Origami is the art of folding paper to create beautiful sculptures of animals or objects. No glue or scissors are used at all, only folds on the paper itself. It goes without saying that it can take years to master the art of origami. But instant-origami has developed some clever ways to shorten the learning curve.

Using the power of video, instant-origami gives you a birds eye view of some very modern techniques to this ancient form of paper folding. Here you'll be able to view and create some of the most breathtaking paper sculptures like an octopus, a frog or even the mythical dragon.

We followed the instructions on the site and were very impressed with our own results as they came very close to the one on the video.

So if you've always wanted to try your hand at origami, check out some modern techniques over at instant-origami.

Microsoft has released the Origami Experience 2.0. In case you missed out on the first version of the Origami Experience, it's basically a suite of software designed to make it easier to navigate on Ultra-Mobile PCs, or tiny tablets like the Samsung Q1.

The new version requires a touch panel display, 100MB of disk space, and 1GB of system memory to work properly. The new version includes a built-in RSS reader, a new picture password utillity, and a new home screen application called Origami Now.

Users can create custom tiles in Origami Now to make it easier to access information like weather, email, and RSS feeds from one central location. There's also a new web browser called Origami Central that's basically a customized version of Internet Explorer 7 designed for touchscreen devices. It supports ActiveX, Flash, and Silverlight. Origami Central's toolbar auto-hides to maximize screen real estate on small UMPCs with 1024 x 600 resolutions.

[via Ian Dixon]

Now that the excitement has died down, software products are starting to appear that are 'tuned' for the UMPC's form factor.  Yes, we know that Microsoft has made is a point to tell everyone who will listen that the UMPC's greatest appeal is that it can run any Windows XP application.  While that may be true, the smallish screen size of the UMPC made us wonder how we'd squeeze some of our favorite applications into such small digs.  While it looks like some applications from Microsoft (namely OneNote) will account for the new screen real estate, an entirely new cadre of applications are being readied to fill the (smaller) void.

One of the first applications to be released that is UMPC sensitive is abletFactory's abletFoodCalc.  FoodCalc is a nutritional calculator for keeping track of your eating habits while on the go.  FoodCalc comes with a large database of nutritional values for foods that will allow you to quickly accumulate your daily consumption habits with your UMPC.  This sounds interesting enough, although we're forced to ask one practical question:  Since input on the UMPC is mostly hand driven, won't our precious UMPC get 'all greased up' if we enter food data all day?  Well, it seems like a sure opening for another UMPC accessory, the UMPC sanitizer.

We prefer to leave the gadget news coverage to the pros so we haven't been covering every little development in Microsoft's no-longer-mysterious Origami "ultramobile" handheld tablet PC buzz campaign, but we are user interface nerds, so Engadget's coverage of Origami's novel "Touch Pack Interface" piqued our interest. The core of the Origami Touch Pack Interface is a virtual keyboard in the form of two quarter-circles that the user controls with his thumbs. It looks pretty cool, but will it work? Or should we preemptively add "Origami thumb" to our medical vernacular?

For lots more Origami info and lots of photos of Origami devices from Samsung, Asus, and more, head over to Engadget, where the CeBIT coverage is fast and furious. This post is a good place to start.

Hardware isn't really among our core competencies here at Download Squad, but since we keep getting comments on our previous posts about Origami, Microsoft's vastly successful viral marketing campaign slash upcoming "ultramobile lifestyle PC," I figure I ought to keep you up to speed. The other day Microsoft updated the Origami Project web site for "Week 2," which isn't much more interesting than Week 1 was. A hidden comment in the source code, however, says "Origami Project: the Mobile PC running Windows XP," which is a very dull way to confirm what we already know. The teaser says we'll find out all about it on March 9, which happens to be the first day of Germany's CeBit electronics show.

Oh, I suppose you're wondering what's up with the above photo. That's a tablet PC reference box that Microsoft showed off at last year's WinHEC, which our pals at Engadget say is closer to what Origami will look like than that chunky thing from the year-old promo video that's been going around. Engadget's sources say that Origami will run XP Tablet PC Edition. What's more, Engadget has divined that it will be running on Samsung and Intel hardware rather than anything built by Microsoft and that the Ultra Mobile PC tech Intel is set to unveil on Tuesday is one and the same.

Last week we mentioned origamiproject.com, a mysterious bit of viral marketing belonging to Microsoft. A lot has turned up since then, and it's been pretty much established as fact that Origami is a new "ultramobile lifestyle PC" from Microsoft and not the five-year-old prototype of the same name from National Semiconductor. Microsoft plans to unveil Origami on Thursday (which makes me wonder what they're going to do with "Week 2" and "Week 3" at origamiprojec.com) and has confirmed that the above images from Engadget are authentic but are of an "early prototype" and are about a year old. Furthermore, Microsoft says what they'll show on Thursday will be a "technology" and an actual project, so it's anybody guess when we'll actually be able to buy an Origami PC.

The question of the day is, "What's origamiproject.com?" All we know is this: It belongs to Microsoft and appears to be a part of some viral marketing campaign. Currently the web site has nothing but an ambiguous AT&T-esque message that says, "Hello. Do you know me? Do you know what I can do? And where I can go? Or how I can change your life? You will. Learn more on 3.2.06..." There are "Week 1," "Week 2," and "Week 3" buttons, but currently only Week 1 (the above message) is enabled.  Some fingers are pointing to a similarly-named handheld prototype that National Semiconductor demoed at COMDEX in 2001, but I'm skeptical. Conveniently, origamiproject.com has an RSS feed that'll presumably notify you when "Week 2" is enabled. What do you think Microsoft is up to?

[Via Digg]