“Tired of Windows? The next generation of laptops may let you jump from one operating system to another to play movies, surf the Web or read e-mail,” Peter Svensson reports for The Associated Press.
MacDailyNews Take: The next generation? So, soon? Wow, this is amazing! And, really, who’s tired of Windows?
Svensson continues, “Phoenix Technologies Ltd., a leading maker of the software that controls Windows computers most basic workings, announced this week that it will offer a feature it calls HyperSpace to laptop manufacturers. Woody Hobbs, the Milpitas, Calif.-based company’s chief executive, said the first application of the technology probably will show up next summer in the shape of laptops that can play DVDs outside Windows.”
MacDailyNews Take: Play DVDs on a laptop without Windows? Come on, that can’t be possible, can it?
Svensson continues, “”The HyperSpace environment would be based on Linux, giving the freely distributed operating system what could be its biggest break yet in the struggle to gain traction against Windows on PCs. User will be able to boot in a few seconds straight into the DVD player, skipping the longer Windows startup, or switch to the DVD player from Windows. If Windows is running at the same time, it can be put in sleep mode, prolonging battery life,” Svensson reports. “Computer management functions like antivirus scanning could also be performed outside Windows, improving security, Hobbs said.”
Full article here.
Bryan Gardiner reports for Wired, “There’s absolutely no reason you should be waiting the three-plus minutes it takes your computer to boot up Windows, says Woody Hobbs.”
MacDailyNews Take: Three-plus minutes to boot up your computer?
Gardiner continues, “‘As Windows gets more and more complex, we’ve seen startup times get longer and longer,’ says Hobbs. ‘If I go to the airport and try to connect to a Wi-Fi network, I’m waiting for five minutes just to connect. That’s ridiculous — people usually just give up and use their cell phones or PDAs.'”
MacDailyNews Take: They do? And here we’ve been just opening our notebook’s lid and connecting in about 10 seconds for years. What are we doing wrong?
Gardiner continues, “In essence, HyperSpace is a simple operating environment, a layer on top of the BIOS, that runs side-by-side with Windows and can efficiently implement some of the most commonly used apps on a PC.”
MacDailyNews Take: Multiple OSes on a single laptop? What’ll they think of next?!
Gardiner continues, “Chipmakers and PC manufacturers have been trying to liberate themselves from lengthy startup times for a while, according to Hobbs, but the experience has been ‘controlled up in Seattle.’ Indeed, Hobbs says Microsoft regards HyperSpace as ‘outside their sphere of influence,’ and is not too happy with Phoenix’s offering, which adds yet another voice to the already loud chorus of voices complaining about operating-system bloat.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, we must be doing something wrong. We’re just not having any of these lengthy startup times.
Gardiner continues, “Steve Grobman, director of Intel’s Business Client Architecture Group, says Intel will continue working with Phoenix and companies doing similar things in virtual or embedded environments, like VMware and Parallels.”
MacDailyNews Take: VMware and Parallels… VMware and Parallels… VMware and Parallels… Sounds oddly familiar… Oh, well, we’ll have to Google them later.
Gardiner continues, “Those problems don’t just entail slow boot times. At a basic level, they also have to do with Microsoft dictating user experience as a whole, regardless of what machine you’re using. In that vein, Phoenix says its HyperSpace platform could very well usher in a new era of ultrapersonalized PCs and laptops.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ultrapersonalized PCs and laptops whose user experiences aren’t dictated by Microsoft? Okay, this is devolving into crazy talk now.
Gardiner continues, “‘Historically, Windows has defined the machine,’ Hobbs says, ‘and (manufacturers) can’t really do anything about that. Now, we’re giving them the ability to develop the machine in the way they want.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Imagine giving a manufacturer the ability to develop a personal computer however they want! Like we said: crazy talk. However, HP and Dell and some others have developed some, uh, “interesting” case designs on their own, seemingly without even needing input from professional industrial designers, so maybe we’d get some equally interesting new user experiences with their software.
Gardiner continues, “Like VMware and Parallels, Hobbs says the platform isn’t supposed to be a replacement for Windows, but rather a much-needed augmentation. Not only will the technology provide ‘instant-on’ use, but it will also boost battery life by up to 50 percent as well as offer remote manageability.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Instant-on” use: sounds like that weird thing we do with just opening the lid. Something must be wrong. Maybe we should get some of that antivirus scanning stuff, too? We’d better get the Geek Squad on the horn.
Gardiner continues, “Phoenix is currently in talks with most major PC manufacturers, with the notable exception of Apple.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ha! Apple. Of course, Phoenix doesn’t want to talk to them.
Gardiner continues, “The company expects that manufacturers will start to integrate the HyperSpace platform into laptops within the next six to nine months, with consumers likely seeing a HyperSpace option from manufacturers in the second half of 2008.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Second half of 2008 and we could instantly play DVDs without Microsoft Windows! This “HyperSpace” thing is like the first step towards OS-unlimited computers! We can hardly wait!!!
@ Mr. Peabody & ChrissyOne
IMHO, this idea of each app having it’s own particular OS is not a good one. It reminds me of how certain “big name” PhotoShop plug-ins work. They typically have nonintuitive and complicated, artsy-fartsy, Kai Krause interfaces that “take over” PhotoShop.
I’ll pass, thank you.
@ nobodi
True. But just because no one has done it right yet, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Speaking of Kai, you can catch up with him at Byteburg. (if you speak German)
BBBBBWWWWWAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
BIOS?!?! isn’t that what made a slide-rule slide?
MDN:rest
-for the rest there is the best-you know what I’m talking about…..
Blame primarily Microsoft but also other developers for lack of portability, its about formats and protocols. Control the format/protocol and you don’t have to compete, eg .doc.
This in effect has already been tried, the major hardware makers got together and built a system for application portability but the application vendors thought it would eat their lunch. It was called OpenDoc and was the join effort of Apple, Sun and IBM. When it was squashed Sun tried again with Java, trying to do it more or less on their own was difficult and Microsoft fucked that up for them too, it ended up costing millions in lawyers and diverting their attention from their core business.
The software industry is worse than the music industry for gouging customers, almost every other product made goes down in price as volume increases but not software, worse still it has virtually zero production costs and these days virtually zero distribution costs. Don’t count the massive support costs, they are only there because the products were faulty in the first place. The phrase software engineer is a joke, no real engineer would produce products with such faults, they test and work them out.
Adobe is worth $25.5 billion and that’s after a couple of bad days on the markets, how farcical is that. That’s more than the whole music business. Windows and Office cost less than $10 to actually write, they should cost no more than $30 retail.
Look at the price that Apple sell their applications for, to a market a tiny fraction of the size of the Windows market. Look at the price of games, well complex labour intensive products with relatively small markets. Hell shareware writers have become millionaires – it only takes 50,000 copies at $20, the market is more than half a billion if applications were totally cross platform, no wonder the Adobes and Microsofts of this world don’t want to let the little guy in. Fragmenting the market makes money, confuses customers, makes them make bad decisions and have to buy twice, how many versions of Vista are there?
Imagine what Linux would be like if they didn’t have to spend much of their time battling to build workarounds and compatability with Microsoft’s junk, just the fact that Linux phenomenon exists is proof that the market is totally distorted.
The fact that Microsoft is the richest company in the world, that thieving Bill Gates is well respected by many people (lots of them other unethical greedy bastards who respect money and not the person or deeds) is just so sick that it defies belief.
If I were Microsoft this would be pretty worrying. I’d be envisioning a not-too-distant future in which Windows is reduced to an application compatibility layer, much like Classic was on OS X, that can be turned on and off as needed. As soon as users can avoid turning it on when they don’t really need it, it quickly becomes needed for less and less as more and more functionality moves outside Windows to the HyperSpace (aka Linux) environment.
The only thing that may stand between HyperSpace and the irrelevance of Windows is that little licensing provision that says you can’t virtualize Vista unless you have the most premium versions.
Usually I love the MDN comments, but here they just sound like morons. There is no instant-on with MacOS, you still have to boot the OS before you can run any programs. And while we are at it, my computer not takes almost 3 times as long to boot since I moved to Leopard. Hopefully Apple will patch that in the near future.