Microsoft Courier tablet prototype reminds us of Codex

The tablet arena seems to be getting about just as much hype as the netbook market was getting when the first ones were being showed off. This time though, Microsoft is interested in a bit more than just the software side of things. Gizmodo got its hands on Courier, quickly called it "Microsoft's astonishing take on the tablet," and noted that the interfaced was "unlike anything we've seen before." Don't get too excited just yet. First we must remember that this is in the late prototype stage of development, but that still means prototype, no matter how you slice it. Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies, but at any time the device can still be axed.

Secondly, the device is in fact a booklet, not a tablet: it has two 7-inch screens that are both designed to be used with a stylus as well as hands. Think of it like a DS on its side, except both screens can be touched—multitouched in fact. The hinge that connects the two screens has a single home button and can be used to hold items you want move from one page to another. Various status icons, like wireless signal and battery life, are shown along the rim of one of the screens. There's also a 3MP VGA 4x zoom camera with flash on the back cover. Check out the video, branded by Microsoft's Pioneer Studios, for a closer look:

As we noted earlier this week when the Microsoft tablet rumors came back in full force, Chief Experience Officer J Allard is leading the Alchemy Ventures group that includes at least one exec from Microsoft Surface. We must remember that the group of engineering experts has more than just the Courier prototype in the works.

Codex

Now that we've covered everything we know so far on Courier, let's talk about Codex, the Microsoft Research project we first heard about in October 2008. At the time, the dual screen device had a moleskine-style knitted elastic strap to hold it securely shut, a loop for the pen, and a mesh pocket so you wouldn't lose small items you wanted to bring with you. It weighed just over two pounds.

Codex used InkSeine, a prototype inking application also developed for Microsoft Research and released in February 2008 for Tablet PC and UMPC devices. We covered InkSeine's infrequent updates once or twice, including in March 2009 when Microsoft improved the software's support for Windows 7. It's not clear if Courier runs some form of InkSeine, but we'd be surprised if it didn't.

The similarities between Codex and Courier are too striking to ignore. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is a big fan of tablets, so it's really not a huge surprise that development has been going on for so long. We bet Gates would be quite happy if some form of a Microsoft tablet saw the light of day; would you share his enthusiasm?

Operating Systems and Servers News

Microsoft pulls buggy Vista SP1 update files

Responding to reports of endlessly rebooting PCs that flooded support newsgroups last week, Microsoft has said that it had pulled an update designed to prep Windows Vista for Service Pack 1.

Although the update - actually a pair of prerequisite files that modify Vista's install components - has been temporarily pulled from Windows Update, Microsoft has not yet produced a fix for users whose machines either won't boot or reboot constantly.

"Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes," said Nick White, a Vista program manager, in a post to the company's blog Tuesday afternoon.

White downplayed the problem. "So far, we've been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances. We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue."

According to White, Update 937287 was the cause of the problem. In a support document, Microsoft describes that update as one for Vista's installation software, "the component that handles the installation and the removal of software updates, language packs, optional Windows features and service packs." Along with a companion update pushed to users starting February 12, and another that was offered to machines running Vista Ultimate and Vista Business in January, the guilty update is required before Vista can be upgraded to Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Shortly after the two prerequisites hit Windows Update last week, users began reporting problems on Microsoft's support newsgroups. Most said that the update hung as the message "Configuring Updates Step 3 of 3 - 0% Complete" appeared on the screen. When users rebooted hoping to clear the error, their PCs went into an endless cycle of reboots. A smaller number of users said that their computers refused to boot normally.

Some users have been able to regain control by booting from a Vista install DVD and selecting the "Restore from a previous restore point" option.

It's uncertain whether Microsoft knows exactly why Update 937287 is hammering PCs. Even after White posted the company statement to the Vista blog, Darrell Gorter, a Microsoft employee, was asking users to send him system logs. "I still need more log files for the investigations that we are doing," Gorter said in a message on the support newsgroup. Late last week, Gorter made a similar request on the same message board.

Also unclear is the actual extent of the problem. Although White called the number "small," the traffic on the Vista SP1 newsgroup is heavy. One thread had been viewed more than 35,500 times by late Tuesday.

Microsoft surprises with open source move

Microsoft, for so long regarded by some as the bad boy of the computer industry, has surprised many with the announcement that it is to make far-reaching changes to its technology and increase the openness of its products.

In a major policy announcement, Redmond says it is planning on implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across its high-volume business products. These include “ensuring open connections; promoting data portability; enhancing support for industry standards; and fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.”

"These steps represent an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "...but today's announcement represents a significant expansion toward even greater transparency. Our goal is to promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry by making our products more open and by sharing even more information about our technologies."

"Customers need all their vendors, including and especially Microsoft, to deliver software and services that are flexible enough such that any developer can use their open interfaces and data to effectively integrate applications or to compose entirely new solutions," said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. "By increasing the openness of our products, we will provide developers additional opportunity to innovate and deliver value for customers."

The interoperability principles and actions announced apply to most of Microsoft’s frontline products, including Vista (including the .NET Framework), as well as Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of all these products.

Microsoft says it will specifically ensure open connections to its high-volume products, by publishing on its website documentation for all application programming interfaces (APIs) and communications protocols. Developers do not need to take a license or pay a royalty or other fee to access this information.

"Starting today Microsoft will also openly publish on MSDN over 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server protocols that were previously available only under a trade secret license through the Microsoft Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP) and the Microsoft Communication Protocol Program (MCPP). Protocol documentation for additional products, such as Office 2007 and all of the other high-volume products covered by these principles, will be published in the upcoming months."

Microsoft said it would also indicate which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents and will license all of these patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates.

And Microsoft is also revealed that it is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. "These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license."

Redmond also said it would support industry standards and extensions, and will document for the development community how it supports such standards.

Office 2007 will be enhanced to provide greater flexibility of document formats. This includes "designing new APIs for the Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in Office 2007 to enable developers to plug in additional document formats and to enable users to set these formats as their default for saving documents."

Microsoft's full statement can be read