I love new innovative designs, and last year I was really excited about a new device from Microsoft named Courier. The wonderful thing about the Courier was that it was like a book and that the interface and design was 'out of the box'. In my opinion the design was excellent for students, it had two screens which gave it a book feel (and when carrying it around in your bag the screens are protected). You had your daily planner with you which you could connect to e-mail clients, there was the option to write and type on it. The possibilities seemed endless. Unfortunately Microsoft did not further developed this concept.
And then there was the iPad, which quite frankly completely changed the way people thought about tablet and notebooks. But still many people were left unsatisfied because of the limitations this device has. (You can read this in my other blog Link)
Lately every electronic manufacturer is producing a competitor for the iPad. However many months later someone has picked up the idea of Microsoft's Ccourier and it's called KNO (pronounced as know). It is a Linux based tablet computer with two 14" screens which can also be used as a netbook. It has Flash support and a Wifi, it's not sure if it offers 3G.
From my point of view it is an excellent design for the target group, which are students. It weighs 5.5 pounds and offers 6 to 8 hours of battery life furthermore it runs on a Tegra 2 chip with 16GB of storage.
It also shows that they have listened to Bill Gates as he said:
"We think that work with the pen that Microsoft pioneered will become a mainstream for students. It can give you a device that you can not only read, but also create documents at the same time."
So the device not only supports touch and hand gestures but also a stylus pen (which is included)
The only minor flaws (at the moment) is that it does not have hinges, instead it has a seatbelt fabric to hold the screens together. And I would like to see they would integrate a wireless charging function. So when you get back from school, you just simply place your KNO on the docking plate to charge it.
Oh and one minor detail, it costs a little under $1000 dollars. Which is strange because the target group are students and everybody knows that their budget is limited.
Below I posted a video which gives a good idea of this concept.
Below the original idea from Microsoft.
Link to original message:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/02/kno-dual-screen-tablet-appears-at-d8-we-go-hands-on/
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/04/bill-gates-microsoft-pursuing-a-lot-of-tablet-projects-pen-b/
