Microsoft unveils Origami, a hybrid ultra-mobile PC

Seattle, Hanover: Microsoft yesterday unveiled its Origami project, a paperback-book sized port-able computer which is a hybrid between a laptop PC and a host of mobile devices that the world's biggest software maker hopes will create an entirely new market.

Lighter than two pounds (0.972 kg) with a seven-inch (17.78-centimetre) touch-screen, the new ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) use microprocessors from Intel and run a modified version of Windows XP Tablet PC edition.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics, Taiwan's Asustek Computer and China's second largest PC-maker, the Founder Group, are expected to release the first three ultra-mobile PCs, which Microsoft had code-named Origami in an elaborate marketing campaign. Samsung's product will go on sale in April.

"This is a single ultra-mobile computer that combines the functionality of many different products," David Steel, the vice-president for marketing at Samsung's digital media group, said at the CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany.

Samsung positions the UMPC as a handheld organiser, an MP3 portable music player, a mobile television receiver, a games device and a notebook PC and believes it will be more successful than the full-sized tablet notebook PC with touch screen, launch-ed four years ago.

The new machines will connect wirelessly to the internet and carry full-sized hard drives, but they are not intended to replace current PCs.