Robert, what I love about Channel 9 is the personalities. Otto is genuinely excited about his new baby and it shows. It's contagious!
So, about EVDO...
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
John: I agree. I wish there were an EVDO solution.
I have a feeling that there will be a solution soon since all the Apple fans pushed back on my same point about the MacBook.
Jorgen Veisdal
· 3 years ago
And you're buying one despite the fact that you already have a tablet and a portable media center?:P
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Jorgen: Yes. I want this specifically for running a GPS in my car. I'll also use it for a coffee table computer. And I'll probably get one for Patrick to use at school since taking notes with a pen in school is a lot better than using a keyboard.
Banks
· 3 years ago
You can see it about 6:15 into the video, but it only stays on camera for a split-second: An Origami Man-Purse!
Jorgen: The reasons I see for buying something like this if you already have a PDA, a phone and a laptop or tablet:
1) Comfort - for the eyes and the arms. This thing will be easier to read than a PDA and easier to hold than a Tablet. 2) Most affordable portable XP computer. 3) Travel - if you need a real computer for travel, but you want to travel light, this is a nice solution.
John Tokash
· 3 years ago
I wonder what the power brick looks like... Any shots of that, Robert?
Jorgen Veisdal
· 3 years ago
Good standards!
I can sure see it as a GPS platform with that large screen and the interactivity a tablet gives you. Also, when you see what the local.live.com guys are doing with the streetlevel-features and all that, I'd never have a car without it! The only issue is connectivity, do some of them offer bluetooth so that I can use my WM5 device to get online?
Intercontinental
· 3 years ago
Why did they drop the Origami name for "Ultra-Mobile PC"? Origami sounds so much more cool.
Oh well...this is another naming blunder like Portable Media Center instead of Media2Go.
Microsoft codenames are better than product names :(
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Intercontinental: I totally agree. I make fun of our product names in almost every video I do. When you get down to it they blame it on the lawyers. Finding a name that you won't get sued over is a lot easier when you come up with something boring.
Banks
· 3 years ago
Another shot of the man purse at 31:27 into the video . . .
Podesta
· 3 years ago
"Why did they drop the Origami name for “Ultra-Mobile PC”? Origami sounds so much more cool."
Microsoft should not try to do 'cool.' It is embarrassing to watch when it does. 'Cool' is for Cupertino, not Redmond.
Jorgen Veisdal
· 3 years ago
That's true, I remember Scoble ranting the tablet team about switching names back in the video with Dustin Hubbard, "Demo of the Tablet PC Experience Pack", the one that's called "Meet the new Mobile PC Team (new Tablet PC features too!)" and various others..
Because windows OS is so vunerable to viruses as opposed to custom embedded system OS, and linux powered like the Nokia 770. Eventually these small low power devices will have to run AV. And if photoshop or another full windows app is not suitable, you have to wonder how the full force of antispyware and Norton are going to shave the cycles right off of this little cpu.
I know that if any of the other devices that play video, mp3, wireless, like the 333mhz psp ect... had to run AV to protect against Win Portable Executable .exe format, they would be leveled.
You have network capabity on this thing also, so have that to worry about as well.
met
· 3 years ago
I would be interested in the next iteration. Thought I'd let the world know :)
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
John: I've already sent your Origami Questions to Otto and team. Should have answers soon.
Jørgen Veisdal
· 3 years ago
When you think of it, there actually are alot of areas that the current PC field doesn't fill. Hanging this on the wall of your hall when you come in the door, connecting it to lights, your iTunes library, as a remote for you media center etc would be a great one!
Darren
· 3 years ago
This is great news, it's just a shame the network here at my College has been slow for the last 3 hours, a lot of pages including my Blog are so slow it's unbelievable which means there’s no blogging from me on this.
Julian
· 3 years ago
A lot of emphasis has been placed on the form factor, but what about the software? Will it do email as well as a Blackberry, will it play music as well as an iPod, will it work as phone (with a Bluetooth earpiece) over GSM and Wifi? Will it switch on instantly?
I can't help thinking it's just a half-size Tablet PC with a touch screen. The battery life is no better and the cost will be not much less. Who thinks the first ones will be $599 rather than $999?
warren
· 3 years ago
It looks like this has pretty firmly divided people into two camps, those that see the value in this form factor, and those that don't.
Personally, I have a notebook, I don't want a tablet PC the size of my notebook. But something smaller than a notebook, but bigger than a PDA, with a screen on which you can happily read email, RSS feeds, websites etc, that hits the spot.
Sure it won't fit in your pocket, but it's not much bigger than a book, so it's not much effort to carry around.
I agree with the "coffee table" PC idea... say i want to go crash on the couch and read something - if the device is bigger than a book, i'm just going to take a book instead.
Simon Brocklehurst
· 3 years ago
Robert, do you know what Microsoft's definition of success is for this platform? I mean - are you guys expecting lots of people to go out and buy these devices (if so, can you share the predictions for number of units to ship per quarter etc.)? Or do you believe that it will be devices further along the roadmap (cooler design, smaller physical size etc.) that people will buy in volume?
I have to confess myself disappointed with these devices. However, I do believe in the *idea* of devices with 7" screens - as Otto says in your Channel 9 inteview, that is a *great* size for consuming visual media on the move - video, e-Books (if you can flip the display into portrait mode), casual web-browing, casual gaming, map data, photos.
Stephanie Booth
· 3 years ago
Prepare for the dumb question: I run OSX, what kind of software am I supposed to use to view that video? When I click on the link, it opens VLC, and tha fails. If I "open location" with MediaPlayer OSX 2, it fails silently. I even tried RealPlayer (fat chance) and Quicktime!
The URL I'm trying to open: mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/msnse/0603/27129/origami_otto_berkes_2006_MBR.wmv
Can anybody help me?
Intercontinental
· 3 years ago
scobleizer : "When you get down to it they blame it on the lawyers. Finding a name that you won’t get sued over is a lot easier when you come up with something boring. "
I can totally understand, Robert. But, devices are a lifestyle "thing", and so coolness matters a lot. I sometimes feel Microsoft may be better off buying a name. Origami rolls off the tongue much easier than Ultra Mobile PC.
I was under the impression that Origami was going to be the product name because of the Origami website...oh well.
Podesta
· 3 years ago
Stephanie, I watched the video in Windows Media Player for the Mac on my PowerBook G4. (Do not install Flip4Mac, now recommended by Microsoft. It will cause crashes.)
Steve Paine
· 3 years ago
Robert.
You said you want to use this as an in-car GPS device? I see form factor problems. Only American cars have dashboards big enough for it!! ;-)
Regards Steve.
Samiuela Taufa
· 3 years ago
Love it!!!
I got off the PDA wagon when my trusty Apple Newton gave up the ghost. I bought the Compaq Aero and quickly went back to lugging my laptop around, purely because of the form factor. The form-factor was the key contributor, because I did buy all the software addons to make the Aero behave like the Newton, but you can't write a letter on the size of that PDA screen. PDA Screens are great for demos on HW Recognition but not practical as a replacement for a paper-notepad.
This form factor is definitely going to be great, and MS may just find that hooking people into the Tablet mindset may just be one of the side-effects of this project (e.g. buy an Origami and get a Tablet PC as your next PC)
Aaron
· 3 years ago
Yawn...
Sorry, this thing doesn't do much for me...the only interesting thing about the whole project seems to be that new [keyboard] wheel entry method. Well all is not a loss.
Give me a price... Give me some battery life.
Nokia's 770 kills this thing for size and price and battery life.
jeolmeun
· 3 years ago
Can you use these to transfer data via USB from and to a digital camera or mp3 player? If so, it would be like an external drive and you can empty your memory card to the UMPC.
Howard Greenstein
· 3 years ago
Robert:Haven't watched the whole video. Have the office teams made special "Origami UI" changes to reduce the menus? In 800 by whatever, I could see not being able to use many of the apps.
Howard
Donald
· 3 years ago
UMPC would be great to use at college but again the price is to rich for my budget. Please make it under $500. People would go madd for it if the price is right.
jaseone
· 3 years ago
People keep saying that the UMPC would be great for College but I don't see how, can someone please explain why they think it would be great for college? Are you really going to be able to take notes on it as quickly as you can with pen & paper? Personally I can type a LOT faster than I can write.
L Ron Cupboard
· 3 years ago
What's this about kids say carrying a laptop is too heavy in between classes? Are they also the kids who prefer Xbox 360 to Revolution because the Revolution controller will be "too tiring"?
What kinda pussies are we raising? My powerbook weighs less than a sandwich.
This is simple. For that kind of money one could get an iBook. What is the purpose of releasing this for $999 with a three hour battery life? Who will get any serious application out of a 3 hour battery life?
Man I swear your company couldn't launch a bottle rocket these days.
willF
· 3 years ago
Interesting feature pointed out at slashdot... It appears that the screen can shift in space off of the device:
Nice concept, the typically horrid Microsoft and OEM execution, with the usual dismal Microsoft '11 Agency-styled' Marketing to follow. I predict a similar Tablet trajectory path, only worse, as no Vertical story, as it's being tagged as a 'Lifestyle PC' of sorts. Just really a Tablet PC with a smaller form factor and touch instead of Active Digitizers.
Not at all worthy of the hype, and the first round early adopter set will be seriously sliced. But the ever beta-testing types, will flock, hoping for an entitlement-freebie MVP crown, creating the same narrow incestuous-styled Tablet PC community as before.
Bottom line: Just another limping along Tablet thing. It will dribble on as Vista platform thing, and not of the SPOT or PMC experimental sort, even in spite of the low adoption numbers, and half the OEMs will eventually drop out. General public won't know, nor care, it won't been seen on retail stages. Geeks and Richie Gadget freaks the only real target market, missing Vertical and Enterprise.
RR
· 3 years ago
And you can even run Photoshop on it!
Note - No spyglass included!
Christopher Coulter
· 3 years ago
You know it's doomed when even the ever Microsoft cheerleader (posing as an "analyst") Michael Gartenberg can only ever offer this as a vague analystese praise-up:
"Look at Origami the way you might look at a new platform, not the value of a particular machine today."
Analyst to English translation: They sure screwed this round up, but please wait for version three (heck this is Microsoft after all).
Brian Shapiro
· 3 years ago
Podesta,
I wouldn't think Microsoft would have had to worry about being embarassed trying to be cool with the name 'Origami'. It already caught on and people liked it.
Still, the largest problem with that, all other considerations aside, is that this is a device other vendors will be producing, so Microsoft couldn't give it such an individual brand such as 'Origami', they had to use something more generic like UMPC. (And the market would have to come up with a generic name for the type of device anyway, even if Microsoft produced it and called it the Origami)
However, I wonder why they're focusing on the fact that its ultra-mobile. The OQO is ultra-mobile but doesn't have the same practicality; the Origami devices are something different than just being ultra-mobile. It would make more sense to me calling it something similar to a mini-tablet. Maybe not that exactly, but something with the same type of connotations to it.
Jerome Paradis
· 3 years ago
It looks interesting, but I saw no mention of integrating a Media Center extender inside the device. That would be great.
Brian Sullivan
· 3 years ago
I really don't see what is exciting about this -- to me it looks like a smaller, slighly less expensive Tablet PC with a pitiful projected battery life.
Is there some aspect of it that I am not understanding? Is it really anything else than what I thought?
Goebbels
· 3 years ago
"I have a feeling that there will be a solution soon since all the Apple fans pushed back on my same point about the MacBook. "
But YOU pushed back that without an existing EVDO option, you couldn't buy it! More hypocrisy from Scoble.
James Stewart
· 3 years ago
Hi Robert,
I'm the developer of a task switching utility called TopDesk that I think would be very handy in the low-resolution Origami environment.
Would it be possible for me to talk to someone on the Origami team about the best way to adapt my app to work with Origami systems?
Nishi
· 3 years ago
The reason I see myself buying "Origami" in spite of owning an iPod, and a laptop.
Would have to be convenience -
Travel - A light way to travel.
Lastly, I want to see Apple's reaction now that we have so much information and screenshots on the Origami.
bjornlee
· 3 years ago
thats blatant advertising, another origami post again?
Brian Shapiro
· 3 years ago
the main disappointment to me is the battery life, and that will probably lead me not to buy one. other than that i think its a useful device. and i really don't think critics are 'getting' why people would want to buy it. i know many people, including myself, who would want something like this, who aren't just microsof-fans.
Mr. Sun
· 3 years ago
Halfway through the interview with Otto, it suddenly dawned on me that Origami is a Mac Mini Killer!
Origami is very much like a concept product by a designer who looked at Mac Mini and asked himself, "How can I improve on this?" When Mac Mini was first introduced, its form factor was the primary selling point -- finally, you can have a fully-functioning computer on your cluttered desk. But when people realized they still had to plug in a display and a keyboard, the eye-rolling started. The folks at MS saw the attacking points and worked on the remedies, and now we have Origami -- small enough, powerful enough, and no display and input-device problems. Not to mention that it is mobile, which Mac Mini isn't. Clever!
Fritz
· 3 years ago
I don't remember if we registered the name, but "Origami" was the name of a handheld PC created by National Semiconductor and announced at Comdex in 2001. It used the NatSemi Geode processor and had Bluetooth, camcorder, mp3 player, a little keyboard and other gizmos built in. It ran Windows XP Embedded and had applications like Windows Media, NetMeeting and IE. Since NatSemi worked closely with Microsoft on this project, the origin of this Origami project at Microsoft is pretty obvious.
We called it Origami because you could twist the components in your hand like a Rubiks Cube or Transformer robot. You twisted things around depending on the functionality and form factor you wanted. Twist one way and it's a camcorder. Twist it another way and -- presto whammo! -- it's a cell phone. Untwist everything around and you have the boring (but very functional) tablet PC introduced in this video. This was easily the coolest product that NatSemi had ever created, so naturally the company sold the division that created it to AMD a couple of years ago.
Martin
· 3 years ago
Off topic but - New Office12 visuals are now public!
Is Rob a sycophant? If you are a blog publisher, you might lose your reader's attention using words like this. I've developed a service for publishers and readers that allows a reader to use an online reference, such as a dictionary, and return directly to the post they were reading.
I'm surprised I still haven't seen a vid or screenshot of someone using Remote Desktop with the UMPC. The thing is a full Windows PC, so it should be capable, and it's an extremely useful feature that few people even know about (I use it almost any time I go out of town to hook into my home PC, and folks usually flip out when they see it)
Mike Drips
· 3 years ago
Considering the only other mobile device presently on the market with a form factor nearly the same as the Origami is the Etch-A-Sketch, I thought it would be helpful for potential Origami buyers to compare their feature sets:
Ergonomic control: Origami one wheel, Etch-A-Sketch seperate vertical and horizontal control wheels; Another tie depending on your perspective.
Winner: Etch-A-Sketch
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Mike: that's funny!
Now, can you run iTunes on your Etch-a-sketch?
Oh, and the Etch-a-sketch has evil DRM. After all, you can't share your sketches with anyone else! :-)
Mujibur
· 3 years ago
Trainwreck.
james
· 3 years ago
not only using it as a remote desktop, but I can see it as a home remote x-10 controller, securtiy cams etc.
Just like the $25000 home automation systems remotes.
jeolmeun
· 3 years ago
When will these start using e-paper?
anon
· 3 years ago
Battery life: too short to be useful (3 hours) Weight: too heavy to be truly portable (2lbs) Size: too big to fit in your pocket (7") Price: too expensive for Joe Public
hmmm...less powerful than my laptop...just about as functional as a Treo...*yawn*...why is Microsoft doing this again?
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Nick: I didn't realize a Treo can run Photoshop or iTunes. Got it.
Aunt Mid
· 3 years ago
Scoble, quit with the running Photoshop on it crap. Nobody will want to run Photoshop on this thing. Its too underpowered to run PS anyways.
Scott Mace
· 3 years ago
Visually, it reminds me of a Newton. But I'm not buying anything like this that has a hard disk inside...too fragile imho.
Patrick Dodds
· 3 years ago
Thanks for the video Robert - I like the look of the thing, though 3 hours battery life is a bit offputting. A ruggedised version might be good - slung around in the car / garden / (dinner)party / pub? There comes a point during a lot of social occasions nowadays when phones come out, photos are taken / exchanged and this could, if it were rugged enough, be a part of that "internet for the everyday" exchange. Re: pre-launch hype - you can't win, seems to me: keeping quiet and no excitement is generated, leaking info and the web effect kicks in. Stick with the latter would be my suggestion, FWIW.
Nick
· 3 years ago
Scobes, the careful reader will note that I said it had "just about" the same functionality as a Treo ;) Other than that, I can't imagine myself using Photoshop on this thing given it's specs and iTunes isn't enough to make me shell out the coin to buy it.
macbeach
· 3 years ago
As usual, I agree with Christopher Coulter on this. Typical Microsoft.
I wrote up a lengthy review of this concept (I'm in no hurry to actually try one until some retail store has the nerve to leave one unguarded next to the regular laptops):
In short: Battery life is still abysmal. I want something that will last months, not hours. I'd settle for a couple of days, but 2-3 hours is ridiculous.
Can it be dropped on a carpeted floor (or based on that ad showing a bike rider checking directions, on asphalt) without cracking wide open or at best, something inside coming loose?
How hard can you poke the display before something stops working? I always got Palm Pilots with covers so that when not in use they could go in a briefcase and have things land on top of them with no harm. I don't want something that both has important data on it and must be handled with kid gloves. This is the downfall of all such portable devices, unless you can con your employer to foot the bill for the original, and the several replacements you will need.
Color LCDs, without exception, do not work well in bright (as in sun) light. The good old reflective LCDs like our digital watches are made of reflect light, and use almost no power to boot, but of course we HAVE to have color now don't we? Which means that you have to either shade these things if you are going to read them outdoors or have them so bright that you have much reduced battery life. Take your pick.
Since I don't run a bicycle currier service, I'd rather have the longer battery life than the ultra bright display. Maybe one of these days they will come out with a device that allows you to get a few extra hours of batter life in exchange for turning your brightness down. Now that would be innovative wouldn't it?
For Microsoft, this thing sells additional Windows licenses, and sadly, that is still about as far as the MS business model goes. Samsung and other companies are taking the risk of unsold inventory here. One of these days maybe Microsoft will "bet the company" on some revolutionary new hardware, with razor thin margins, it will be a business that only the loss leading XBox has prepared them for. This device isn't that revolution though, for the company, or for consumers.
jah.aga@gmail.com
· 3 years ago
could you add audiofile & picture gallery on channel 9? it would be smaller.
Roger Sperberg
· 3 years ago
I have a Nokia 770 and I think most comments about UMPC's are missing the point. It's for all those things that the desktop and laptop and PDA do poorly. It's a second or a third computer.
You're not tethered to one location as you are with a desktop and, really, a laptop. It's instant-on. I surf for a few minutes here, a few minutes there, when I can't get upstairs to a computer. 800 pixels wide, so you don't have that awful PDA surfing experience.
I check email from all kinds of spots I didn't before (warming up the car, waiting for the kids).
I can control my desktop -- run any of my Windows apps there (yes, the Nokia 770 runs Linux; no problem) when I don't have some app/capability on the 770.
Read e-books whenever I have to wait (boiling water for tea; waiting for the train). Play music while I read. Watch video. Play games. (Let my kids play a game while THEY have to wait for me.)
Read in bed (770 weighs only 6 ounces).
Make notes -- in meetings, in the lunchroom -- without having to bring my heavy laptop.
Once I borrowed a Bluetooth phone and surfed all the way into NYC on the train. Then walked all the way down to work, still surfing.
Yeah, sure, I'm addicted to the web. Extending my web access is what I want. But I don't think I'm alone in this . . .
Ariel Morillo
· 3 years ago
"I want something that will last months, not hours. I’d settle for a couple of days, but 2-3 hours is ridiculous."
Are there any mobile, lightweight computing devices running full blown OSes like OS X or XP (not some lightweight Linux variation) that last 2 days of continuous use on a single battery charge?
Please give me some links cuz I would be very interested in getting one.
...
Oh! You mean there aren't any devices that do that? Funny that.
BTW, most of you are missing the point of "The Photoshop Argument". I'm sure Scoble knows running PS on this thing is impractical for production use. It the resolution is too low and the processing power is not adequate for professional-level work.
The reason for bringing it up is that if this device can run PS (which it can), then it can run just about any useful desktop application. This hints at the potential range of applications that you can run on this device effectively.
Podesta
· 3 years ago
Ariel, you undermine your own defense of Scoble's continuing misleading claim that Photo shop can be run on an Origami device. The truth of the matter is that it hasn't been proven that PS can be run. And, even if someone were able to establish that, no one would want to run Photoshop on an Origami device. Anyone who can afford one can also afford a desktop or a laptop. That is where he is going to run Photoshop. The devices will used as supplemental entities, if they don't prove to be DOA.
I raised a warning about a similar misleading claim on this thread yesterday. I said that Microsoft should have been more honest about the likely cost of Origami devices. Turns out that the Samsung device is even higher priced than the highest price point I had read about. It will sell for $1,190. More than twice the $500 figure one saw most often. Wiggle out of that, Scoble.
Nick
· 3 years ago
To sum up my feelings about Origami:
iPod > Origami PSP > Origami Nokia N90 > Origami Treo 700w > Origami Palms > Origami Apple II > Origami
This will be a flop.
Microsoft. lol
macbeach
· 3 years ago
"Are there any mobile, lightweight computing devices running full blown OSes like OS X or XP (not some lightweight Linux variation) that last 2 days of continuous use on a single battery charge?"
As far as I know, no. That doesn't make a reason to buy this one though does it? If you are obsessed about running photoshop on a pocket device (which this isn't) then by all means go out and get one. You did notice the LONG pause when the question was asked about Photoshop, no?
The Nokia 770 device has about the same 3-hour run time. That is with a slower processor and less memory, and no hard drive. Clue: it's the display folks, not the processor.
The question is not whether Microsoft and its partners have done a better job than Nokia has or Apple might, the question is, given today's technology, can such a device be well done at all. The answer is, without making significant compromises: NO.
Microsoft will gladly support any technology, be in pocket computers, cell phones or talking toasters that allow it to sell copies of Windows. they don't care whether the product makes sense or not, because they don't end up stuck with the unsold inventory. XBox would be profitable if Microsoft could convince some poor sucker like Sony to foot the bill for the hardware.
To paraphrase Steve Balmer: it's all about licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses.
Endless repetition of a theme seems to have a hypnotic effect on some people. Such people and their money are soon parted. By all means, go buy one of the things. Buy several. You'll need 'em.
After all the hype, the irony is that there is really nothing new here. Devices of this nature have been available in the past. We used the device linked to above at work for a couple yr back when Win98 was the 'in' desktop OS of the day......and Win2K was *just* coming to market.
Undoubtedly, a few improvements have been made, but the overall concept is nearly identical.
Podesta
· 3 years ago
And, really, why does Scoble keep praising his video about Origami on Channel I'm Not Going to Give It Publicity? The interview is much too long and boring. Scoble could have asked the same quasi-questions and got the same semi-answers in 10 or 15 minutes.
All Comments
So, about EVDO...
I have a feeling that there will be a solution soon since all the Apple fans pushed back on my same point about the MacBook.
These guys were right: http://thesatchelpages.com/frame-by-frame-analy...
1) Comfort - for the eyes and the arms. This thing will be easier to read than a PDA and easier to hold than a Tablet.
2) Most affordable portable XP computer.
3) Travel - if you need a real computer for travel, but you want to travel light, this is a nice solution.
I can sure see it as a GPS platform with that large screen and the interactivity a tablet gives you. Also, when you see what the local.live.com guys are doing with the streetlevel-features and all that, I'd never have a car without it! The only issue is connectivity, do some of them offer bluetooth so that I can use my WM5 device to get online?
Oh well...this is another naming blunder like Portable Media Center instead of Media2Go.
Microsoft codenames are better than product names :(
Microsoft should not try to do 'cool.' It is embarrassing to watch when it does. 'Cool' is for Cupertino, not Redmond.
Naming conventions are fun.
Really informative interview!
I know that if any of the other devices that play video, mp3, wireless, like the 333mhz psp ect... had to run AV to protect against Win Portable Executable .exe format, they would be leveled.
You have network capabity on this thing also, so have that to worry about as well.
I can't help thinking it's just a half-size Tablet PC with a touch screen. The battery life is no better and the cost will be not much less. Who thinks the first ones will be $599 rather than $999?
Personally, I have a notebook, I don't want a tablet PC the size of my notebook. But something smaller than a notebook, but bigger than a PDA, with a screen on which you can happily read email, RSS feeds, websites etc, that hits the spot.
Sure it won't fit in your pocket, but it's not much bigger than a book, so it's not much effort to carry around.
I agree with the "coffee table" PC idea... say i want to go crash on the couch and read something - if the device is bigger than a book, i'm just going to take a book instead.
I have to confess myself disappointed with these devices. However, I do believe in the *idea* of devices with 7" screens - as Otto says in your Channel 9 inteview, that is a *great* size for consuming visual media on the move - video, e-Books (if you can flip the display into portrait mode), casual web-browing, casual gaming, map data, photos.
The URL I'm trying to open: mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/msnse/0603/27129/origami_otto_berkes_2006_MBR.wmv
Can anybody help me?
I can totally understand, Robert. But, devices are a lifestyle "thing", and so coolness matters a lot. I sometimes feel Microsoft may be better off buying a name. Origami rolls off the tongue much easier than Ultra Mobile PC.
I was under the impression that Origami was going to be the product name because of the Origami website...oh well.
You said you want to use this as an in-car GPS device? I see form factor problems. Only American cars have dashboards big enough for it!! ;-)
Regards
Steve.
I got off the PDA wagon when my trusty Apple Newton gave up the ghost. I bought the Compaq Aero and quickly went back to lugging my laptop around, purely because of the form factor. The form-factor was the key contributor, because I did buy all the software addons to make the Aero behave like the Newton, but you can't write a letter on the size of that PDA screen. PDA Screens are great for demos on HW Recognition but not practical as a replacement for a paper-notepad.
This form factor is definitely going to be great, and MS may just find that hooking people into the Tablet mindset may just be one of the side-effects of this project (e.g. buy an Origami and get a Tablet PC as your next PC)
Sorry, this thing doesn't do much for me...the only interesting thing about the whole project seems to be that new [keyboard] wheel entry method. Well all is not a loss.
Give me a price...
Give me some battery life.
Nokia's 770 kills this thing for size and price and battery life.
Have the office teams made special "Origami UI" changes to reduce the menus?
In 800 by whatever, I could see not being able to use many of the apps.
Howard
What kinda pussies are we raising? My powerbook weighs less than a sandwich.
This is simple. For that kind of money one could get an iBook. What is the purpose of releasing this for $999 with a three hour battery life? Who will get any serious application out of a 3 hour battery life?
Man I swear your company couldn't launch a bottle rocket these days.
It appears that the screen can shift in space off of the device:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/howtobu...
;-)
Not at all worthy of the hype, and the first round early adopter set will be seriously sliced. But the ever beta-testing types, will flock, hoping for an entitlement-freebie MVP crown, creating the same narrow incestuous-styled Tablet PC community as before.
Bottom line: Just another limping along Tablet thing. It will dribble on as Vista platform thing, and not of the SPOT or PMC experimental sort, even in spite of the low adoption numbers, and half the OEMs will eventually drop out. General public won't know, nor care, it won't been seen on retail stages. Geeks and Richie Gadget freaks the only real target market, missing Vertical and Enterprise.
Note - No spyglass included!
"Look at Origami the way you might look at a new platform, not the value of a particular machine today."
Analyst to English translation: They sure screwed this round up, but please wait for version three (heck this is Microsoft after all).
I wouldn't think Microsoft would have had to worry about being embarassed trying to be cool with the name 'Origami'. It already caught on and people liked it.
Still, the largest problem with that, all other considerations aside, is that this is a device other vendors will be producing, so Microsoft couldn't give it such an individual brand such as 'Origami', they had to use something more generic like UMPC. (And the market would have to come up with a generic name for the type of device anyway, even if Microsoft produced it and called it the Origami)
However, I wonder why they're focusing on the fact that its ultra-mobile. The OQO is ultra-mobile but doesn't have the same practicality; the Origami devices are something different than just being ultra-mobile. It would make more sense to me calling it something similar to a mini-tablet. Maybe not that exactly, but something with the same type of connotations to it.
Is there some aspect of it that I am not understanding? Is it really anything else than what I thought?
But YOU pushed back that without an existing EVDO option, you couldn't buy it! More hypocrisy from Scoble.
I'm the developer of a task switching utility called TopDesk that I think would be very handy in the low-resolution Origami environment.
Would it be possible for me to talk to someone on the Origami team about the best way to adapt my app to work with Origami systems?
Would have to be convenience -
Travel - A light way to travel.
Lastly, I want to see Apple's reaction now that we have so much information and screenshots on the Origami.
Origami is very much like a concept product by a designer who looked at Mac Mini and asked himself, "How can I improve on this?" When Mac Mini was first introduced, its form factor was the primary selling point -- finally, you can have a fully-functioning computer on your cluttered desk. But when people realized they still had to plug in a display and a keyboard, the eye-rolling started. The folks at MS saw the attacking points and worked on the remedies, and now we have Origami -- small enough, powerful enough, and no display and input-device problems. Not to mention that it is mobile, which Mac Mini isn't. Clever!
We called it Origami because you could twist the components in your hand like a Rubiks Cube or Transformer robot. You twisted things around depending on the functionality and form factor you wanted. Twist one way and it's a camcorder. Twist it another way and -- presto whammo! -- it's a cell phone. Untwist everything around and you have the boring (but very functional) tablet PC introduced in this video. This was easily the coolest product that NatSemi had ever created, so naturally the company sold the division that created it to AMD a couple of years ago.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/uioverv...
Is Rob a sycophant? If you are a blog publisher, you might lose your reader's attention using words like this. I've developed a service for publishers and readers that allows a reader to use an online reference, such as a dictionary, and return directly to the post they were reading.
Try it by clicking the link below:
http://www.postref.com/postref/?url=http://scob...
Weight: Origami 2.5 lbs, Etch-A-Sketch 1 lb; Winner Etch-A-Sketch.
Able to use Microsoft software: Origami yes, Etch-A-Sketch no; This is a tie depending on your perspective.
Requires batteries: Origami yes, Etch-A-Sketch no: winner Etch-A-Sketch.
Cost: Origami $500+, Etch-A-Sketch $39; winner Etch-A-Sketch
Ergonomic control: Origami one wheel, Etch-A-Sketch seperate vertical and horizontal control wheels; Another tie depending on your perspective.
Winner: Etch-A-Sketch
Now, can you run iTunes on your Etch-a-sketch?
Oh, and the Etch-a-sketch has evil DRM. After all, you can't share your sketches with anyone else! :-)
Just like the $25000 home automation systems remotes.
Weight: too heavy to be truly portable (2lbs)
Size: too big to fit in your pocket (7")
Price: too expensive for Joe Public
http://anonymousprogrammer.blogspot.com/2006/03...
Re: pre-launch hype - you can't win, seems to me: keeping quiet and no excitement is generated, leaking info and the web effect kicks in. Stick with the latter would be my suggestion, FWIW.
Other than that, I can't imagine myself using Photoshop on this thing given it's specs and iTunes isn't enough to make me shell out the coin to buy it.
I wrote up a lengthy review of this concept (I'm in no hurry to actually try one until some retail store has the nerve to leave one unguarded next to the regular laptops):
http://macbeach.blogspot.com/2006/03/thick-as-b...
In short: Battery life is still abysmal. I want something that will last months, not hours. I'd settle for a couple of days, but 2-3 hours is ridiculous.
Can it be dropped on a carpeted floor (or based on that ad showing a bike rider checking directions, on asphalt) without cracking wide open or at best, something inside coming loose?
How hard can you poke the display before something stops working? I always got Palm Pilots with covers so that when not in use they could go in a briefcase and have things land on top of them with no harm. I don't want something that both has important data on it and must be handled with kid gloves. This is the downfall of all such portable devices, unless you can con your employer to foot the bill for the original, and the several replacements you will need.
Color LCDs, without exception, do not work well in bright (as in sun) light. The good old reflective LCDs like our digital watches are made of reflect light, and use almost no power to boot, but of course we HAVE to have color now don't we? Which means that you have to either shade these things if you are going to read them outdoors or have them so bright that you have much reduced battery life. Take your pick.
Since I don't run a bicycle currier service, I'd rather have the longer battery life than the ultra bright display. Maybe one of these days they will come out with a device that allows you to get a few extra hours of batter life in exchange for turning your brightness down. Now that would be innovative wouldn't it?
For Microsoft, this thing sells additional Windows licenses, and sadly, that is still about as far as the MS business model goes. Samsung and other companies are taking the risk of unsold inventory here. One of these days maybe Microsoft will "bet the company" on some revolutionary new hardware, with razor thin margins, it will be a business that only the loss leading XBox has prepared them for. This device isn't that revolution though, for the company, or for consumers.
You're not tethered to one location as you are with a desktop and, really, a laptop. It's instant-on. I surf for a few minutes here, a few minutes there, when I can't get upstairs to a computer. 800 pixels wide, so you don't have that awful PDA surfing experience.
I check email from all kinds of spots I didn't before (warming up the car, waiting for the kids).
I can control my desktop -- run any of my Windows apps there (yes, the Nokia 770 runs Linux; no problem) when I don't have some app/capability on the 770.
Read e-books whenever I have to wait (boiling water for tea; waiting for the train). Play music while I read. Watch video. Play games. (Let my kids play a game while THEY have to wait for me.)
Read in bed (770 weighs only 6 ounces).
Make notes -- in meetings, in the lunchroom -- without having to bring my heavy laptop.
Once I borrowed a Bluetooth phone and surfed all the way into NYC on the train. Then walked all the way down to work, still surfing.
Yeah, sure, I'm addicted to the web. Extending my web access is what I want. But I don't think I'm alone in this . . .
Are there any mobile, lightweight computing devices running full blown OSes like OS X or XP (not some lightweight Linux variation) that last 2 days of continuous use on a single battery charge?
Please give me some links cuz I would be very interested in getting one.
...
Oh! You mean there aren't any devices that do that? Funny that.
BTW, most of you are missing the point of "The Photoshop Argument". I'm sure Scoble knows running PS on this thing is impractical for production use. It the resolution is too low and the processing power is not adequate for professional-level work.
The reason for bringing it up is that if this device can run PS (which it can), then it can run just about any useful desktop application. This hints at the potential range of applications that you can run on this device effectively.
I raised a warning about a similar misleading claim on this thread yesterday. I said that Microsoft should have been more honest about the likely cost of Origami devices. Turns out that the Samsung device is even higher priced than the highest price point I had read about. It will sell for $1,190. More than twice the $500 figure one saw most often. Wiggle out of that, Scoble.
iPod > Origami
PSP > Origami
Nokia N90 > Origami
Treo 700w > Origami
Palms > Origami
Apple II > Origami
This will be a flop.
Microsoft. lol
As far as I know, no. That doesn't make a reason to buy this one though does it? If you are obsessed about running photoshop on a pocket device (which this isn't) then by all means go out and get one. You did notice the LONG pause when the question was asked about Photoshop, no?
The Nokia 770 device has about the same 3-hour run time. That is with a slower processor and less memory, and no hard drive. Clue: it's the display folks, not the processor.
The question is not whether Microsoft and its partners have done a better job than Nokia has or Apple might, the question is, given today's technology, can such a device be well done at all. The answer is, without making significant compromises: NO.
Microsoft will gladly support any technology, be in pocket computers, cell phones or talking toasters that allow it to sell copies of Windows. they don't care whether the product makes sense or not, because they don't end up stuck with the unsold inventory. XBox would be profitable if Microsoft could convince some poor sucker like Sony to foot the bill for the hardware.
To paraphrase Steve Balmer: it's all about licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses, licenses.
Endless repetition of a theme seems to have a hypnotic effect on some people. Such people and their money are soon parted. By all means, go buy one of the things. Buy several. You'll need 'em.
After all the hype, the irony is that there is really nothing new here. Devices of this nature have been available in the past. We used the device linked to above at work for a couple yr back when Win98 was the 'in' desktop OS of the day......and Win2K was *just* coming to market.
Undoubtedly, a few improvements have been made, but the overall concept is nearly identical.
cvxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
cx888 vbnjguhhg vnf
This Wed Sucks!