Intel's Robson flash technology is impressive, when it works
Aaron McKenna
June 14, 2006 14:14
Taipei (Taiwan) - Intel is promising that its "Robson" technology will cut down computer boot times to as much as half of what they currently stand at.
Come to think of it, cutting down by half isn't all that impressive, but I think they're trying to be conservative in their estimates. If they're talking about a new installation, that's probably right, but if you're like most users, startup times are now likely to be several times when you first started using the system. If you bought from HP or Dell, it might have been slower to start with because of all the programs installed and loaded at startup.
Many people could more than half their startup times right now by reinstalling Windows. Or they can solve some of the startup problems ( google.com ) and take action to eliminate much of the unused programs that always load ( google.com ). The added benefit is that it speeds up overall usage by reducing unnecessary memory usage and wasted processor cycles. You just need to spend some time and effort and know what you're doing.
I'm still waiting for "instant on" systems, and half of 45 seconds to several minutes doesn't quite get there. Less than 5 seconds, and we're getting close to "instant on", which is what I hope Vista and flash speedups brings to hibernation and standby restarts.
Whether or not Apple users will find themselves loading whatever it is Apple users load in the blink of an eye, is another question entirely. We got a "No comment" from Patterson, as Apple is incredibly secretive about what it wants to do in the future, and so Intel is probably better off keeping its mouth shut. However, Patterson did tell us that he didn't see why Robson shouldn't be able to work on Intel-based Macs in the future. I'd bet a bit of my cap that we'll be seeing a tootey fruity version of Robson soon enough.
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple beats Vista on this feature with their next OS upgrade. Especially since fingers are pointing to Microsoft, so if Intel's side of things are working, and Apple is first off the gate on this, we'll know who's behind. If Apple doesn't have this working, then is quite possible the Intel hardware just isn't ready. We'll probably get part of an answer in July, with lots of Apple stuff going on. |
