with a optional "Data plan" in that you pay X a month for cellular internet, so you're not tethered to a hotspot as well. In any case, that's some slick design MS, good show
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
Well, it uses a stylus AND a multitouch, and recognizes one from the other. Almost all tablet screens out there with that tech are wacom style.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Hey, unlike being gay, being a mac owner is a choice.
You made your bed, man.
And microsoft writes some great software for it, to boot.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I mean, the only thing that fits near what it might be useful for are very niche applications.
Don't get me wrong, I think it looks cool and all.. it just seems to me tablet pc's are a solution that's looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Onenote. Seriously, it's that good.
But again, it's still a niche application. And something like onenote isn't something that's exclusively tablet pc only.
I can see people using say iphone sized portable computing devices because they're very mobile, something that can fit in a pocket just like a small notepad. But something like a tablet pc requires essentially something like a laptop case and if you have to carry it in a laptop case/bag then why not simply use a laptop? (plus they're likely cheaper)
I think this thing looks ridiculously nice, but I honestly think these things are solutions in search of a problem. Remember the big push MS had with tablet pc's a while back? You can thank bill gates for that, he had something of an erection for the bloody things. So, MS worked hard to push this stuff (like including support for them by default in vista etc) however the tablet manufacturers all but stopped making them. The reason is because nobody bought them except for very niche applications like as for portable patient notepads in hospitals.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
My God the possibilities are endless with all the different software features that MS has in it's eco system. Depending on what this does I'll get one of these instead of a new Laptop.
I love the netbook concept: a super-small and lightweight computer that I can just throw in my bag wherever I go and have something to do web surfing/word processing/etc on with more comfort than my tiny smartphone. This is just an extension of that: most netbook keyboards suck anyway, and these days everyone's orgasming over multitouch, so this swaps out a shitty keyboard for multitouch and adds in the benefit of a smaller footprint and/or a larger screen.
Doing it with a laptop is a pain in the ass, despite the high quality stuff we get. Something that's always on, is small and well designed like what this looks like will be ideal.
It's a business and productivity device more than anything, it's not going to have the mass appeal of the iphone. I think people are expecting a size 2 body to fill a size 6 pair of jeans by some of the comments/observations/opinions in this thread.
The only hinderance I've encountered on the ipod touch is web browsing due to it's size. The screen is small and it's hard to click on what you want without zooming way in or dragging the page all over the screen. Even so it's still leaps and bounds better then my experience on a typical smartphone like the blackberry.
The solution to this is make it a little bit bigger and it's suddenly a hundred times easier to navigate the web and more enjoyable to use. Right now almost everything on devices and gadgets involve the internet, and browsing the web is what most people love to do. Whether it's discussing technology on a forum for a webcomic or constantly updating your status on facebook or twittering about that crap you just took.
Most people love the multi-touch interface and instant feel of the iphone/touch, people are going crazy for e-readers, and people also love netbooks for being able to access the internet on the go without lugging a big laptop around or getting pissed off because your blackberry is too fucking small to navigate. The one thing that ties all three of those together is a multi-touch tablet that's small, thin and slick.
People got sick of carrying around too many gadgets. It's happened in the past and it's happening again. First it was a cell phone, pager, pda, laptop. Slowly the herd is culled, bye bye obsolete pager, bye bye pda my phone does that now. In this day we have the netbook, kindle, cell phone, and possibly ipod (mp3 player). It was already been figured out that the cell phone and mp3 player can be merged, so now cell phones double for music players and ipods double as cell phones. They tried to throw the iternet in, but it just isn't the same.
I imagine Apple (and microsoft) would like everyone to have an iphone (zune) and their future tablet (courier) to cover for all your mobile gadgets. They will also allow you to sync them. I don't see us combining the two down to one gadget anytime soon as anything suitably small enough to be a phone and mp3 player is thus too small to watch movies/read books/ take notes/ and browse the iternet on comfortably, and vise versa.
there wasn't a coalescence there, one flat our replaced the other.