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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?"
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
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.
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.
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
1) Take customer's money.
2) Fold it in half.
3) Stick it in Bill Gate's wallet.
4) Origami!
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.