The $1 iPhone app has 50 different dollar bill origamis to choose from and each has its own step-by-step instructions. The origamis range from animals, clothing, rings, structures, Yoda, and more. There's a few extra features like a self timer for testing your speediness and a sequence builder for creating your own origamis. But I was unable to really utilize this app to its full potential for one simple reason, I'm horrible at making origamis.


I started off pretty ambitious and jumped right into the cool looking TIE Fighter. After 15 minutes and many sighs of frustration I gave up. Here's what my Dollar Bill TIE Fighter looks like, yea I know it's pretty pathetic.


Even though the TIE Fighter killed my dreams of becoming a professional Dollar Origamist I decided to try my luck at folding a T-shirt. Well the sleeves aren't exactly perfect but I guess I did it?

[Dollar Origami]

The $10 Space Origami Kit features 120 pieces of square paper along with a 32-page instruction manual that will teach you how to build exciting space stuff like rockets, astronauts, lunar modules and super novas—all while disguising your childhood fantasies into an age-old, respectable art form. [The Spoon Sisters via bbGadgets]

Of course, these are no ordinary paper planes. Each of the 14 x 9-inch 1-ounce space shuttles are made with a special paper, treated with chemical products to allow it to resist such temperatures. The shuttles were tested in a hypersonic wind tunnel at the beginning of the year and, if everything goes well, they will make the trip to Kibo, the Japanese ISS module, on board the Space Shuttle Discovery in February.

Once they reach their destination, astronaut Dr. Koichi Wakata will then throw them in their voyage either by hand or using Dextre, the gigantic robotic arm on the ISS.

If they are lucky, they will reach populated areas, where they can be picked and returned to Japan's space agency. Hopefully for money, because if I got one of these from the ISS, I would keep it or sell it on eBay. [Asahi via Pink Tentacle]

If the little Iron Man of art couldn't crush us in his itty bitty fingers, we'd go Cute Overload on his ass and scratch behind those teenie weenie wittle Iron Man cheeks. [Brian Chan via Geekologie]

[Paper Animations]

First Look: Vista Origami Experience Pack [TechEBlog]

Product Page [Microsoft]

iPod Shuffles and jolly good cheer! [Big Images]

For a quick refresher, the Q1 is a UMPC with a 900MHz Celeron Mobile process, 512MB of ram, 40GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a 7-inch touchscreen. Check out all of our coverage of the Q1 here. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [Woot]

Stane's Island Sharp Pencil Quality TV

These glasses are called "Optigami", combining "optical" and "origami". Since this is just a design, there's no telling whether it'll get turned into an actual product or not. But enterprising DIY'ers could try making their own out of duct tape and chicken wire. – Jason Chen

OPTIGAMI [RKSDesign via Coolest Gadgets]

The graphics requirements are considerably more demanding for Microsoft Vista, so what was once overpriced (Samsung's Q1 pictured here starts at $1100) will probably now be headed for the pricing stratosphere, even with a dumbed-down version of Vista. We're thinking that if they can slim down the price of one of these "Vistagami" tablet PCs to the originally-stated $500, this might be something that could actually be useful. Fat chance. – Charlie White

Microsoft lays plans for 'Vistagami' tablets [c|net News]

But still. It's quiet, more durable, more efficient and faster than the Q1 with the spinning disk inside. Plus, you can play back video, still photos or audio without having to boot it up at all. Even so, we're thinking this UMPC platform is a bust, and this is just a marketing concept. For a product with a solid-state disk inside that we think more resembles the future, take a look at Samsung's other announcement of the day, the Q30 laptop.

Samsung Press Release

Free downloadable Camera [RandomGoodStuff]

Sony UX pics surface in our mailbox [Mobility Today]

Apple filed another patent application on February 2 that described "gestures for touch sensitive input devices." There was mention of a virtual scroll wheel, a multipoint sensing device where you can use several fingers to manipulate images on screen, and other virtual screen ideas as well. Sounds like an Origami-style UMPC to us. Or something.

Apple Origami UMPC? Looks likely [UMPC News]

On a hopeful note, there are sketchy rumors of Samsung introducing a sub-$700 UMPC later this year, so there's that.

Samsung UMPC to ship worldwide 1 May [Reg Hardware]

Want to try to make one yourself? You're going to need patience for this one, but go ahead, download its pages for printing, and set aside a few weeks to test your mettle.

Papercraft FTO [Mitsubishi-FTO.org] Thanks, Dr. Wil!

Geometrics and Tessellations [Robert J. Lang Origami] Thanks, Brendan!

Origami will be able to act as a Media Center Extender, meaning you can play video and audio content in any room of your house, wirelessly. You can also potentially use it as a home remote control, meaning you can hook up your lights, boiler, and any other automation junk you want to open to potential wireless hacking.

Origami Tablet PCs to Run Special Media Center Extender Software [CEPro]

"If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type.

Perhaps a few well-placed billion dollars might put Origami PCs into the hands of those disadvantaged people, Bill, rather than those laughably disgusting $100 hand-cranked units.

Bill Gates mocks MIT's $100 laptop project [Reuters]

A new UMPC announced from PBJ [Digital Lifestyle]

In this, the final chapter of our ever-increasingly silly quest to get all sorts of Origami footage, your correspondents go deep into the Origami launcher and realize... it's still just Windows.

Press Release

Either someone over at Microsoft decided to have some fun in anticipation of the Origami/UMPC launch, or no one at Redmond has ever been Goatse'd.

Ultra-Mobile PC - How to Buy [Microsoft] (Thanks, Jason!)
Goatse.cx [Wikipedia]
Goatse [Threadless T-Shirts]
Photos tagged with firstgoatse [Flickr]

Obviously this thumb-typing interface is the stand out discovery, but there's also mention in the copy of plug-in GPS and DMB-TV receivers. Strangely, there's talk that the Samsung device can rip DVDs to its 40GB hard drive—something that's illegal to do in the US. Perhaps there's no Korean equivilent to the DMCA?

CeBIT News [Turnpages]

Looks better than most of the prototypes, that's for sure.

In the comments for yesterday's Origami revealed post, strangeweather said:

Two things this form factor is perfect for:

1. A portable movie player — it's about the same form factor as a portable DVD player, only you can rip a bunch of DVDs and store them all on board.

2. A web surfing device. As WiFi and other wireless platforms get increasingly ubiquitous, you'll be able to carry around one of these suckers and look up anything online, wherever you're at. The screens on PDAs are a little too small to be good at this, phones are worse, and conventional lightweight notebooks are utterly useless for something like this.

So yeah, minitablet, minischmablet—Origami sounds like a glorified media player to us. So it's got Microsoft's imprimatur on it; big whoop, right? One of our readers wrote us this morning, a long-time very senior industry insider who felt compelled to point out that:

THE MAIN USE OF THIS DEVICE IS A DRM MEDIA PLAYER!

All other PC functions are bonus.

This is why VIIV is being used and previously advertised.

More on how Viiv is horrible and why you should care after the jump.

Viiv in a nutshell, from its Wikipedia entry:

"It is intended for primary use as a media platform or to play DRM-protected content created by one. Media recorded by an Intel VIIV processor is locked to the processor and may only be played by an authorized VIIV processor."

Locked to the processor? Only be played by an authorized processor? Nasty! You'd think Microsoft would know better because Research Group invited EFF/BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow over to give a talk in 2004. The gist of what he told them:

1. That DRM systems don't work

2. That DRM systems are bad for society

3. That DRM systems are bad for business

4. That DRM systems are bad for artists

5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT

Either none of the Research Group's many brilliant people was paying attention, or the media cartels really just don't care. Guess which one we're going with.

Origami Revealed: It s a 7-Inch Tablet PC Platform [Gizmodo]
DRM: Three dirty letters you won't hear in a CES keynote [ZDNet]
Intel Viiv is stupid and broken [the Inquirer]
Viiv Off to a Slow Start [Gizmodo]

Cebit: Samsung shows its first Origami device [Macworld]

[The above image] is in fact a screen shot of the emulator MS has been providing to their software partners - which also look similar to the reference design MS created.

The interface under is not windowblinds as one commenter posted, but is program launcher that will ship on the devices. This does not replace explorer or the standard XP GUI, but just runs as a startup app (by default) to give easier 'touch' access to apps.

There has been quite a bit of questioning about whether or not Origami is a full-blown version of Windows XP (or even Vista) or some sort of embedded, WinCE-like hybrid. We feel that those confused have missed the whole point of Origami, which is to provide a full desktop experience on a portable device.

ultramobile2 Videos [Intel via Ultramobilize]

Robert Scoble attempted some sort of preemptive spin yesterday, walking through the categories of 'device killers' that the Origami was not. (Scoble said—to quickly sum up—that the Origami was not an iPod, OQO, PSP, Nokia N90, Treo 700w, or Palm killer, nor was it a portable Xbox.)

Clearly, the Origami is an OQO killer, at least by design. Both devices are pocket-sized computers that run full-blown version of Windows XP, including Tablet PC Edition. (Although the OQO has a built-in keyboard, while the first Origami models do not.) Perhaps Scoble meant "larger and less convenient than an OQO, which would prevent it from killing the device."

More baffled reactions which we anticipate regretting once Apple decides to use this as a Newton revival platform after the jump.

As for everything else, well, it's too big to replace PDAs and smartphones—although we can certainly see a day in the near future when full-blown PC operating systems might supplant PDA-specific OSes—and it's actually less convenient a form factor than a sub-notebook. We're just not buying that a device with a 7-inch screen and a separate keyboard is going to be worth lugging around in a bag when our smartphones already give us mobile email and basic web browsing. And if this is supposed to replace our laptops, why such a funky form factor? How are we supposed to use the Origami models when typing with a Bluetooth keyboard? Even the two-year prototype with a built-in keyboard looks awkward.

The real news here is probably that Microsoft has developed a version of Windows XP (the 'Origami' name comes from Microsoft's work, we gather) that works with the new Intel hardware to provide long battery life. That sounds great, guys. Could we get that in a laptop?

News.com is saying that the Origami devices run a "variant" of Windows XP (and can run other x86-compatible operating systems) and are small enough to fit in a "large pocket." (That's pretty wishful thinking for a device with a 7-inch screen.)

While some models leave out the keyboard entirely, one model—the red and white one seen previously, which is said to be a prototype that's two years out'—has a twist-top that reveals a QWERTY thumb board underneath.

Price? "Under a $1,000."

Origami minitablets [News.com] (Thanks to all you people sending in links. We appreciate it!)

Origami Video (IE6 Only) [Video.MSN]

CNBC TranscriptDigg]