Posted 11/04/09 at 07:23:15 PM by Ryan Whitwam

A series of images have shown up online that purport to explain how the mysterious Microsoft Courier interface works. They consist of some professional looking diagrams and illustrations of the Courier device from the previously leaked videos.

The docs indicate that the unit will have multitouch gestures for actions like opening apps, and zooming. There’s a pen as well. It has two buttons, an eraser, and a twist mechanism to access different functions. Courier’s “home screen” is called the Smart Agenda. It displays email, weather, to-do lists, and any active items in the journal. Almost any content the device can access can be “clipped”, and stored in the journal.

There are also numerous references to “the cloud” in these images. They say that any part of your journal can be shared with the cloud. People can instantly comment on these portions via a web browser. Speaking of browsers, the courier has one, and it actually looks nice. Pages are organized like a stack of note cards to flip through.

While this may be vaporware, it is very attractive vaporware. Let’s hope it actually exists.

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Posted 10/27/09 at 05:13:02 PM by Jason Barry

Dell unveiled a new ruggedized convertible tablet called the Latitude XT2 XFR today. It measures in at 1.5 inches thick making it the thinnest rugged convertible laptop on the market.

It is a “work in the field” type laptop weighing 5.4 pounds using a 4-cell battery. It features a 12.1-inch LED backlit display with multi-touch and gesture controls, Core 2 Duo processor (SU9600), and can support up to 5GB of RAM. The Dell engineers weren’t just hoping this thing could handle a coffee spill or a three centimeter drop, it has been designed to meet MIL-810G standards and is expected to be certified soon.

What does that mean? Well, for one, it can operate in temperatures ranging from minus 10 up 140 degrees Fahrenheit. It also features a thermal management system designed to keep things cool but also eliminate dust and water from entering the device.

The new laptop starts at $3,599 and will be sold in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany.

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Posted 10/23/09 at 09:06:55 AM by Paul Lilly

Acer president Scott Lin says his company has big plans for the tablet PC market, and today the company put on display its new Aspire 1420P tablet  during a press event in China.

The sleek 11.6-inch tablet features a swiveling LED touchscreen with multitouch support, an Intel Celeron SU2300 processor (1.2GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz frontside bus),  2GB of DDR3 memory (expandable to 8GB), a 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/Draft-N, a multi-card reader, optional 3G support, and Windows 7.

According to the tablet's U.S. product page (yep, this one's headed for the States), the convertible display sports a built-in accelerometer that automatically rotates images so you can "use it as a photo frame, portable cinema, or the [as] the perfect presentation tool."

What the product page doesn't tell us is when the 1420P will be released and at what price

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Posted 09/29/09 at 09:47:41 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Another video of Microsoft’s Courier booklet made its way onto Gizmodo today, a week after the same site had leaked the first video of this exciting multi-touch device. The second video is meatier and more informative compared to the first one. Apparently, the device is centered on the “infinite journal,” which can be uploaded on the internet and freely shared with friends.

A journal, once it is published online, can be downloaded in three different formats - a Courier file, Powerpoint or PDF, making it possible for even non-Courier users to access it. The “infinite journal” can seamlessly shift between being an insipid digital notepad to an artist’s canvas. It also features a library that catalogues subscriptions, notebooks and apps.

Two videos of the device have now been leaked but there is not even a single frame grab of Courier’s media capabilities. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley claims to have learnt from one of her sources that the Courier is based on Windows 7, although it is not possible to install Windows 7 apps.  This is because Microsoft only wants it to run applications that are “tailored to a tablet form factor.”

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Posted 09/24/09 at 01:30:35 PM by Paul Lilly

Good news for anyone who's been eyeing up Wacom's Bamboo line. The tablet maker announced it has added multi-touch and gestures to its Bamboo devices, giving users another dimension beyond the traditional pressure sensitive pen, Wired.com reports.

Three new models were introduced, including the pen only, touch-only, and one that does both. Each one comes with 512 pressure levels in the pen tip, with the active area of the tablets measuring 5.8 x 3.6 inches. The multi-touch and gestures support means users can now navigate, click, double-click, right-click, scroll, select & drag, rotate, zoom, and perform other functions all with finger taps or finger movements.

Both the Touch and Pen models are priced at $70, while the Pen & Touch runs a cool C-note.

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Posted 09/24/09 at 08:22:31 AM by Paul Lilly

Viliv, the company responsible for the S5 handheld and S7 tablet, was on hand at IDF to show off its upcoming S10 "Blade" with a 10-inch swiveling touchscreen display.

Complimenting the display is Windows 7, although multi-touch support is disappointingly left out of the equation. What wasn't overlooked was a full QWERTY keyboard. The S10 will also ship with either a 1.33GHz or 2GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, choice between a 60GB hard drive or 32GB SSD, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, and at least two USB ports.

Viliv says users can expect 10 hours of battery life, or 7 hours of nothing but non-stop video. That alone might make up for the lack of multi-touch support.

The S10 is slated for release in November. No word yet on price.

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Posted 09/23/09 at 05:25:00 AM by Andy Salisbury

For some time now Apple has stolen all the thunder when it comes to the idea of a tablet – but it appears that we’ve been looking in the wrong place. In a very real announcement, Microsoft has revealed their Courier tablet concept, and it looks absolutely divine.

The Courier (which can be seen in conceptual video form here), is reportedly in the late stages of development and despite its appearance, is a tablet, not a booklet. The 7-inch screens will support multitouch, writing, flicking, and drawing with a stylus or your fingers. A hinge that houses an iPhone-style home button, which you can use to bookmark pages, connects them both. The back cover will sport a three megpixel camera, and the lights that display status (wireless signal, battery life, etc.) will line up on the bottom.

No word yet on pricing or availability, but there’ll be plenty of news to come in the next few days.

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Posted 09/17/09 at 09:08:30 AM by Paul Lilly

HP today unveiled a device called the DreamScreen, which the company describes as a companion to the PC. Sort of a hybrid between a full-blown computer and a digital photo frame, the DreamScreen's 10.2-inch (DreamScreen 100) or 13.3-inch (DreamScreen 130) display doesn't support multi-touch, but users can control the panels through touch-enabled controls around the screen's border.

The idea here is to give consumers quick and portable access to music streams (Pandora and HP SmartRadio), weather forecasts, Facebook updates, photo albums, and more. It also comes with 2GB of built-in memory for storing pictures, music, and even movies.

"Constant always-on access to friends, information, and entertainment is a common expectation today," said Satjiv S. Chahil, senior vice president, worldwide marekting, Personal Systems Group, HP. "With HP DreamScreen, social media, web services, and digital entertainment can be enjoyed in more areas of the home."

If this all sounds familiar, it's because Apple is rumored to be working on a similar device, which could possibly see the light of day this November. But HP has beaten Apple to the punch, and probably will have undercut Apple's price point, should Jobs and Co. release a handheld tablet.

HP says the DreamScreen is available now for $249 from online distributors, including BestBuy.com, Amazon.com, and HPDirect.com. The DreamScreen 130 is expected to be "broadly available" sometime this fall for $299.

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