Always on Laptops

yapplejax writes "PortalPlayer is offering an interesting laptop technology to manufacturers which will allow information to be displayed without actually booting the computer. The addition will cost manufacturers a mere $30 - $40 and is supported by Vista via the feature "SideShow"." From the article: "PortalPlayer kept down the costs of Preface by using a display used in mobile phones, rather that developing one specially, to take advantage of the economies of scale in the phone market, Johnson said. The costs will include $18 to $20 for a display, about $12 for the single-chip processor and a few dollars for memory and other small components, he said."

Comments

Linux support?

[krbvroc1]

This is simply a computer (system on a chip) within a laptop running its own firmware. The 'press release' mentions a Windows API. Does it have an open API so that any OS running on the laptop can access this device? It sounds like it might be one of those devices that you must boot into windows to configure it. Very little substance on the PortalPlayer website about their SDK. It also sounds like its embeds a small LCD display in the laptop cover.

peek inside?

[gEvil (beta)]

What exactly do they mean by 'peek inside?' I guess I don't particularly see the applications for this sort of thing. Are they talking about being able to look up a contact or read an email message without firing the whole laptop up? Or is this to have an interface into your mp3 collection? Anybody with some insight into the uses for this?

Put the OS on embedded non-volitile memory already

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Honestly, embed OS'es like Linux or Windows in some form of memory on a laptop or desktop mainboard and turn it into a calculator already!

It is freaking ridiculous that 6/7 years into the 21st Century (however you count it) that we still rely on BOOTING computers from antiquated electromagnetic platters before we can access the software applications.

There is no reason why all the OS components, kernel and key applications cannot reside in some built in non-volatile memory so that the computer is technically "always-on" even if the power is turned off. All you do is restore the environment in the memory as opposed to booting fresh. You can pair that with keeping a small charge on volatile memory to keep the current desktop environment active in low power mode.

This may actually make the OS more secure as you can make sure that nothing can touch or corrupt the embedded software and OS kernel simply by making the embedded software read only. Patches, updates or upgrades would require a sophisticated authentication protocol to allow changes to the embedded OS software.

It ain't rocket science.

I know PDA's and mobile platforms used embedded OS'es, but is there any reason why the humble Desktop or Laptop computers can't use this same technology? Put 1gb of embedded non-volatile memory on to the mainboard and let Windows or your favourite OS of choice be installed into it in its running state.

In some ways I find that computer/software technology has become stagnant. No matter how fast CPU's get, or how fancy OS'es get there are some things that haven't changed for almost 30 years on computers. It's time for a revolution, make our computers better darn it instead of adding cutesy add ons that mimic what real innovation could do more effectively.

Re:I was hoping

[AKAImBatman]

Since they are typically used in spacecraft, I guess waste heat and leaked radiation isn't usually much of a problem in their design.

1) If it's leaking radiation, then it's not a very good design. The entire point of an RTG is to convert radiation to electricity. If you're letting it escape, you're letting your power escape.

2) Waste heat is already a huge problem. You're going to have that problem whether you use a 65Watt battery or a 65Watt RTG.

Do We Really Need This?

[MBCook]

Do we really need this? It seems rather useless to me. First, so you know, there are pictures of this kind of thing that another comment has linked to.

Now, does that look useless to you or what? I can see my appointments! Wow. My PDA does that now. Or my phone can. Or my watch can. Soon my Toaster will too. And with my PDA I can edit the appointment. With these little screens, you either can't edit it (useless) or it would have to use the disk (must understand filesystem, file format, etc; HDs use battery) or it just saves the changes into memory to be put into the schedule program when you boot it up (that would require battery to keep the memory going). Neither of those seem useful.

But it's on my laptop! So when I want to see an appointment on the road, instead of looking at my PDA or Phone (as I said before), I can pull out my laptop out of it's case and press a button so I can read data off a little 2" screen. Wow. For all that time, I could just use the laptop. My Mac comes out of sleep in about 2 or 3 seconds. I can open the program, look at what I want, and close it back up in under 20. How long would it take me to get details on an appointment with these little screens. Can I even do that? My Mac uses almost no power when in sleep mode (it tells me when it comes out of sleep that it could stay that way for about 10 days). And newer macs have a disk based sleep mode that uses NO power (instead of next-to-no-power).

Sure, it may be useful if you keep your laptop on your desk and you want to be able to glance over at it... but if you do that, leave the laptop plugged in and turned on.

This seems like a solution in search of a problem. People like the little screens on their phones because they can see who is calling. The screen on the laptop doesn't provide that. See if you got new e-mail messages? Nope. It would either have to talk to the e-mail server (waste of battery, complex) or it would have to get the mail program to check (which involves basically running the laptop all the time).

And, after all of this, if you want to act on something you see on the screen by running the program in Windows, you either have to open the lid and wait for it to come out of sleep (can take awhile, from the laptops I've seen around me), or the computer was off and you have to turn it on and wait for a full boot. Genius.

I'm with another post. For that price ($30) you can easily embed 256MB (or maybe even 512 since it doesn't have to bee too small) of Flash on the motherboard and boot the OS kernel and some other stuff out of that. That would cut boot times a ton. That would save power (don't spin up the disk unless you need it). That would make sense.

But adding a little screen that won't give you much value? Don't bother.