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Voodoo Envy 133 starts shipping, corrugated boxes seen sweating
Not a whole to say that we haven't already summed up in the title, but that hot little Voodoo Envy 133 is finally shipping right about now. A whole host of to-be owners have already received tracking numbers, and some folks have already had the pleasure of peeling away the tape and gettin' busy. So, are you still waiting for yours to leave the dock, or is it already halfway to your abode?[Via CNET, image courtesy of Playername]
SplashTop instant-on OS hacked to run other programs, boot off flash drives
DeviceVM's SplashTop "instant-on" OS is based on Linux, even though it's locked down to only run IM, Skype, media software, and Firefox, and you know what that means -- it's already been hacked wide open. Yep, the clever kids at the Phoronix forums have managed to open up the BIOS-based OS and make it do all kinds of tricks, including run other programs and boot other machines off a flash drive. The hacks are still a little complex, but with ASUS shipping tons of ExpressGate-enabled mobos and laptops and HP's support in the Voodoo Envy 133, we'd there's a one-click unlocker in the wild fairly soon. Anyone brave enough to install it on their machines?[Thanks, george85]
First look at the Envy 133's instant 5-second OS
For those of you still able to focus, able to avoid a gobsmacked trance evoked by the unabashed sex of the Voodoo Envy 133, listen up. LAPTOP went hands-on with a pre-production Voodoo Envy 133 running the instant-on, Linux-based IOS (aka, DeviceVM's Splashtop) and came away "really impressed" by the "game changing" technology. Instead of waiting for Vista to steal another boot-minute from your day, IOS boots in just seconds letting you surf the web in just 15 seconds from a cold start -- 4-5 seconds for IOS boot, another 10 or so to launch the Mozilla-based "Splashtop browser." The IOS also presents users with a Pidgin chat (AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo, and more) client, voice-only Skype, and multi-media playback of photos and music. Let's face it, often, very often, this is all the functionality we need from our laptops, right Eee PC owners? Of course, you can boot to Vista from IOS or shut the laptop down if that spreadsheet can wait another day. Now hit up that read link to check the video hands-on.
