

Courier - Microsoft's Secret Tablet? - Readmore
http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet?skyline=true&s=x

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dreyfiz
I'll believe it when I can walk into a store and buy one.

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Readmore
I would love to have one, but Microsoft 'concept' videos have a tendency to
outstrip their shipping products.

Here's hoping it works though, I would buy one for sure.

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rbanffy
As a nice example, compare this (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9ifQvQCO7Y>)
to what shipped as Vista.

And with Courier they are not even pretending it's a real shippable product.

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jsz0
Looks like an interesting concept. I'm not too surprised to see it coming from
MS R&D. They are well funded and have some great ideas. The problem with a
company like Microsoft is actually getting those ideas into a real shipping
product unmolested. I hope Apple's rumored tablet is more or less the same
form factor and functionality.

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gcheong
Once Steve Jobs sees this it probably will be.

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joshu
The demo appears to use Google Maps, not Bing/Live Maps.

I disbelieve this is a Microsoft production.

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taitems
I think being a "booklet" is the only way Microsoft and Apple are going to
protect a tablet device from in-use damage such as scratches and being
dropped. But then again, look at the iPhone.

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netsp
Another way is keeping it theoretical and perfect.

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iamelgringo
Microsoft has a lot of the core concepts in the Courier video already built in
to One Note. It's a nice little app for doing research and saving and
annotating clippings, especially if you have a tablet.

I carried around a Windows tablet PC for a project at work for several months,
and it was actually a really nice workflow. I'd love to see what they added in
the Windows 7 tablet version.

The biggest problems were the weight of the machine (it was two years old) and
the battery life on it sucked. And, the handwriting recognition really sucked
when it came to user names and passwords. It was really hard to log in to a
thin client application that I had to use all the time using the tablet.

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personamb
It seems like there's a lot of different applications, finger commands, pen
commands, etc. If Microsoft can come with some kind of consistency across the
different use cases, this could actually be a worthy piece of hardware...

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shalmanese
My first exposure to this was at the UIST conference in 2007, I've seen it pop
up at a couple of other HCI conferences since then and I've always been
skeptical of this interaction paradigm ever since I first encountered it.

Every time I meet someone working on this project, I ask them several hard
questions which I've never managed to get satisfactory answers to:

* How is cross screen, pen interaction handled in a graceful & generalizable manner? How do you distinguish dragging to the edge of the first screen vs dragging onto the second * What is the persistence model between the two screens in independant mode? Do they share state or not? * Is this designed for specific, highly targeted applications or as a platform? If it's a platform, how do you intend to replicate the interaction paradigms of desktop apps such that they can either be trivially ported or completely rewritten?

My ultimate conclusion about this project has always been that it's been
optimized to get papers into HCI conferences and not towards practical use.

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Zoasterboy
From Wikipedia:

"In March 2004, during a consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota, internal
documents subpoenaed from Microsoft revealed that the company had violated
nondisclosure agreements seven years earlier in obtaining business plans from
Go Corporation, using them to develop and announce a competing product named
PenWindows, and convincing Intel to reduce its investment in Go. After Go was
purchased by AT&T and Go's tablet-based computing efforts were shelved,
PenWindows development was dropped.[21]"

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anigbrowl
Ken Hinckley's Blog

Handwriting recognition with Inkseine
[http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/ar...](http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/archive/2009/05/20/inkseine-
update-1-1-1714-0-now-available.aspx)

Codex, a DIY project...or is it?
[http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/ar...](http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/archive/2008/10/01/microsoft-
research-codex.aspx)

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sh1mmer
It looks pretty interesting, however only the actual device photos looked
real. The rest of the content (video/images) looked like very polished
prototype mockups.

How that translates into real product remains to be seen.

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mattmaroon
Hmm, on one hand it looks pretty awesome. On the other hand, it's going to
have to do a lot my Pre cannot for me to carry it around. It's got wow factor
but not sure about practicality.

Can't wait to see more.

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Zoasterboy
Even if this comes out, I see it as being a flop. It's too far fetched from
the traditional computer, only the upper echelon of computer users will take
the learning curve to use it.

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pmorici
The video demonstration had a very Apple feel to it and was devoid of the word
"Microsoft" I think they are learning.

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unalone
Damn straight. It seems like a bizarre OS, a little clunky, but it's also very
innovative. Now if only they've got quality hardware.

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rbanffy
Sure

The same company that can't consistently release a successful operating system
(unless you redefine success to fit Windows Visa performance) is capable not
only of delivering a revolutionary user interaction paradigm with its Surface
and of creating the ultimate videogame experience with Project Natal, but also
steal Apple's cake by launching a tablet before their arch-nemesis can even
announce theirs.

Or would it be simpler to explain Microsoft is just again using vaporware to
create confusion in markets it is not ready to enter with a product, but that
they feel are strategic to the maintenance of their monopolies?

On the other hand, if they are dedicating so much of their brainpower to
Surface, Natal and Courier, this could explain Vista and Windows 7.

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whughes
None of their demos are particularly outlandish. Surface has been duplicated n
times; Microsoft has had the best, most polished implementation, that's all.
If you look at the real Natal demos, they're certainly doable for a big
company like Microsoft. This tablet also isn't anything new; multi-touch PCs
have been around for a while.

I'm not even particularly impressed with their interface here. It doesn't have
the consistency of design that Apple's does, and it doesn't look particularly
intuitive. That doesn't mean that it's vaporware, however; in fact, it
probably means the opposite.

Anyway, Microsoft's operating systems are more successful than everyone else's
anyway. Windows 7 looks like it will be successful even relative to other
Windows releases, no matter what you think of it. The buzz is right, and
people are impressed.

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tvon
Wasn't Surface a duplicate of the Perspective Pixel work? I certainly remember
seeing YouTube videos before Surface was announced.

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die_sekte
Work on Surface started around 2001 (as far as I remember). Jeff Han presented
his work in 2006 at TED. So both were most likely developed in parallel.

