“Thus far Microsoft has declined to comment on the aim of the Origami project. Instead it has used its http://www.origamiproject.com Web site to tease curious viewers. The site, however, appears to tip the company’s hand slightly by proclaiming ‘Origami Project: the Mobile PC running Windows XP’ inside the HTML source code of one page,” Mary Jo Foley and John G. Spooner report for PC Magazine. “The new devices will be smaller than the smallest of the slate or convertible-style Tablet PCs that are available today. But they will be bigger than PocketPCs and smart phones and are unlikely to ship with keyboards. They are instead being designed with touch and a stylus as the preferred input mechanisms, sources familiar with the matter said.”
“Despite the fact that many others have failed at attempting to create small computers that run full versions of Windows, Microsoft appears to believe it can win thanks to improvements in processors and screens as well as its own internal efforts,” Foley and Spooner report.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yawn. Oh, sorry, are we supposed to be excited about a Windows-based Apple Newton clone from Microsoft “partners” and some teaser website prominently featuring a look that’s strikingly reminiscent of the default Mac OS X Desktop background? Aren’t there enough portable BSOD’s already?
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Related article:
Microsoft acknowledges handheld PC-like portable ‘Origami’ device – February 28, 2006
Yes, but will it run Longhorn?
I want one so that I cxan be frustrated on the go.
I predict within a month someone get OS X running on it.
Oh goodie. Microsoft developing a crappy hardware platform to go with their crappy OS. Does anyone honestly believe they can pull this off? Based on their track record, it does not seem possible.
Advertising Slogan: “Origami, 50,000 viruses to go…”
Advertising Slogan: “Origami, 50,000 viruses in your pocket”
That ‘teaser’ site is shite.
Hey it rhymes! I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it
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And this coming from the site whose readers spit venom at those who criticize the new Apple speaker-thing without hearing it. Really.
Virus-a-go-go
I do like the idea, frankly, but I bet its implementation is premature. M$ has yet to demonstrate new technology that works without a hitch. In the long run, this may take off, but even then, it’s only following the smaller is better paradigm.
What will the next really revolutionary thing be? My bet is it’s probably not this.
At least Microsoft is still innovating. What has Apple given us except a bunch of new malware packages and an over-priced stereo? It is sad that Apple is nothing more than an expensive intel box running a proprietary operating system that has no software written for it. What good is a computer if there are no programs to run on it?
There are vertical market applications in Windows that have never been dreamt of in OSX. There isn’t a company on the planet that would purchase super inflation priced computers that run no software to those of fast, efficient, and safe Windows XP.
at least they picked a good name for the product.. got to give them that. I guess they learned something after the uninspired response to the vista naming scheme.
You know I might be intrigued, IF PRODUCT WE SHIPPING AT CEBIT NEXT WEEK, and not just “prototypes will be shown.” Clearly M$ has learned all the wrong lessons from Apple.
Mac Realist, are you related to “MacDude”?
Folks…that ain’t no prototype in that article. That is a graphic generated in a software package like Solidworks or Wildfire. This is amazing M$ now has vapor prototypes.
This Origami thing could possibly make the Apple iPod Leather Case announcement interesting!
The PC world bafffles me at times. Apple does too, but overall what the PC worlds considers innovation is at minimum a year old.
“the art of vapor-folding”
As seen in Ghost Laundry Monthly.
Tablet PCs bombed.
Now they will be smaller and more cramped! BUT not small enough to be easily portable!
How can MS lose?
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I am a Mac user and in fact i have two in my room, I love them to death. But the concept of a nice small tablet, whoever the manufacture, i am uber stoked about. I just wish taht apple came with one first…
that so reminds me of the “where’s Newton” ad campaign by apple from about a decade ago.
too funny to laugh.
Mac Realist: At least Microsoft is still innovating.
Wow. The biggest trollbomb I’d seen dropped in a while. This is more likely another attempt to APPEAR innovative by making an announcement /creating a website without an actual product. Hasn’t anyone noticed that with all the announcements they’ve made (the music store with MTV, MS live, Vista, etc), they seem to be a little thin on product? You’ve got the Xbox, sure, but beyond that I can’t really see MS as innovative in computing right now. They most likely saw some patent announcements (look for the news on this site) that detail a whole new way to interface with data and media and reacted to it.
It’s called spin control.
Loru
apple thought of the concept over a decade ago.
It was called the Knowledge Navigator, but was grossly ahead of its time and more a fantasy conception than anything else.
But more realistically Apple developed the NEWTON, which was basically the first ever PDA. Needless to say, it failed. (see my above post)
I hope that MS bets the farm on this new “innovation”. It would be a direct reflection of their forward thinking. So forward in fact maybe it could lift the image of a bad operating system. You know also if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t have to worry about bumping their ass when they jumped.
I am NOT “Mac Realist”!!!
I am my own F-CKING TOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am . . .
an original.
The teaser site presents what appears to be the symbol for mind-mapping software, which has been in development by several companies for 3 years or so, and a few products have already been made available.
The mind-mapping (or concept-mapping) framework would make an awesome file organizer if it were part of an OS, if only someone would just do it. Is that what Microsuck is up to??
In essence, a mind map visually connects things or ideas (represented by labels, sometimes within big shapes like dots) with each other through relationships represented by lines. When you click on something it becomes the new focus of the diagram and everything slides over to show you all the connections of that thing.
One use of the technology, albeit a very limited one, can be seen at visualthesaurus.com.
I heard from Bill Gates himself, Origami is so innovative, so far sighted, so sophisticated, so amazing, so advanced, and so technical that it will only run Longhorn, not puny Vista version #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, or #6.
So there!