Slashdot Mirror
What is Microsoft's Origami Project?
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?"
It's a flash animation made by marketdroids.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Is it going to be like those future telling devices the girls used in 3rd grade? Pick 1, then 2, then 3, oops, looks like you're going be hit by a bus, try again.
"No one will really be free until nerd persecution ends."
I'm not sure, but the animation on the linked "Origami Project" site is scaring the shit out of me.
This is like "I Love Bees," only minus the whimsicial veneer.
You'd be better off to make paper swans with the greenbacks you would otherwise spend on it.
The real question is can you wipe you ass with it ?
Ode to the Origami
It does many things
but it is from Microsoft
it must not be good
Linux ported to this device in 5... 4... 3... 2...
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
With a name like that... The project is destined to fold...
-FL
But I bet there's a paper clip involved.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
didn't make it past legal.
I noticed that windowsfordevices.com (216.218.185.157) looks (as far as the website goes) almost identical to linuxdevices.com (216.218.185.154). The IP's make it look like they might be with the same server farm.
Just weird... The first thought I had looking at the site was that it looked almost exactly like the one for linuxdevices.com... Second, read the article there.. YAWN!!! More gadgetry that people will get excited about till the next latest and greatest thing arrives in a few months.
Look at this! (pulls out new phone) Yes!
Combination hookah and coffee maker
also makes Julienne fries.
Will not break (opens the phone gently),
will not--(it falls apart)
it broke.
Wait, don't go!
I can see that you're only interested in the exceptionally rare.
I think then, you would be most rewarded to consider...this.
(PEDDLER pulls the Cellon Int'l C8000/Philips CT9688 out from his sleeve.)
Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance.
Like so many things, it is not what is outside, but what is inside
that counts.
(modifications by me, the rest is part of the intro sequence from Walt Disney's Aladdin)
This smells of a MS astroturfing troll. Since whatever it is hasn't been released we can only waste time speculating. Maybe it's a desert topping or a floor wax. Maybe it's both. In any case, it's vapourware until it shows up. How about we all wait a week to see what is announced and then have a discussion about it?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Can you use it to make small paper swans?
The best part is that after you make them, they'll change their color to blue, and will never fly away.
FTFA:
"The Origami folds and pivots into a digital camera, video camcorder, smartphone, MP3 audio player, PDA, Internet access or Internet picture frame, email device or video conferencing terminal.
Origami utilizes Bluetooth wireless technology for network connectivity. PAN and LAN networks use a Bluetooth-equipped access point, while WAN uses a Bluetooth GSM or CDMA phone."
That's the Origami vaporware. Now, what's my SonyEricsson K750? Without folding or pivoting, it's a digital video/still camcorder, MP3 player, contacts/calendar/notes PDA, GPRS Internet, and picture frame. With Java applets, it's a "smartphone", and with applets and a Bluetooth keyboard it's an email device and maybe even "videoconferencing terminal". And it pivots images for preferred display orientation on user demand.
And it's over a year old. I'm sure there are phones with better email and "videoconferencing". What is this Microsoft astroturf?
--
make install -not war
Why is Bill Gates telling me to "Touch me" His heavy heartbeat amid the ambient backdrop is quite erotic.
Hmm, "Bill Gates" and "erotic" in the same sentence. Didn't see that coming!
OUCH! alright, who threw the damn apple?!? OUCH, fine i'm lea OUCH...
1) Take customer's money.
2) Fold it in half.
3) Stick it in Bill Gate's wallet.
4) Origami!
A fatal exception 0E has occured at 0137:BFFA21C9
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered origami community when slashdot confirmed that origami market share has dropped yet again, even before it was released to the genral public.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict origami's future. The hand writing is on the wall: origami faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for origami because origami is dying. Things are looking very bad for origami. As many of us are already aware, origami continues to lose market share. Blue screens flow like a river of blue flash animations.
In a final tribute to an idea overhyped before release, potential users could be seen taking their blue origami foldings and tossing them in a pile. And then lovingly burning them, as an idea that could have been useful. Except that it came from Microsoft, and knowing the past, they already knew the future.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
A little re-arrangement of words:
/.
Many things does it
but from Microsoft it is
be good must it not
Now instead of haiku (on topic within the context of Origami) you get mod points for sounding like an insightful 400 year old Jedi Knight here on
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
Take a look at this origami puppet.
The linked image shows it with a face, but when I grew up, you would write the numbers or letters on each face (like 1, 2, 3, and 4). You can put four fingers into it. Then you can open the "mouth" horizontally or vertically. You would tell someone to pick a number. Then you would count 1 (open horiz), 2, (open vert), 3 (open horiz), 4 (open vert). Once you open it, 4 more faces appear. Maybe they have 4 colors. The person picks a color. Then, you unfold whichever face has that color written on it. Then, a fortune is written on that fold.
There are lots of variations. I know it is still a common schoolyard thing for American pre-teens. The joke is only funny if you picture someone going through the motions as you read the post.
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."
You're right... it is a little disturbing.
So far, it's said "Touch me. Hello. Do you know me? Do you know what I can do? and where i can go? or how I can change your life?"
Sheesh.. Next it'll ask "What are you wearing?" and "What's your credit card #, baby"?
But knowing how that M$ almost always uses totally unimaginative descriptors as product names
Yeah, but Origami must be a code name since the real name will probably be something like "Microsoft Thing". What past names have they used? "Windows", "Office", "Media Player", "Explorer", mostly very generic.
It will probably be something like new version of Windows Media Player but with 2 important changes:
1. 3 more butt-ugly usability-challenged "skins"
2. Even less screen real estate available for content.
Or wait... "origami" means folding something up in a complicated way...
Yeah, that's it! It's a new kind of DRM that folds up your content into a confusing shape that you can't unfold (unencrypt) without tearing.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
That Haiku must be from Yoda's younger works.
Before he died, Master Yoda wrote a poem shorter in length, but similar in meaning:
Hmmm?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Okay, I went to that Origami Project website, and it loaded a Flash animation that floated the words 'Touch me' on a mod blue background. I immediately clicked back.
Does this technology need to gain fame through sexual undertones?
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
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.