Courier

D8 Tech Demo: Start-Up Takes on the Textbook With Kno Tablet

Drake Martinet in D8 on June 2, 2010 at 11:12 am PT

Our garages have no flying cars, our cities are still built on the ground and our robots just barely clean the floor. But today, the secretive start-up formerly known as Kakai hopes to answer one of technology’s future promises by replacing the dense poundage of textbooks weighing down backpacks everywhere with its new Kno tablet device.

Voices

Microsoft Plans New Shake-Up

Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on May 24, 2010 at 10:00 pm PT

Microsoft Corp. is expected to shake up the management of its division focused on videogames, mobile phones and other devices, in the wake of increasingly bruising competition from Apple Inc. and Google Inc. in the market for consumer devices, according to people familiar with the matter.

Voices

Microsoft Says 'Courier' Tablet Project Shelved for Now

Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 29, 2010 at 3:57 pm PT

Microsoft has shelved a development project working on plans for a two-screen, touch-sensing device that could be used to read electronic books and take notes. The project, code-named Courier, had captivated some technology enthusiasts because of its radical design, images of which leaked onto the Internet last year.

Microsoft: Want to Learn About Our Secret Tablet? Read Engadget.

Peter Kafka in Media on March 23, 2010 at 11:58 am PT

Want to get the latest news on “Courier,” Microsoft’s rumored-but-not-confirmed answer to Apple’s iPad? Microsoft doesn’t want to talk about it. But Redmond does have a suggestion for you: Read the gadget blogs.

CES: Steve Ballmer Keynote

John Paczkowski in News on January 6, 2010 at 6:00 pm PT

Steve Ballmer is delivering his annual state-of-Microsoft address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight–the second he’s given since taking over the duties of former CEO Bill Gates. If anything like last year’s, Ballmer’s address will offer a broad overview of Microsoft’s consumer strategy for the year, touching on everything from the company’s hardware-software ecosystem to its home entertainment offerings. Likely to figure prominently in tonight’s address: Windows 7 and the new touch-enabled PC form factors it has evidently inspired; Bing; and Natal, Microsoft’s controller-less game control system, which will launch in time for the 2010 holidays.

Microsoft's Ballmer Will Not Be Showing "Courier" Slate PC at CES Opening Tonight

Kara Swisher in News on January 6, 2010 at 10:55 am PT

As much as BoomTown likes a good computer tablet faceoff, sources with knowledge of the situation said that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will not be whipping out the secret slate PC called “Courier,” which the company has been noodling on, in his keynote speech opening the Consumer Electronics Show tonight. Last night, the New York Times reported, in a blog post titled “Microsoft and H.P. to Reveal Slate PC Ahead of Apple,” that the software giant’s boss would do so. Except he will not.

While Fanboys Breathlessly Await Steve Jobs's Apple iTab, They Should Probably Thank Bill Gates Too

Kara Swisher in News on October 5, 2009 at 8:10 am PT

Way back in the fall of 2001, BoomTown attended a keynote speech at the now-defunct Comdex show in Las Vegas, where Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates continued to bang the drum for one of his long-running obsessions: The tablet computer. It is an obsession he has never given up. So it is ironic that all the hype has suddenly and firmly coalesced around the particulars of the tablet that Apple has developed–a device being spearheaded by CEO Steve Jobs and likely to arrive in the coming months.