(Column) - After news regarding Intel’s Yonah microprocessor and its high battery consumption requirements were made public, Intel had to come up with a unique way of saving battery life, and needless to say, Intel came up with a surprisingly well defined solution that did just that.

Intel recently demonstrated notebooks that could run off flash memory (something Intel has recently started getting into). The system works on the principle that the commonly accessible files such as system files are stored on flash drives, and are thus accessed much faster than they would if they were stored on the old spindle hard drive. The benefits of this are twofold. First, as mentioned, the process makes booting up your PC near instant and second, since your system files are stored onto a flash drive, it consumes lesser amount of energy than the system would previously necessitate, which takes Intel closer to its goal of achieving a much higher 8-hour battery lifespan, an impossible feat previously.

As reported, nothing has been signed yet, but the possibilities are already interesting.

When Windows Vista debuts, it’ll support Smart Fetch technology, which basically enables you to store your prefetch folder on a removable drive. Intel has taken the extension slightly further and has stored the entire OS (most of it anyway) onto it. Two similar features obviously indicate a fair bit of close work done by both Microsoft and Intel. Maybe Apple will benefit from its implementation as well, since it will now be sourcing its processors from Intel. Apple could get its hands on this technology, which would ensure that Macintosh PCs don’t feel as underpowered as they do these days.

Could this be the future of computing? I vaguely remember reading an article on how a group has managed to make computer systems based purely on flash drives. It has a 100GB flash drive that acts as both the RAM and the hard disk, thereby enabling lightening quick response times and increasing the overall computing experience for the user.

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