Microsoft has unveiled Origami - an entirely new category of PC known as the "ultra-mobile". The company revealed the new device at the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover this morning. Speculation within the computing industry had led many to believe that Microsoft would be targeting either the Apple iPod or Sony's Playstation portable with this device, but what we have instead is a new type of PC, somewhere in-between the handheld and the laptop, and running a version of Windows XP. Featuring a seven-inch (17.8-cm) touch screen, hard drives and wireless connectivity, Origami runs on Intel Celeron M processors, and is about an inch thick and weighs around 1 kg. Microsoft believes that the ultra-mobile "will eventually become as indispensable and ubiquitous as the mobile phone today".
"The whole Origami concept may very well change what devices people are going to carry with them," Michael Gartenberg, an analyst in Jupiter Research's New York office, said. "It's not a pocketable device, but it's certainly small enough to be kept close at hand, and the fact that it runs Windows means that it can do a variety of tasks, from productivity to games to media consumption."