Digital Home Thoughts: Engadget Has the Scoop on Microsoft Courier

"We've been dying to know more about Microsoft's Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source. We're told Courier will function as a "digital journal," and it's designed to be seriously portable: it's under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn't much bigger than a 5x7 photo when closed."

Courier is shaping up to be a really interesting product - I was initially pretty hesitant about how real it was when I saw the first leaks, but this is looking pretty legitimate. Engadget says that it will run on Tegra 2, and use the same OS as the Zune HD and Windows phone 7...meaning Windows CE 6 at the base, and a custom UI on top. I think that's fantastic, because Windows 7, as much as I like it, simply isn't made for a great tablet-type experience. Courier on the other hand, seems built to function radically different than any other computing device we've seen - the dual screens and the ability to flick items between the screens is like geek sci-fi. If Courier turns out to be real, it will blow the iPad away in terms of sheer functionality in my opinion. There's so much we don't know yet, but I'm fascinated by what we're seeing - and to lend an air of credibility to this whole thing, one of the videos says it was created at Pioneer Studios...that's the same group at Microsoft that created the Zune HD and Windows phone 7. Interesting, no?