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By The Paperboy, 7:30 PM on Tue Sep 22 2009, 480,539 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

It feels like the whole world is holding its breath for the Apple tablet. But maybe we’ve all been dreaming about the wrong device. This is Courier, Microsoft’s astonishing take on the tablet.

Courier is a real device, and we’ve heard that it’s in the “late prototype” stage of development. It’s not a tablet, it’s a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They’re connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.

Until recently, it was a skunkworks project deep inside Microsoft, only known to the few engineers and executives working on it—Microsoft’s brightest, like Entertainment & Devices tech chief and user-experience wizard J. Allard, who’s spearheading the project. Currently, Courier appears to be at a stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies.

Microsoft has a history of collaborating with other firms, especially in the E&D division: Zune and Xbox have both gone through similar design processes. (And plans for the Microsoft Store leaked through a third-party agency were confirmed as genuine prototype layouts and concepts.) This video is branded Pioneer Studios, a Microsoft division within E&D that specializes in this kind of work, working with another agency that’s a long-time Microsoft collaborator on confidential projects.

The Courier user experience presented here is almost the exact opposite of what everyone expects the Apple tablet to be, a kung fu eagle claw to Apple’s tiger style. It’s complex: Two screens, a mashup of a pen-dominated interface with several types of multitouch finger gestures, and multiple graphically complex themes, modes and applications. (Our favorite UI bit? The hinge doubles as a “pocket” to hold items you want move from one page to another.) Microsoft’s tablet heritage is digital ink-oriented, and this interface, while unlike anything we’ve seen before, clearly draws from that, its work with the Surface touch computer and even the Zune HD.

Over the next couple days we’ll be diving much, much deeper into Courier, so stay tuned.

Microsoft Courier

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This looks amazing, congrats to Microsoft for having such a cool device.

Henin to debut new serve for Australian Open

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 12:59 PM ET

By RAF CASERT, AP Sports Writer

BRUSSELS (AP) — Just 16 months away from tennis was enough for Justine Henin.

She’ll return in January ahead of the Australian Open, complete with a new serve in her quest for a Wimbledon title. It’s the only Grand Slam she didn’t win in a 10-year career that produced nearly $20 million in earnings.

Henin’s goal is to achieve 70-percent success on her first serves. That improvement, along with her daunting whip backhand, will have opponents scrambling.

“We said that perhaps, one day, we will get there,” Henin said Wednesday at a news conference, a day after announcing her comeback. “I am not (tall), so technically it has to be perfect.”

At 5 feet, 6 inches, accuracy and consistency on her first serve had been a problem. With more than three months before her first competitive match, she has time to retool her serve.

“Justine is convinced we can reconstruct her serve,” coach Carlos Rodriguez said. “We have time.”

A powerful serve is especially essential to dominate on the grass of Wimbledon, and it will complement the rest of her solid game.

“The balance between things is what makes Justine what she is—power, explosiveness, endurance, coordination, intuitiveness,” Rodriguez said.

That balance also applies to her personal life. Henin said the yearlong break has given her more confidence to become a leader and provided a broader outlook on life after serving as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

On the comeback trail, Henin will clash again with fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters, who won the US Open this month just three tournaments into her comeback after more than two years away.

“It is a source of inspiration and motivation,” Henin said. “I have come to realize that I would not have been this strong if she had not been there at the time.”

Henin defeated Clijsters to win three of her first four Grand Slam titles in 2003-2004.

“Justine’s comeback is extremely good news for women’s tennis, but even better for Belgium in general,” Clijsters said in a statement.

Henin wants to play at least until the 2012 London Olympics. By then, she hopes to have won Wimbledon—the only Grand Slam title missing on her resume of four French Open titles, two US Opens and one Australian Open championship.

She won singles gold at the 2004 Athens Games.

Henin expects to play exhibition tournaments in Charleroi, Belgium, and Dubai to hone her skills ahead of a competitive return at the Australian Open.

Sydney tournament organizers are hoping Henin will play there before the season-opening Grand Slam. Her announced return to Melbourne Park was warmly greeted by Australian Open officials.

“Any time you can welcome a past champion on a comeback trail it’s an opportunity you would never want to miss,” tournament director Craig Tiley said. “We would love Justine to be a part of the Australian Open again.”

Really great to see her comeback, i just love seeing her one-handed backhands.

Way back on September 23, 1889, a businessman in Kyoto named Fusajiro Yamauchi started a company called “Nintendo Koppai” to manufacture a type of Japanese playing card, called hanafuda. In the six-score years since, while Nintendo still makes playing cards in Japan, the company has become slightly better-known for its line of electronics.

Nintendo’s first HQ from 1889

You owe it to yourself to read about the history of the Nintendo Company. Now valued at over US$85 billion, they’re easily one of the most recognized videogame companies in the world. But along the road to that destination, they tried some… interesting ideas, including instant rice and love hotels. Fortunately for kids and videogame geeks everywhere, Fusajiro Yamauchi’s grandson Hiroshi put the company on the path that led to its rise in the global electronic gaming market.

So take a moment today while playing your Wii or DSi after work, or during work, or instead of work, to remark that today marks 120 years since the founding of a company that has brought a great deal of fun to millions of people. They are also majority owners of the Seattle Mariners baseball team, about which you can make what you will.

(Logo trademark of Nintendo Co., Ltd., used under fair use. Photo via Flickr user gin_e under CC license.)

If you’re going to watch an astronomy video, make sure this is one of them.

(via scienceblog)