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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 keep my laptop on in sleep mode, and you keep your special display and processor.
Sadly, the current anti-nuclear stance of the public makes such "nuclear batteries" an unlikely development. Just throw it atop the pile of cool technologies that have never seen the light of day.
If you ever break your atomic battery, you'll never need the light of day again, as you'll glow in the dark rather spectacularly.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.