Speed is the latest buzzword. If something is not faster, the public doesn’t want to be bothered with it. The word on that has not been lost on the folks at Phoenix, long time developers of the BIOS routines used in personal computers.
With reports of the BIOS moving from Power On Self Test to boot sequence in 1 second, and possible complete startup in 10 seconds, Phoenix has made huge strides in taking away a small annoyance for many.
Although I’ve never owned a machine in such poor repair, I have had to work on a few Dell machines, loaded with too little memory and Windows Vista, that clocked in at just over 8 minutes from start button to usable desktop. That might get to be very annoying for someone that has to start their machine more than once a day.
People who like to put a machine into sleep mode to avoid all of that still have a good amount of waiting to do, should the machine not be set up properly, or have a slow hard drive. Beyond that, the very fastest machines are still at the mercy of the startup routines, which have not changed appreciably in years. The new Phoenix makes changes to the way the boot takes place, and streamlines the new process.
from engadget
Phoenix is showing off a few interesting things at IDF, but the real standout is their new Instant Boot BIOS, a highly optimized UEFI implementation that can start loading an OS in just under a second. Combined with Windows 7’s optimized startup procedure, that means you’re looking at incredibly short boot times — we saw a retrofitted Dell Adamo hit the Windows desktop in 20 seconds, while a Lenovo T400s with a fast SSD got there in under 10. It’s pretty slick stuff, and it should be out soon.
UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, a specification begun by Intel a few years ago, yet largely ignored by the market.
from UEFI.org
UEFI is a community effort by many companies in the personal-computer industry to modernize the booting process. UEFI capable systems are already shipping, and many more are in preparation. During the transition to UEFI, most platform firmware will continue to support legacy (BIOS) booting as well, to accommodate legacy-only operating systems.
UEFI stands for “Unified Extensible Firmware Interface”. The UEFI specification defines a new model for the interface between personal-computer operating systems and platform firmware. The interface consists of data tables that contain platform-related information, plus boot and runtime service calls that are available to the operating system and its loader. Together, these provide a standard environment for booting an operating system and running pre-boot applications.
The Unified EFI Forum is the group responsible for developing, managing and promoting UEFI specifications. Further information about the UEFI specification and membership opportunities can be found throughout this Web site. The “Adopter” membership category is free. For additional information please contact UEFI Administration.
The current adopted spec is already at revision 2.3, yet the majority of the public has neither heard of, nor used a computer equipped with, UEFI. The UEFI interface promises many things not possible with a simple BIOS, and also would be a single spec, with none of the problems encountered by operating systems, and programs, running on machines that encounter different BIOS implementations from companies with names like Phoenix, Award, AMI, and Microid Research.
It will be much easier to navigate the boot process with a computer equipped with UEFI, and features such as the type shown as a mini-boot on some Asus motherboards, which will bring up a very streamlined version of Linux with a browser, will make quick checks of mail, weather, or anything else reached with a browser possible.
Things made difficult or fearful for the average user, such as setting up a dual boot system will be made much easier with a UEFI chip on the motherboard, making orphans of many programs designed to ease the trepidation that users have navigating the dark spaces of the boot process.
On the slightly dark side, UEFI, along with the Trusted Platform Module, will make things like the Hackintosh a more difficult prospect than it already is, and will make certain types of digital protection schemes more difficult to circumvent.
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