Embracing New Technology: Origami

Call this an op-ed if you will, there is something I would like to share with you about the Origami project Microsoft has been working on for quite some time, along with a spectacular vaporware  marketing campaign. Much like its flashy Apple friend, most were disappointed at what the device actually did and of course only appealed to the few hippies that still dream of sticking it to the man by thinking differently. It almost seems as if Origami is Microsoft’s self-inflicted confession that they are a dull looking midlevel manager that Apple portrays them to be in their latest commercials. Quite the contrary.

Rewind back about ten years with me, please. I worked at a major ISP and one of our NOC engineers was an avid Palm user. He walked through the halls never lifting his head up from the glaring green screen. He would break out the device in the middle of a conversation and almost seemed to do important work as he launched the freecell.

He was the revolutionary geek on the team, he wore his Palm III on his toolbelt.

He was so cool that we renamed him “tool.”

Rhymes with cool but its quite the opposite. I was arguing the concept of wearable computers with Jim Harrison and Tom Shinder last week at TechEd. Their stance was that there is a market between tablets and Pocket PC’s and that every new evolution of computing would be met with some hesitation. But wearable? Oh, heck no. When did we all begin to wear our Pocket PC’s and PDA’s? When they got the phone functionality.

My argument? Wearing a computer is essentially begging to be beaten.

I actually had a chance to meet a fellow MVP that specialized in Mobile Devices and I just had to know how this could possibly be useful. His take?

Well, this device has a stand that I place it in. Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, peripherals are all plugged in at my desk. If I need to run into a meeting I take the device off and its instantly a tablet.

Now just how this differs from a Tablet PC was a sketchier answer (oh.. size.. weight) and the idea that this gadget was somehow worth 100% markup of a more powerful, more flexible solution was as laughable as any argument that your average Mac user comes up with as a justification for their overpriced, yet highly glossy and polished, WinTel clone choice.

Call me ignorant here but have we solved the problem of blind using computers? How about deaf? How about the millions of people that suffer from carpal tunnel? Is Internet Explorer THAT perfect that we need to lose more money on Xbox while our bank accounts are owned every other day?

I have an idea. Bill. Steve. How about the two of you go back to the garage and come up with a revolutionary way for us to use computers and help those who have physical disabilities — not just empowering the mentally disabled with deep pockets who have a need to be different from the rest of the world as they so casually separate themselves from it with the trendy white headphones.