Splashtop has unveiled a new app aimed at helping developers build interfaces for the Windows 8 Metro interface on Android tablets and iPads. Win8 Metro Testbed ($25 in the App Store and Google Play) reproduces the Metro UI, and mirrors many of the capabilities of Microsoft's forthcoming operating system.
Splashtop has launched a remote deskop app ($25, App Store) for the iPad that lets users experience Windows 8's Metro UI. Meant for developers, Win8 Metro Testbed supports gestures and swipes with low latency, as demonstrated in the demonstration video, below. It does require a wireless connection to a host computer, however.
Android platform developer Splashtop has just released its Splashtop THD ($7, Android Market) app, meant exclusively for NVIDIA Tegra 3-powered tablets such as the ASUS Transformer Prime. The software lets users stream audio or video from their PCs and Macs to the tablet, including using nearly any desktop program, such as graphics-intensive games. This last part purportedly requires an NVIDIA GeForce graphics card in order to play titles like Skyrim in full-screen mode.
The Splashtop instant-on platform from DeviceVM is coming to Sony's VAIO NW-series notebook PCs and Acer's AspireRevo nettop PCs, as per a pair of Tuesday launches. Sony's implementation of the platform is called Quick Web Access, while Acer calls its RevoBoot. In either case, Splashtop, which could be described as a lightweight Linux operating system, allows users to access the Internet within a few seconds but without having to boot the full operating system.
Good OS, makers of the gOS Linux operating system that debuted in computers sold at Wal-Mart, on Monday announced it will soon introduce its Cloud operating system that can give users near-instant access to Google, Yahoo and Windows Live services, as well as rich client applications and multimedia content. Good OS introduced the Cloud on a GigaByte touch-screen netbook at the Netbook World Summit kicking off today in Paris, and will begin including Cloud alongside Windows XP on the PC builder's tablets early next year. When users need to do access more hardware-intensive programs, they can go from Cloud to Windows XP.
Lenovo today revealed an upgraded version of its IdeaPad S10 netbook that caters to owners looking for quicker access to the Internet. Where most netbooks have to wait as they boot into either Windows XP or a full Linux distribution, the S10e adds a Linux-based SplashTop interface dubbed QuickStart that starts up almost instantly and gives immediate access to most common Internet functions, including web browsing with Flash support, messaging and audio or video chats.
Microsoft could be hoping to preempt the further spread of Linux into its territory by developing its own pre-boot interface, a survey sent by a reader to Engadget shows. Tentatively called just Instant On, the proposed feature would mimic the approach taken with Dell's Latitude Instant On or the Splashtop interface on some ASUS mainboards and notebooks by giving users basic web browsing, media playback, and messaging in a special interface that would start in less than eight seconds.
