Asus EeePC spotted running SplashTop instant-on OS

You probably remember the SplashTop instant-on, Linux-based OS from past posts or perhaps developer DeviceVM's demo at last October's reader meetup in San Francisco. It's well known that this embedded feature will ship standard on select ASUS motherboards, but as we were cruising around the PC manufacturer's booth today, we happened to catch a rather unexpected application for SplashTop: running on the EeePC. Neither ASUS nor DeviceVM has made any announcements with regard to porting the software onto the popular ultra-portable laptop, but unless our eyes were deceiving us, this Eee was all ready to run Pidgin, Skype, or a browser without booting into the main OS. We'll keep our eye on this one, as the merger of these two technologies would certainly create quite the compelling user experience.

[comreich @ Jan 9th 2008 5:27PM]

Compelling is an understatement. Everything that WindowsCE HPC units promised, but in a useable package.

[Crazylink @ Jan 9th 2008 5:33PM]

And it's normal OS boots really quickly too.

[Nate @ Jan 9th 2008 5:36PM]

These Eee Pcs just keep getting better.

[Billg8s @ Jan 9th 2008 6:02PM]

Might that be a bootable flash-drive running the SplashTop ? -- I'm not intending to be a Debbie-Downer, but if so - it's not so much a magical feat of the EeePC. - But if it's using something like HyperSpace (http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/phoenix-technologies-launches-hyperspace-instant-on-embedded-o/) while-then,, that's really cool - I want to buy one today !

[CosterMonger @ Jan 9th 2008 6:10PM]

damn, that's what I was thinking

[Conan @ Jan 9th 2008 6:13PM]

Considering Asus already uses Splashtop via that same Phoenix bios in some of their motherboard products, I think it's far more likely they're considering extending it to some models of the eee PC than it is that someone's booting it off of a USB drive.

[Paul Lozen @ Jan 9th 2008 10:34PM]

Well, the Eee PC model with the most storage is only 8gb http://astore.amazon.com/asusnotebook-eeepc-20 , i guess it makes a lot of sense to boot from usb drive. Like the vmware on Flash drive http://www.vmware.com or running a Moka5 LivePC http://www.moka5.com

[webon @ Jan 9th 2008 11:47PM]

I understood less tha half of the posts before me, cuz am technologically inclined but not very much educated. that said wouldn't the Foleo be some what similar to the eeepc if youre not gonna boot on the os? for the instan on that is at least? and then why was the Foleo such a bad Idea then?

[??? @ Jan 10th 2008 12:26AM]

the Foleo couldn't really do much of anything without being coupled to a Treo, whereas the Eee is a full fledged laptop, albeit a tiny one.

[??? @ Jan 10th 2008 12:26AM]

the Foleo couldn't really do much of anything without being coupled to a Treo, whereas the Eee is a full fledged laptop, albeit a tiny one.

[jrhine @ Jan 10th 2008 12:26AM]

Well, it's not that the Foleo was a horrible idea just was delayed and scrapped by Palm because they were afraid the demand wouldn't be high.

And it's not like you can't use the OS, this is just an extra option so that you can do other things even more quickly and with more power savings if you so desire. (I mean they are selling the eeePC w/o Splashtop now so obviously they don't find it key for market appeal)

[L'Emmerdeur @ Jan 10th 2008 1:59PM]

The one issue I have with my OQO2 is that it takes at least 2-3 minutes before I am online, which sucks when all I need to do is find an address or some small bit of info like that. Instant-on is the one missing feature. Sure, you can get a WinMo phone with 3G, but try buying movie tickets or checking your Ameritrade account using a mobile browser.

[Dr. S. @ Feb 16th 2008 9:16AM]

For the past 20 (yes TWENTY) years I've been advocating moving substantial OS components to ROM (and later various types of PROM).

No one listens to EE engineers. MS and Apple both employ more artists and computer scientists. They've been lied to concerning the things that software (rather than hardware) can best accomplish.

The truth is that anything which needs to be dome quickly should be done with a hardware-based solution. My friend needed to find and factor prime numbers. He showed me his software, we analyzed it, rewrote it in a nice low-level language (this probably took us 30 hours), and then I was able to build the entire thing as chip. The final result, search times were improved by a factor of 10,000 (yes, that's ten-thousand times faster) than his original system. Admittedly, using the assembly language routine gave a 40-fold speed increase, so we should factor that out and call it a software improvement. Still, a dedicated hardware solution represented a 250-fold speed increase.

OSs typically spend a huge amount of time (and thus resources) doing repetitive tasks. This calls for OSs being largely built as hardware. I believe that with some moterhboard innovation, a 1GB bank of EEPROM could hold the OS which would only be updated rarely, that users would never have to "wait" to load, and which would be much more stable (less subject to viruses or various other troubles) than the current paradigm. In fact, they could even use ROMs and sell OSs much like processors or memory are now sold. Multi-boot systems would be so easy--you just need a motherboard that supports additional banks of ROMs.

Imgaine a car that wouldn't drive for 2 minutes each time you wanted to use it. Now imagine that every time you upgrade the car that delay increases. No one would buy it. How about an aircraft or a space shuttle. Why does everyone let countless hours of productivity slip away while Windows starts up (or reboots after a crash) the MS way? Folks, you must demand better! We embed higher-level software all the time. Windows XP (or Vista if you're a sucker), and Mac OS X (leopard, right?) could be modified for this purpose far more easily than creating a new OS--but they might need to send their Java/C++ hacks back to school for classes in microprocessors.

The last, and most damning analysis is an environmental one. How much energy is wasted worldwide while Windows (re)boots? It's certainly enough to run a small country. It's interesting to lay a part of the world's energy crises at Apple and Microsfots door.