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What is Microsoft's Origami Project?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the friday-fan-fiction dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Rumors are running around the web about a new Microsoft gadget codenamed Origami that will be unveiled on March 2nd. Speculation can be found on Designtastesgood, Scobleizer, and Thatedeguy, and WindowsForDevices has a description and photos of a prototype Origami device built by National Semiconductor 2001. Anybody out there know more about this new device?"

3 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Copy of comment from digg.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "The Origami device is approximately 7 ½ inches x 3 1/2 inches x 1 1/2 inches thick and uses:
      Extensive multimedia features in Windows XP Embedded to support its customized video record and snapshot application and to provide video-conferencing capabilities
      Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 to provide the latest Web browsing capabilities including playback support for Flash and Shockwave files
      Outlook® Express for e-mail "

    "At first glance, the device looks like a small camera and camcorder until you open it to reveal a brilliant 4-inch, 640 x 480 display that looks more like a terminal. "That's why we call the device Origami; it changes shape depending on what function you're using," Matson notes. "You twist it one way to use it as a personal access device, another way to write an e-mail, and other way to use it as a camera." A patent-pending hinge on the unit allows users to bend the device into different shapes."

    http://members.microsoft.com/CustomerEvidence/Comm on/FileOpen.aspx?FileName=8998_National_Semiconduc tor_Conceptual_P.doc

  2. Cancel Each Other Out by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 3, Interesting
    An Anonymous Reader submits a story to Slashdot in order to hype a previously under-reported Microsoft project.

    Slashdot readers slashdot the site rendering it unreachable by the masses at large.

    Net result, one effect cancels out the other.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  3. Origami "Commercial" by starving4clarity · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This past semester I interned with a motion graphics / live action production house DigitalKitchen (title sequences for Six Feet Under, Rescue Me, Nip / Tuck, Ghost Whisperer, etc). They've done a lot of "commercial" work for Microsoft, including one on the "Origami" project. You can watch the spot at Digital Kitchen's website. Navigation is a pain, but click on the logo >> Enter >> Work >> Brandtheatre and it's the top video. Enjoy.