Microsoft Codex — Forerunner of the Courier?
The Microsoft Courier is all over the news today, no doubt due to the two screens and special interface. Our readers quickly pointed out that they had seen a prototype of this before, and from Microsoft Research at that. It turns out they are correct, as Microsoft posted on one of their blogs late last year about the Codex. The Codex is a two screened device cobbled together out of two OQOs, those little 5-inch tablets.
The interface shown on the Codex is a hybrid implementation of a Microsoft tool made for Tablet PCs, InkSeine. The photos of the Codex show this graphical interface that is designed to be used much like the video of the Courier demonstrates. Write anywhere in ink and drag objects around. It is interesting to see where the Courier may have gotten its roots.
(images from Microsoft)
Baloney. MS is imitating the French:
http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/english-subtitled-editis-smart-digital-book-video/
I think this is similar to the Nintendo DS (aka Dual Screen). They might be taking aim at the highly lucrative Gaming Market.
Or they could be leaking these sneak peaks to steal some thunder from Apple’s upcoming iPad. Who knows but MS does have a long track record of putting out FUD.
“Baloney. MS is imitating the French.”
Mike, the simple concept of a two-screen, book format device has been around for a long time. That one company or another shows off such a thing as a concept … well, you could call it imitation the way you could call the concept of using round wheels imitation.
The devil is in the details of the implementation. When/if Microsoft and/or anyone else release working, consumer available instances of this product, *then* maybe we can fling around accusations of imitators.
if it’s as thin as it looks, the battery life will be abysmal.
I’d almost guarantee that to keep costs down and for the battery life reason that they’d use ARM CPUs and an embedded version of Windows for a device like this.
But if they get a version of OneNote (I need the organizational features in OneNote, InkSeine or a derivative don’t cut it for me), a PDF Revu / PDF Annotator type app, plus a good eBook reader with notation capabilities (preferably for the open epub format) then I don’t think a custom software build would bother me. Maybe throw in a version of Ink Crosswords and Ink Sudoku for good measure, and some sort of ArtRage-like drawing program would be just an added bonus for my use.
My biggest concern however isn’t the programs on it, but the interface. While it looks very nice the way that they switch through programs in the video, I think in actual use navigation seems like it’d be pretty clunky.
I’ve got high hopes they can pull this off though.