Origami Experience 2, or OX2 as Origami Project calls it, is the second version of Microsoft’s touch orientated software for UMPCs, and if you can’t wait for its release, swing by the Windows Vista Experience blog for a preview of OX2′s RSS features.

The RSS reader in OX2 allows for easy subscriptions to RSS feeds from any site. Your feed list across IE and the Origami reader will be common. So if you subscribe to something in IE it will also appear in your OX2 feed list, and vice-versa. Podcasts and videos can be played right inside the RSS reader, and you can access the original site through the OX2 internet app (essentially IE with a touch optimized skin over it). The nice part about this is that you are still within the OX2 software, you aren’t just using it as a software launcher like the first iteration acted as. You can also flag feed items you’d like to come back to just like you can star items in Google Reader.

I’m actually a bit excited for the new version of Origami to come out. It seems like Microsoft has taken at least a little bit more care this time in making a decent touch interface for some of the common tasks that users deal with on UMPCs. Unfortunately I’ve gotten word that it will be Vista only, which isn’t surprising considering Microsoft’s foolish desire to get low-power UMCPs running Vista. An ambitious independent developer is attempting to make a clone of OX2 that will run on XP; more on that later.\

[Chippy says: It's a shame that it's IE7-based. Firefox 3.0 is so much faster that it's hard to go back to an IE7-based browser now. I think i'm also right in saying that OX2 is only available to licensed partners so only new UMPC owners will get it...on Vista!]