Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about a secretive Microsoft project codenamed "Origami" -- well, it is no longer a secret, and the codename has been dropped. In fact, it is only partially a Microsoft product. They call them Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs). There is a good quick overview at Engadget, as well as several other articles about specific hardware vendors (use the reference link above). This has been announced at CeBit trade show in Germany. The first of these should be released by mid-year, with a prices between $500-$1,000. Okay, enough facts. I have never been that excited about PDAs or PDA-like phones. The main reasons have been because the form factors are just too small, input has been limited to either using a phone keypad or learning a new way to write, and applications are limited and/or not transferrable (the files created anyway) to my full PC. The concept of moble connectivity has also been suspect, in my mind. Why do I want people to contact me anywhere and anytime? The only reason I have a cell phone is for me to be able to call someone else when I need to, not so other people can call me whenever they want to. So why am I so interested in this concept? Maybe it is the form factor. It looks to be about the same size as my (paper) Franklin Planner. So it is a size that I am already used to. It should be easy to read, and provide several options for displaying things readably. Maybe it is the input options. One video that I saw had a keyboard that either rotated or folded out from beneath the display. Another video (a talk with the lead architect at MS - warning, it is more than half an hour long) showed handwriting recognition using a stylus. And another article (not a video) shows a virtual keyboard on-screen as a pair of semicircular radial thumb-typing things (it looks better than it sounds). Did I mention that the display is a touch-screen input? Well, I did now. Maybe it is the fact that it will run any Windows application. Not "a-slimmed-down-WinCE-special-version-that-I-have-to-buy-separately" of the apps I have come to depend upon, but the same ones that I already have. Maybe it is the built-in WiFi, that will allow it to connect to my home WiFi network without having to plug in a separate network adapter (like I have to do for the laptop). I bought my laptop just a little bit early, I guess, as I understand that shortly after that, many laptops started having the WiFi adapter built in as well. Maybe the OMCLs (see yesterday's post) are just messing with me. I don't know. If price and battery life are reasonable (and the baby is well fed, well clothed, happy and healthy, and I have some money left over from a tax refund or bonus or something), I may look into one of these, someday.