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Microsoft Origami To Play Halo 44

Posted by Zonk from the now-that's-a-tablet dept.
Gamasutra reports on elements of the Microsoft project code-named Origami, which has been revealed through some snooping to be a tablet PC. The device is shown playing Halo indicating there is likely to be some gaming aspect to the product. From the article: "Previous to the appearance of the DigitalKitchen video, Bill Gates had discussed a mobile PC concept at a conference in Seattle last year, where a non-working device called the Ultra Mobile 2007 was shown. At the time, Gates indicated that the device should have an 'all-day' battery life, weigh less than a pound and cost between $500 and $800. Microsoft has indicated it will unveil more details of the Origami Project 'in the coming weeks'."
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Microsoft Origami To Play Halo More

Microsoft Origami To Play Halo

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  • Is it wise calling a tablet... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tehshen ( 794722 ) <tehshen@gmail.com> on Monday February 27, 2006 @03:56PM (#14811073)
    ...after something that you're supposed to fold?

    Do you think it'll play Snap too?
    • I just hope it doesn't just play stuff that is popular and tries to cram it in a small form factor. That's the biggest reason I don't like most PSP games, but love some DS games like Mario Kart DS and Nintendogs.

      Now, if instead of trying to play Halo, the thing had a souped-up version of Windows Journal from the Tablet PC Edition and motion sensors to act like an Etch-a-Sketch (like the Powerbooks, but without having to weigh 4 lbs.), that would be innovative. Imagine using a tablet to show ideas at work,
      • A fragile tablet PC with the "feature" of Etch-A-Sketch-style erasing? Sounds novel, but I can just imagine the tech support nightmare it would cause. What happens when it slips from the user's hands and the LCD cracks?

  • Er... Halo? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "The device is shown playing Halo..."

    I hate to disappoint you, but that's [gamasutra.com] certainly not the Halo I'm used to...
  • I heard about this a while ago in a promotional video and rather than an explicit game-only device (as the title suggested), the Origami Project concept seems similar to existing tablet PCs, with a large touch screen display noticeably bigger than either the iPod or PSP. In the video, actors can be seen using the device to listen to music, access the Internet, edit digital photos, controlling media on a home PC and playing video games. Quite a cheezy commercial actually.
    • The radical thing with this looks to be the battery life. What I'd really love would be a tablet that is durable (ie I can drop it.. frequently), with long battery life, and possibly with IR so it can be a universal remote as well.. including home automation software would be a good idea too. Think of those old sci-fis where someone picked up a little tablet to operate their home.
  • Solitaire?
  • Maximizing cross-product synergies by thinking outside the box and using the new web2.0 paradigm :D

    Besides giving the marketing deparment a stiffy is there any use for all products to do all things?
    • Maximizing cross-product synergies by thinking outside the box and using the new web2.0 paradigm

      I'm not sure what you're selling, but I'll take 10,000.

  • It's about time... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Monday February 27, 2006 @04:13PM (#14811215)
    Gates indicated that the device should have an 'all-day' battery life, weigh less than a pound and cost between $500 and $800.

    It only took them three tries to see the obvious faults in their tablet designs. Bravo!

    If it does what they say, sign me up.
  • Last year on Channel 9 [msdn.com] we had the pleasure of seeing a brief interview with Bill Gates and during it hinted at a $500 tablet.

    See a clip of this comment and explanation here [msdn.com].
  • Just last week, I installed and churned my way through the PC version of Halo in a few days.

    My 5-button mouse made a world of difference compared to the Xbox controller. I could finally map the punch key somewhere convienent.

    Anyways, looking at the picture... how are you supposed to play Halo? Dock the tablet and use a keyboard?
    • Anyways, looking at the picture... how are you supposed to play Halo?

      With head-shot touchscreen-of-death goodness.
    • ### how are you supposed to play Halo?

      Judging from the video, available at:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV1WGDW37c0&search= project%20origami [youtube.com]

      You hold it like a Gameboy and play with it like a Gameboy (no touch interface used in the vid for Halo), the problematic part is that it doesn't look very ergonomic and doesn't give you very many buttons to play with. Somebody else said it might have a tilt sensor, which would add another few axis to the system. In the end this doesn't look exactly to be designe
  • "Sensitive mercury switches inside the tablet allow you to clear the screen just by shaking it, while the core interface has been simplified down to two edge-positioned dials, using technologies licensed from Synaptics and Ohio Arts."

  • The device is clearly shown running a version of Halo...

    Now, I'm not someone who has experienced this "Halo" game firsthand, but why are they bragging about a product that looks (at least from the picture I see [gamasutra.com] in that article [gamasutra.com]) like a colorized version of a drawing that my 5 year old made on his etch-a-scketch just last week? If that honestly displays the graphical capabilities of of XBox and Halo, I'm glad I didn't waste my money.

    • Re:Halo? (Score:3, Informative)

      by amliebsch ( 724858 )
      In that picture, the program being run is an existing tabletPC program called "ArtRage [ambientdesign.com]." It's actually a really cool app, which takes full advantage of the pressure sensitivity feature of the tablet digitizer.

      • In that picture, the program being run is an existing tabletPC program called "ArtRage [ambientdesign.com]." It's actually a really cool app, which takes full advantage of the pressure sensitivity feature of the tablet digitizer.

        Actually it is Alias Sketchbook Pro [slashdot.org]. It appears that this "ArtRage" has a very similar interface to Sketchbook though.

        Sketchbook Pro is amazing. It is the only computer based drawing/sketching program that my wife will use (she is a Costume Designer and does a lot of renderi

    • why are they bragging about a product that looks (at least from the picture I see in that article) like a colorized version of a drawing that my 5 year old made on his etch-a-scketch just last week?

      It's not intended to display the product's game graphics capability any more than a screenshot of Nintendo's PictoChat is intended to display that of the Nintendo DS.

  • C'mon nobody has guessed this? I'd bet money it's some type of portable using an eInk display. Sony's got one in the works already. MS isn't going to let this new market slip past them!

  • Leaked product photo (Score:3, Funny)

    by shr3k ( 451065 ) on Monday February 27, 2006 @04:38PM (#14811409) Homepage
    Many Bothans died to bring us this information...

    photo [tinman.org]

  • video on youtube (Score:4, Informative)

    by mzs ( 595629 ) on Monday February 27, 2006 @04:41PM (#14811430)
    digitalkitchen took it down, but youtube [youtube.com] has a copy.
  • It seems the only hit that Microsoft has is Halo. No thanks, I already played it on the Xbox.

  • A since-removed promotional video...shows a portable computer whose functionality is likely to straddle both markets.

    I this a subtle clue that M$ wants to get into the lucrative adult entertainment biz? Pretty interesting coming from *gamasutra*...

  • <rant>
    What new battery technology suddenly allows a backlit lcd panel to last 24 hours? First he likely means that 8-hours is equal to all-day. And even though he didn't say it I bet that also means "usual use", so we can expect the battery to last 2-hours when playing Halo, just like the PocketPC.

    None of course. Am I the only one that is getting tired of this kind of out-right lie? First it was 15 inch monitors where actually 14-inches. 120GB hard-drives arn't actually close to an actual 120GB.
    </r

    • Re:All day? (Score:2, Informative)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      First it was 15 inch monitors where actually 14-inches.

      This is true only of CRTs, but LCDs (such as the ones used in most Windows Mobile devices such as the device of The Article) are measured directly in visible image size.

      120GB hard-drives arn't actually close to an actual 120GB.

      First of all, hard disk drives are labeled as 120 GB as opposed to 120 GiB [wikipedia.org]. Unlike the situation with tons, a metric gigabyte is smaller. At least it's not as bad as it was in the 3.5" floppy era, where a "2.0 MB" high-d

      • Re:All day? (Score:2, Funny)

        by turpie ( 8040 )
        The only reason anyone came up with GiBs and KiBs is because they couldn't stop the bastards from labelling a 111GB (119,185,342,464 bytes) drive as 120GB.
  • Gates indicated that the device should have an 'all-day' battery life, weigh less than a pound and cost between $500 and $800.

    Sure it should. But how about talking what it will have? Throwing up a list of "nice to have" features is so trivial, any /. troll can do it, we don't need Gates for that.

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