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)

Those of us who use a lot of gadgets are always faced with the dilemma of how to use them hands-free. Maybe we want to prop them up and watch a video, or some similar function. What we need is a cheap way to set the device in a stand that is also easy to use. The folks who produce the MovieWedge just let us know that they have what they think is the perfect solution.

The MovieWedge is basically a shaped bean bag that is designed to prop up small gadgets. It is sized for phones in particular, but it looks like it could be used for small UMPCs and the like, too. I don’t know if I would carry one of these around but at $9.95 I’m sure some folks would.

I’ve said before that I want to get rid of phone numbers. Seriously. I’d love for my contacts to just call me and not a number. But I’m not sure having people call me on the phone through Twitter is what I want. Regardless, this new demonstration service from JAJAH is pretty interesting. JAJAH wisely grabbed the @call Twitter identity, and it’s using it as a connector for its service.

Here’s how it works. You put two bits of information in a tweet, an @call followed by the Twitter ID of who you want to call. JAJAH rings your phone and then rings the phone of the person in your tweet. Neither party has any idea of what phone number they’re calling or speaking to. But the service requires both folks to be JAJAH users, so for the moment, the demonstration is pretty limited.

I was late to join the Netflix party, but once the company offered instant streaming support for my Xbox 360, I jumped on a subscription. My $8.99 a month gets me one DVD at a time and unlimited streaming. But with four movie-watchers under one roof, managing the Netflix queue becomes a chore. (Personally, I’d like to see all the kids’ movies moved to a separate service called KidFlix, but that’s just me.) We’re constantly running to a computer to check the queue, add new items, and move titles up to the top of the list. Since I’m carrying my Palm Pre with me everywhere these days, I was thrilled to find MyQ for Netflix in the homebrew application catalog today.

With MyQ, I can generally do everything I need to with my Netflix queue for both the DVDs and the instant streaming. I had to allow access for the application to view my Netflix account, but that was a quick and painless process. Once I did that, I was all set for easy queue management, title searches, and even movie ratings. There are short descriptions of each title, making it easy to see if it’s something we want to watch. One minor quirk — I see that some of the titles in my queue are listed in the Blu-ray format. We don’t have a Blu-ray player, and all of the titles we chose are DVD, so there’s a small disconnect there.

As an interesting aside: MyQ for Netflix comes from Nexapps, the folks who make the wildly popular Gmail notifier for Firefox. That HTML, CSS and Javascript stuff seems to be pretty useful after all, no?

Tooling around the house with a notebook these days still leaves something to be desired. It’s fine during the winter months, when I don’t mind the extra heat, but it can be a drag during a hot summer day. Logitech’s new Portable Lapdesk N315 might be of help. The $29.99 rectangular slab provides a flat work surface while protecting your privates from the tropical temps of a hot device. As if that weren’t enough, the Logitech N315 has a slide-out mouse pad if you’re opposed to trackpads.

These days I only use my lapdesk solution with a netbook and that’s more due to the size of the device. I’m finding that standard notebooks sit pretty well on my lap, but the smaller base of a netbook doesn’t. What’s the consensus out there: play it safe and smart with a lapdesk or go crazy with a computer right on your lap?

Are you using Google Voice with more than one phone, like I am? If so, you might find this tip to be very handy. Aside from that, I think it’s totally cool and I can’t wait to actually try it! To switch phones while on a Google Voice call, you simply hit the * button on the handset you’re using. Once you do that, Google Voice will ring the other phones on your account. You just answer that call on one of the other phones and your original conversation will seamlessly switch to that handset. In fact, your caller will be none the wiser that you switched devices.

This only works on incoming Google Voice calls at the moment, so don’t try it with an outgoing conversation. I just pinged someone to call me just so I can see how well it does, or doesn’t, work. I’m hoping it does work well because it would be useful if had Google Voice ringing the wrong phone or if that particular handset’s battery were running low.

We sure love our mobile gadgets, even those that never saw the light of day. It’s enough to get us pumped up to see the concepts that designers have come up with in the mobile gear space. Technologizer has rounded up 21 of the weirdest mobile gadgets from Google Patents and laid them out for our amazement. There’s the laptop with the integrated dot matrix printer and another with a detachable screen for putting it on a projector to make presentations. These never-produced gadgets are enough to bring tears to a geek’s eyes. OK, not really.

Image courtesy Technologizer

We’re always on the lookout for ways to harness alternate power sources, thanks to our friends at Earth2Tech. That’s why I’m excited by something that I haven’t seen before, and it looks pretty useful. It is a Bluetooth car kit that makes it easy to conduct hands-free phone calls in the automobile. The kit is self-contained with a speakerphone and LCD caller ID display.

What sets this kit apart from the crowd is the integrated solar charging ability. The kit can be charged via solar power, USB or with a conventional car charger. And your car is a hybrid, right? $48.

(via TRFJ)

Image Credit: Gizmodo

While I do carry a spare battery for my Palm Pre, I can’t do that with my iPhone 3GS. For $20 though, I might address that problem by picking up one of the Duracell Instant Chargers that earned rave reviews at Giz. Duracell actually has a line of three chargers that can power portable devices: the Instant, the Powerhouse and the Pocket Charger. Each stores energy during a charge cycle from an electrical outlet, or can be charged from your computer.

The Pocket Charger looks the most portable, but it’s also the most limited — it only stores 500mAh of power and works with Mini-USB devices. The $20 Instant and $50 Powerhouse both hold four times the energy and support USB devices as well as Mini-USB, so they’re usable with more gadgets. The larger Powerhouse can charge two devices at one time, but I can’t think of a solitary instance where I needed that function. I also don’t need the larger bulk, so the “nearly weightless” Instant model ought to do the trick.

There’s a number of iPhone-friendly charging cases and solutions out there — we put two in the ring together last year — but they’re generally specific to the iPhone. When I look for a mobile technology solution, I try to find the most generic solution that still fits my needs. That’s why I’ve always used a USB adapter for my 3G plans and that’s why I’ll take one of these Duracell chargers over a device-specific solution. Well, I’ll get one after they appear online — Amazon shows the device, but says they’ll notify me when it becomes available.

Image courtesy of Download Squad

I spent a few hours the past week installing Windows on different devices. I installed Windows 7 on several machines and Windows XP on others. What made these installs easier than others I have done in the past is having the Windows install disk on a USB stick. This is especially handy for netbooks or other notebooks that lack an optical drive. While the install from a USB stick is easy to do, creating the USB sticks in a bootable fashion took a bit of effort.

A free utility comes to the rescue and makes Windows install sets drop dead easy to make. WinToFlash builds USB sticks from Windows installs with just a few clicks. It is designed to make the USB disks easy to make and easy to use, and that is a wonderful thing. I wish I had WinToFlash when I built my install sticks. WinToFlash works with Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008, and Windows 7.

(via Download Squad)