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We’re really not sure what the point is behind the steady stream of videos that show the Microsoft Courier in action — after all, they all clearly show computer animations of a concept rather than working prototype.
Don’t get us wrong — we’d love to see a dual-screen tablet device like this, but it’s almost impossible to imagine Microsoft shipping a finished product that worked in this way. Even so, the latest Courier news to appear does at least provide some greater definition for the Courier concept — and a supposed launch date.
We’ve known for several months that the Courier uses two 7” multi-touch screens in portrait mode that are hinged down the middle, but Engadget adds that the device is now 1” thick and weighs around 1lb. It’s also reckoned to run the Windows CE 6 core operating system (same as Windows Phone 7) and be based on the NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform, but this isn’t simply a tablet computer.
Although they don’t show much in the way of fresh information, the new images and videos do reinforce the idea of the Courier being a digital journal designed to keep track of your life rather than a general-purpose computer. The dual screens work in concert to organise your activities via calendar, note-taking and web-clipping applications, and the user interface shows no trace of Windows 7 — or Windows Phone 7, for that matter.
Microsoft Courier - How Microsoft Thinks You'll Use It (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFQWc79TYcU#normal)
Engadget reckons that “Q3/Q4” is being bandied about as the launch date for Courier, but we just can’t believe it — particularly since all the information so far seems to have come from a design agency and Microsoft has yet to acknowledge the existence of this project. File this one under “We’ll believe it when we see it”…