The awesome dudes at Gizmodo picked up this story earlier this week, and boy is it a fascinating one.  What was a big secret for Microsoft has now been reveiled to the public–a MS-hardware and software designed booklet.

Gizmodo has the details:

Until recently, it was a skunkworks project deep inside Microsoft, only known to the few engineers and executives working on it.

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.

So, the MS Courier is in fact a real device, it packs two 7-inch multitouch displays and an integrated camera, and has a UI design that looks sleek, organized, and most importantly, simple.  For more on the UI, check out the video below for a quick tour of the Courier user interface, still in development.  One question: What’s with the stylus?  That’s so 1990s!

[Via Gizmodo]