Toper Turor

By Michael 
The Latest E-Reader News has the much hyped Microsoft’s much-hyped Courier tablet has been cancelled before it had even left the research lab.
We saw two prototypes of the Courier over the last year, the later device featured folding dual-screens that relied on stylus and handwriting recognition as its primary input. The “digital journal” took a very different approach to the Slate PC market.
The official announcement came today from Microsoft Corporate VP of Communications Frank Show, who said, “At any given time, we’re looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It’s in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity. The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.”
Today’s announcements comes on the heels of Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer informing the Microsoft Courier internal team that had been working on the tablet device that the project would no longer be supported. Courier had never been publicly announced or acknowledged as a Microsoft product.
There is a great sigh of disappointment in the Slate PC world, as many people had been turning to Microsoft as an alternative to the Apple iPad and various other Slate PCS announced within the last three months. Microsoft currently has no plans for a Slate PC device, and is looking at Netbooks and Laptops to market this year.
The Microsoft Courier was very innovative concept and the dual screen tablet journal looked to be a welcome alternative. It seems if you want a dual screen device you might want to take a look at the Entourage Edge.

http://goodereader.com/blog/tablet-slates/microsoft-courier-cancelled/

Are you excited? Microsoft Windows Midori (Windows 8) is the next generation OS.

According to Microsoft

There’s a seemingly related (related to Singularity) project under development at Microsoft which has been hush-hush. That project, codenamed ‘Midori,’ is a new Microsoft operating-system platform that supposedly supersedes Windows. Midori is in incubation, which means it is a little closer to market than most Microsoft Research projects, but not yet close enough to be available in any kind of early preview form.

What’s also interesting about Midori is who is running the project. One-time Gates heir-apparent Eric Rudder is heading up the effort. Midori is being incubated under Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie’s wing. ‘Everyone under him (under Rudder on Midori) is a multi-year vet, has a super fancy title, and is going back to their roots and writing code like they probably did in the old days,’ one Microsoft tipster told me.

When and how Microsoft will roll out Midori is still a mystery. But it sounds like the company thinks the project is serious enough to dedicate a considerable amount of time/people/resources to it.

So that’s it. We are waiting.

http://www.windowsmidori.net/microsoft-windows-midori-introduced/