Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Origami Not A Gaming Machine 69

Posted by Zonk from the waste-of-a-good-tablet dept.
Gamespot reports that despite earlier reports, Microsoft's Origami isn't intended as a portable Xbox. From the article: "As shown in the leaked video, Origami machines will feature a touch-sensitive screen a la Microsoft's tablet PC line, will run Windows XP, and will be priced lower than most full-size laptops, running from around $500 to $1,000. If that price tag seems too low for a mobile PC with a high-end graphics chip--which would be necessary to run the Halo footage shown in the leaked concept video--that's because it is. The AP article says flat-out that the Origami is 'not a portable version of Microsoft's Xbox videogame console,' nor is it 'a music player designed to take on Apple Computer Inc.'s mega-popular iPod.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Origami Not A Gaming Machine More

Origami Not A Gaming Machine

Comments Filter:
  • Of course origami isn't a gaming machine, its folded paper for crying out loud!!!!

  • My guess (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Thursday March 02, 2006 @03:06PM (#14836779) Journal
    It's just an expensive PDA that will do way too many things that most people will never use

    We'll see tomorrow...
    • My dates are all off, it's next week they'll anounce it

      let this be a lesson for you kids, get plenty of sleep or you'll make yourself look like a fool in public :)
      • let this be a lesson for you kids, get plenty of sleep or you'll make yourself look like a fool in public :)

        This is Slashdot, your post fit right in.
    • Sounds like a gaming tablet. Basically, MS's answer to the DS. Some place they can get hand-held FPS and RTS games onto the market without sucking up to Nintendo.
    • I don't know about you guys but I just wanna watch Bill show this off and watch history repeat itself. Windows 98 [ozemail.com.au] Windows Live [com.com] CES - XBox [macobserver.com].
    • Indeed it is [reghardware.co.uk]. Amazing so more haven't spotted the flash vid [osnews.com] yet. (Now taken down btw)
    • If the price is right it might be good as an e-book reader. Many times I would like to read an e-book or just finish reading some long article/RSS feed in the toilet room/bus/train etc.
      You don't need a full fledged expensive laptop for that. Not only that, but the laptop's form-factor is not comfortable in all the aforementioned situtaions.
    • PDA that will do way too many things that most people will never use

      I do not know about you but, if the screen is big enough as well as the battery life I will love it as an e-book reader. I have been waiting for an ebook reader where I can run Adobe Reader to read all my pirat^H^H^H*ahem* downloaded ebooks.

      This looks promising, of course I do not think it will get more than 3 hours of battery life, which sucks... and we will have to see the weight also.
  • Wait a minute... if it's not intended to be a portable X-box, and doesn't have a high-end graphics card for playing Halo, then why the hell do they have Halo playing in the concept footage? For that matter, wouldn't playing Halo on a touch-screen be an exercise in futility regardless of its horsepower? This just doesn't add up.

  • Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)

    by JoeLinux ( 20366 ) <joelinux@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday March 02, 2006 @03:08PM (#14836791)
    Bigger than a newton, less powerful than a laptop, touch sensitive so you have to shield it when not in use, not a large battery life, and running XP.

    Wow. What demographic are they trying to hit?

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Sabotage ( 21481 ) on Thursday March 02, 2006 @03:11PM (#14836821)
      Isn't it obvious?

      Management.

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Thursday March 02, 2006 @03:13PM (#14836847)
      THe usual one- the stupid demographic.

      Unfortunately, this is about 99% of America at the moment.

      • Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Bigger than a newton, less powerful than a laptop, short battery life. Lame.
      • How about 99% of the globe? I doubt that America has a monopoly on stupid idiots.
      • Yeah I'll stick with my Nokia 770 [nokia.com]

      • Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)

        by vertinox ( 846076 )
        Actually they are looking for the stupid and rich category.

        According to Dogbert (somewhere on one of scot adams sites) there are always 4 target demographics:

        The smart and poor
        The smart and rich
        The dumb and poor
        The dumb and rich

        I'd say they are going to the 4th option.
    • touch sensitive so you have to shield it when not in use

      Wacom is providing the technology for that, they use some sort of EM-based position detection system. The screen itself won't have to react to the pressure. Only problem might be interference, I have to keep my tablet grounded for that reason.
    • Bigger screen than a PDA, cheaper than a laptop, battery lasts "all day" (an admittedly imprecise figure). Another post mentioned that the touch screen may be more along the lines of a Wacom tablet. I imagine they are targeting people who want more functionality and easier ergonomics than a PDA, but don't need a full blown laptop and who are more willing to shell out around $500 for an Origami than $1500 for a ThinkPad.

      Microsoft may be evil, but they didn't get rich by being stupid. If they think there i

      • No...not stupid.. (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        XBox360
        MS Bob
        The FIRST go-around for tablets.
        "Internet is a fad" edition of "The road ahead"
        Windows ME

        No, MS doesn't create bombs...

        Wake up, fanboy...
  • In the video, they show the screen being used with a stylus, like a Tablet PC. That would suggest a Wacom-style digitizer, which is NOT the same as being "touch sensitive".
  • I thought the whole point was to provide a replacement for the Blackberry. If they had a system that was super-integrated with Exchange, they could easily win over all the Blackberry-addicted executives if RIM had to shut down.

    With RIM still around, i bet its still a Blackberry competitor. Network admins would love a single solution integrated with Exchange and Active Directory.
    • i think that's what they've got planned with the next gen treo.
    • Well, too late for this, but it's probably my fault anyways. I was just telling my wife (non-techie) about 6 months ago how I was looking at purchasing a set of Blackberry-phones for each of us, and month's later, after showing her different models and "why" they were so useful, out comes news of RIM's imminent demise, then I told her forget about it, and now they haven't quite died yet. Mark my words, if I were to support them in this post, they would be gone by next week.

      Okay, I'm going to leave them al
  • The Origami is HUGE!

    How could anything that BIG and HUMONGOUS ever make it on the market today?!?!

    Infact, the Origami is so MONSTOROUSLY BIG that it was big two years ago!

    And, no, I don't car if its a gaming PDA/phone or not, since its so big, I wouldn't want one no matter what it does.

    Well, okay, maybe you could hide behind it while your friends look for you, that counts as a game, right?
  • Future history will most likely prove me wrong, but maaaaaaybe THIS is Bill Gates' challenge to Negroponte's $100 Laptop! After all, MS smalled the $100 laptop as too large... and that everyone should be able to have one! (And oh yeah, fine print, it's $500, runs a closed-source OS and can't be charged with a hand crank)
  • Sounds like a cross between a Nintendo DS and a Blackberry.

    There are lots of attempts to come up with a new form factor and a market niche to go with it. It's getting wierd. Apple's new iPod speakers have the form factor of a ghetto blaster. (There's a strong resemblance between the Apple Hi-Fi and the 1984 Radio Shack boombox with a dock for a Sony Walkman. [pocketcalculatorshow.com])

  • And it's diffrent from the Transmeta Caruso [tigerdirect.ca] how??? It has a camera, 802.11g, a detachable keyboard in a holster thingy and runs Windows XP.. Cheaper I guess... yes, i do mean that in both ways. This has been around for a while... Move along.. nothing to see here.

    BTW I think they are discontinued cuz noone wanted them...

  • Notes from a PSP user (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shut_up_man ( 450725 ) on Thursday March 02, 2006 @04:35PM (#14837505) Homepage
    I own a PSP, and most of my usage of it isn't games - it's mobile video. Even if Origami (or as it more probably will be titled, the Microsoft VistaPad XP Professional) can't do games, I think it has definite potential. The direct advantage it would have over the PSP is that since it runs XP natively, it could play any kind of movie format that is available on the PC without conversion. Having to convert everything to PSP video formats is a pain. That's almost enough for me to buy one right there, although obviously the battery life, screen, weight, hard drive size, wireless options, system toughness and price will factor in pretty heavily, not to mention that this entire thing is still in the "concept" stage and may change radically if and when it ever arrrives on a sales floor.

    It's interesting to note that since Vista has such beefy 3D hardware requirements to run Aero Glass, the Microsoft VistaPad XP Professional won't actually be able to run Vista without reverting to XP-style effects. I don't want it to run some horrible lobotomized version of Windows Mobile though.

    The other, more interesting question is... will it run Linux?
  • Please don't put it in the game section then. I have MS news turned off for a reason.
  • I'm quickly going from interested to, well, not.

    $500 should be the high end of the price range.

  • Gaff's tinfoil unicorn? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by payndz ( 589033 ) on Thursday March 02, 2006 @05:22PM (#14837893)
    the Origami is 'not a portable version of Microsoft's Xbox videogame console,' nor is it 'a music player designed to take on Apple Computer Inc.'s mega-popular iPod.'

    Then what is it? It's not an iPod, it's not a PSP, it's not a Mini-Xbox, and apparently it's not a computer either.

    You know what I want? I want a 21st century equivalent of my Psion Series 5. I don't want a cut-down Windows PC/PDA combo that does 27,000 things, none of them even remotely as well as a desktop or laptop, as a portable - I want something that does a good job with basic tasks like word processing (and things like playing MP3s are now included in that), fits in a pocket, works off a couple of AA batteries and has a keyboard. Stylus plus keyboard may not be the most convenient way of working... but it's better than stylus and no keyboard.

    Oh, and I'd like it to integrate seamlessly with OS X. Steve Jobs, are you there?

  • Ok, since the original speculation on the orgami device was a bit off. Are there any other devices out there in the market that include a Digital Camera+Video Recorder(min of 4MP and 10X optical zoom), 5GB HDD, GSM Phone, PDA + MP3 player?

  • I know what it is... (Score:3, Funny)

    by CoolMoDee ( 683437 ) on Thursday March 02, 2006 @05:32PM (#14837977) Homepage Journal
    It's a chair, that folds on impact, kind of like oragami. It is going to save Microsoft loads of cash with all the chair throwing that they like to do up there.
  • Depending on the price tag, it might be good as an e-book reader + occasional web surfing (if includes wifi).

  • I think I should warn Slashdotters... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DiamondGeezer ( 872237 ) on Thursday March 02, 2006 @07:02PM (#14838782) Homepage
    ...that I'm a 3rd Dan Black belt in origami. What I can do to you will just a sheet of copier paper can make your eyes water. Remember, that a thousand paper cuts can really hurt!
  • Halo is available on PC though... so although they say not a portable Xbox, does that also exclude the fact that it can run PC games?
  • running from around $500 to $1,000. If that price tag seems too low for a mobile PC with a high-end graphics chip--which would be necessary to run the Halo footage shown in the leaked concept video--that's because it is.

    An XBox costs $179, and it runs Halo just fine.

    • An Xbox is also a far cry from being a mobile PC.
      • The implication of the original poster was that if the machine "only" costs between $750 and $1000 it isn't any good for gaming. It's silly because there are tons of game machines that cost much less than that, (xbox, xbox 360, et cetera) and there are even portable game machines with good 3D capabilities that cost much less than that (e.g., Sony PSP). I think he is assuming that this thing is an x86 machine running Windows Tablet PC Edition. I think that is very very unlikely.

        A more likely possibility i
  • does it come preloaded with Folding@Home [stanford.edu]?

Slashdot Top Deals

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek

Close