Posted 12/03/09 at 09:11:42 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Intel has announced that they are moving ahead with reckless abandon to create an app store for netbooks. Their goal is to have the store preinstalled on all Atom based netbooks running both Windows and Mobiln. The apparent model for the store is suspiciously similar to that of the Apple App Store. Developers would get 70% of sales and the remaining 30% would go to Intel. Intel also plans to review apps in a manner similar to Apple, but hopefully Intel won’t be as fussy.

It’s an interesting idea, but few details are available. Intel simply claims the store will launch sometime in 2010. Developers can get the SDK now from the Intel site. Will anyone be able to create compelling enough paid apps to attract users? After all, most netbooks are Windows based and there are a plethora of applications that run just fine on them. Do you expect anything interesting to come of this, or is the idea of a closed netbook app store a non-starter?

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Posted 04/10/09 at 04:09:33 PM by Andy Salisbury

For some time now Intel has been working on a Linux-based operating system (now in its alpha stage of testing), named Moblin. The goal of Moblin is to provide the Atom CPU a light and fast OS that is far less demanding than a full version of Windows.

According to those in the alpha test, Moblin can offer two second boot times (with some optimization). If all this were true, then it would give us the fastest booting OS available. Intel’s Open Source Technology Center director Imhad Sousou is very much on board as well, stating, “We think that two second boot is possible.”

A two second boot would provide an ideal platform for mobile systems (such as netbooks and MIDs) to operate on. For many, having a system in sleep mode (which drains the battery) is preferable to booting the system each and every time they want to use it. The concept of a two second boot would eliminate the need for this.

So, given the concept of a two second boot, would you be willing to ditch Windows and give Moblin a try? Let us know in the comments!

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