So I'm building a quad-core system for a client this week, and I came across this INSANELY cool technology that I wanted to post on. Express Gate is an onboard ROM (comes with the motherboard), which is loaded with Splashtop, a proprietary linux environment which more or less takes the place of BIOS. It can play movies and music off the hard drive, pull up maps, videos, emails, and IM from the net, all from an embedded environment, and it loads almost INSTANTLY. You can still have your traditional OS, which boots from the Splashtop menu. Check it out- www.splashtop.com

You know, I think my brother mentioned something about that a few days ago. I was kinda busy right then so I'll have to ask him about it. At any rate, after a casual overview and your description, it's lookin' pretty dang sweet.

It's pretty killer. It started with one high end board, apparently all the new Asus mobos will have it now. It makes one wonder, with no need for a hard drive, how cheaply one could build e-machines NOW? Hmmm...