From power off to Firefox web browsing in 5 seconds, by Asus and Splashtop

Hardware manufacturer, Asus, has introduced the first motherboard (P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP@n) with support for Splashtop, a technology that allows a computer to quickly boot an embedded Linux-based operating system with some frequently used applications.

ExpressGate, the rebranded Splashtop operating system comes with Skype and a rebranded version of Firefox 2 labeled Splashtop Browser. The guys at Phoronix managed to try the new motherboard and confirm that it has all major Firefox features including bookmarks, live bookmarks, clearing private data, etc. but not others like saving pages or opening locally stored files. It seems to me the only storage available is what can go into the profile so it is really for a quick browsing and not really to be used as your main browsing means.

From the ExpressGate screen a user can choose to set a few preferences like volume and screen resolution and connectivity, proceed to booting the main operating system or turn the computer off. The video below showcases what Splashtop technology is about.

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Splashtop
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I’ve seen no word yet on how flexible Splashtop is but it would be great if a user could add as many applications (quick doc, quick IM) as he wanted provided there is enough flash RAM available.

Source: Gemal’s Psyched Site.