Microsoft plans to release a dual-screen tablet device that folds up and includes built-in handwriting recognition, the Engadget website claims. Under an inch thick and with a footprint approximately 5 x 7 inches, the "Courier" will feature a Windows CE-based OS running on an Nvidia Tegra SoC (system on chip), author Nilay Patel adds.

Citing an "extremely trusted source," Patel says the dual-screen tablet, offering digital journal and e-reader functionality, will launch during the second half of this year. (Assuming the leak is genuine and comes from within Microsoft, it may be an attempt to steal some attention from Apple's iPad tablet, for which an Apr. 3 on-sale date was announced today.)

Engadget claims the Courier will have a pen-based interface centered around drawing and writing, complete with handwriting recognition. A related website will allow access to everything entered into the device in a blog-like format, adds Patel.

Microsoft's Courier
Source: Engadget

As a gallery of official-looking user interface images hosted by Engadget suggests, the Courier will apparently also offer web browsing (above), though no word was provided regarding connectivity options. According to Patel, there will also be a built-in camera and a headphone jack for media playback.

It's said the Courier will have a user interface resembling that of Microsoft's existing Zune HD (left) and upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. The story adds that like the Zune HD, the device will employ Windows CE 6.0 under the skin and use an Nvidia Tegra processor -- perhaps the recently announced Tegra 250.

In a separate posting, Patel again cites an "extremely reliable source" as stating that Verizon will launch two featurephones based on a Microsoft software platform on Apr. 20. Said to be the fruit of Microsoft's acquisition of Danger, and the long-rumored project Pink, the Sharp-made phones are code-named "Pure" (right) and "Turtle," according to Engadget. However, there's no word on whether they, too, are based on a Windows CE core.

Windows Phone 7: Not backward-compatible

In a related development, Microsoft has reconfirmed that Windows Phone 7 devices -- expected to be launched by the end of this year -- will not run applications written for Windows Mobile.

Charlie Kindel, a partner group program manager for Windows Phone, writes, "To enable the fantastic user experiences you’ve seen in the Windows Phone 7 Series demos so far we've had to break from the past. To deliver what developers expect in the developer platform we’ve had to change how phone apps were written. One result of this is previous Windows mobile applications will not run on Windows Phone 7 Series."

Adding that full details will be provided at Microsoft's MIX10 development conference later this month, Kindel added, "The expertise and familiarity with our tools is not lost. If you are a .NET developer today your skills and much of your code will move forward. If you are a Silverlight or XNA [link, here] developer today you're gonna be really happy. New developers to the platform will find a cohesive, well designed API set with super productive tools."

Kindel further promises that Microsoft "will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come, so it’s not as though one line ends as soon as the other begins."

Further information

To read Nilay Patel's Engadget postings about the Microsoft Courier, plus the Verizon Pure and Turtle phones, go here and here, respectively.

More information on the Pure and Turtle may be found in an eWEEK story, here.

To read Charlie Kindel's blog posting about Windows Phone 7 software development, including some negative feedback from developers, go here.

To get further information about the MIX10 conference, scheduled for Mar. 15 to 17 in Las Vegas, see Microsoft's website, here. For those who cannot attend in person, content from MIX10 will be webcast live, the company has promised.

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Discuss Microsoft dual-screen tablet coming later this year?   Billy Nguyen I don't know much about the MS Courier because lacking of facts... >>> Post your comment now!

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