IDF Spring 2006: Ultra Mobile PCs + Origami
By Alexander Grundner |
March 10th, 2006
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So here’s the deal with the whole Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) platform and Microsoft Origami Project. The fact is UMPC is a hardware platform developed in-house by Intel. Origami is an application layer on top of a Windows XP/Table PC variant. The easiest way to think of it, is to compare it with Windows Media Center Edition (MCE). MCE sits on top of Windows XP and gives you a slick 10-foot user-interface for operating your PC from the couch. Origami, on the other hand, sits on top of XP (and soon Vista) and is designed specifically for 5 – 7-inch high-resolution, touchscreen displays. I hope that clears up any confusion we’ve all been having.
I also got a chance to get more in-depth info from Intel’s UMPC rep. Here are some of the highlights:
- The first vendors to sell UMPCs to consumers will be Samsung, Asustek, and Founder (Engadget has pics from Cebit).
- The larger 7-inch versions will have 1GHz Pentium M processors, while the 5-inch will have a 600MHz procesor
- Some UMPCs will come with 1.3MP digital cameras, webcams (perfect for video conferencing), GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
- Third-party apps can be integrated with Origami
- 256MB of memory
- Hard drive capacities: 20 - 60GB
- Price points: $600 - $1,000
- Docking cradle: When connected to the dock users can attach their various PC peripherals and use the UMPC as a full PC (note first gen only offers VGA / S-Video out – DVI is coming in the second generation)
- 2 - 3 hour battery life
The rep also let slip that Apple and several Linux vendors are working with Intel on developing products on the UMPC platform. However, it would fair to assume that neither Apple or Linux vendors will be using Origami for their user-interfaces – they’ll have to develop their own custom touchscreen interface.
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AntiMonopoly – 1 hour 54 minutes ago