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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."
I would assume the files you can read are special, because otherwise your no boot system is in its own booted status to read the files. At that time, you might as well boot the laptop.
This has been talked about for a few months, ever since Asus demoed a version like this. You can see a current take on it (with quite a few links) that works in Windows XP here: http://www.makezine.com/extras/41.html
Granted, it's ugly as sin, but it works and gives you space to start working on potential applications and uses for this technology.