Intel subsidiary Wind River has announced a series of software modules that allow Android OEMs and developers to quickly add functionality to Google's OS — and perhaps make mobile devices act more like traditional PCs in the process. The Solution Accelerator modules come in three flavors — Medical, Connectivity, and User Experience — and while the first two implement Bluetooth Health Device Protocol and DLNA support, respectively, it's the latter that takes the biggest leap. The User Experience module adds a multi-windowed environment, allowing several active windows on a device at any given time, just like a traditional desktop OS. Speedier boot times and a new firmware management system are also part of the package.
Currently Android acts like its other popular mobile brethren, with one application taking over the screen at any given time. Widgets have provided users more dynamic functionality for some time, but as devices scale in size and multi-tasking becomes an essential priority, the need for a more robust solution is obvious. It's not clear how well Wind River's solution will work in practical applications, or if its modules are ready for Ice Cream Sandwich (the sample image is decidedly not based upon Google's latest release). Wind River will be showing off their wares at CES 2012, however — and we'll have more details for you then!

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This is great. For Honeycomb and ICS multi-core tablets, this functionality will really be a cool thing to have.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 8:58 AM EST reply Recommend (12) Flag actions
i’m thinking more ATV / GTV
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:16 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
How? Tiny phone-sized windows on tiny tablet devices, all competing for screen space.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 11:28 AM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
That’s how Windows 8 is going to work if you don’t want to use Metro.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:01 PM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
I will use OneNote only in full screen mode – that’s what tablets are made for (yes, any tablet without a pen is rubbish).
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:38 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
And…..that’s it? Is that the only thing you’re going to use? There are many different applications that do similar things. They can even export to OneNote.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 1:12 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
I have yet to see that operating system on a discless tablet or some other device using a winded down power efficient processor. CULVs don’t count… not really.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 4:15 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
People should really take the time to look at this demo on youtube of it running on an ice cream sandwich tablet interface:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX8w3UZIjkc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 2:02 PM EST via mobile reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Makes a bit more sense now doesn’t it?
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 2:03 PM EST via mobile reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
I think that this Cornerstone app is a very good implementation of simple, live multitasking on an Android tablet for factor…
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 2:20 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
That’s perfect. Too bad it’s not available in any shape or form for users, only OEMs. Asus ought to put it on the quad-core Transformer Prime. That would really differentiate them from the competition, and let you put those cores to good use.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 5:00 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
It’s time to replace the ChromeOS with Android for Desktop/Laptop
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:00 AM EST via mobile reply Recommend (15) Flag actions
It’s time for Chrome OS to quietly die and make room for Android.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:49 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Chrome OS has a huge role to play in future OS developments even if it doesn’t shift that many devices.
Apart from a decreasing pool of specialist Applications/Programs, Web Apps are the future, why run a whole OS, whether it’s Android, Windows, iOS, Mac OS, Linux etc when the browser becomes essentially the OS
Chrome is Chrome OS, Chrome OS may not make it into the mainstream & it may fade but that would be a shame really because people a buying hardware to run bloat (the OS) when all the OS needs to be is a browser on steroids
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 11:09 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
That is the future that google wants you to believe in.
Bloated OS? So bloated browser sounds better for you??? Talking about hardware to support bloated browser, try to run a heavy flash or HTML5 app in your html browser.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:28 PM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
I would much prefer the Windows 8 style split screen to an overlapping windows desktop. Tiling window managers are the bomb, but have never made it into the mainstream before.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:09 AM EST reply Recommend (7) Flag actions
Is this a joke?
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:19 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Why would I be joking? Managing traditional overlapping windows on a touchscreen tablet would be a huge pain in the ass. Tiling or split screen gives you more flexibility than full screen apps, but saves you a lot of the hassle of a traditional window manager.
There’s a ton of apps for OS X that provide tiling window manager like capabilities (Divvy, Cinch, SizeUp), and there are lots of tiling window managers for Linux (Ion, Bluetile, XMonad). Aero snap does something similar for Windows, with the limitation that it’s only two-up (aka side-by-side), and the new split screen mode in Windows 8 metro gives you a bit more flexibility than that by positioning the split.
I think it’s a great way to manage multiple apps on the screen at once. Covers the vast majority of use cases for needing more than one window at once and leaves out the whole issue of window placement, sizing, controls, etc. that you run into with a overlapping window manager.
Don’t knock it ’til you try it.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:37 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Windows 1 was just ahead of its time then?
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:38 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Windows 1 was designed for small screens. As screens got bigger, overlapping Windows started to make sense. On tablets, they don’t. But if you connect your tablet to a big screen, they will make sense again.
What I’m trying to say is, Windows 8 is very thought through and exactly how the OS of the future has to work.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:42 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
You didn’t specify tablets. You just said “Tiling window managers are the bomb, but have never made it into the mainstream before.” while mentioning an OS that already does tiling windows. Was a little confusing.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:47 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Windows 8 isn’t quite a tiling window manager like the options for OS X and Linux I mentioned. It’s also not out yet.
Also, I prefer tiling windows on my desktop too. Overlapping is just extra hassle.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 4:47 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Agreed. I’d love to be able to pull up the multitasking menu, drag a thumbnail to one side of the screen in an Aero Snap sort of way and have the two apps running side by side with 50% of the screen each.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:30 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Not much of a fan to be honest. I can see the appeal for it on a tablet but not on phones. Hopefully they can improve the UI as I find that very ugly! Perhaps the WebOS way of swiping apps into and out of focus would be better?
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:13 AM EST reply Recommend (4) Flag actions
i think this is for tablets, or TV’s.
i find it funny it comes on the heels of seeing the ATV2 do this.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:15 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
i believe that ChromeOS should be part of android OS , BTW its 2008 world cup :p
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:13 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
there wasn’t a Worldcup in 2008.. this was from France ’98 the black player is called Marcel Desailly
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:34 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Is that 1.6 I see? Ugh. Hope the newest version at CES will be ICS, because this is actually an OK idea.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:17 AM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
As much as I love windows-based desktop GUIs, I feel there’s probably a fair bit of downside to the same type of UI on a tablet or phone.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:17 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
For phones – yes. For tablets – no downside at all.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:24 AM EST reply Recommend (5) Flag actions
The demo screenshot is carefully arranged so that none of the control buttons from different windows are clustered right next to each other. Real world, I could see that happening all the time, and it would be a major pain to deal with when you’re using a fat finger instead of a precise mouse, and accidentally tapping the wrong button.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:32 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Well nothing stops you from carefully arranging as in the screenshot. In a real world you do the same on your computer – arrange all the windows the way you want and
Especially on large displays.Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:41 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Meh, wake me up when Android has toggle switches and blinking lights.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:34 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
It’s needed but it doesn’t really look good.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:35 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
the one really great thing i’m loving about webOS on my fire sale TouchPad is the Card View mode that lets me stack and arrange miniaturized "cards"of active app “windows”. If an app is active you see a card. Close an app by flinging its card up off the top of the screen or pulling it downward to slingshot it off. It’s such an intuitive multitasking UI for desktop OS users to transition to on a mobile platform, whenever I try to use iOS or Android the absence of it makes me pull out my hair.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:05 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Heh, I’m one of those that still fail to see how webOS’s way of app switching is functionally better than iOS’s- it’s just different. (I have a Touchpad and an iPad). Sure I can see which apps are currently running in webOS, but then I have to close them when I don’t want them which I don’t have to do in iOS.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:53 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Well I like the way that Android handles it, iOS is about the same as well I believe. Never used webOS. What is needed in Android, if they ever want to make it to laptop replacements (such as the case with Asus Transformers) they really need some kind of windows. Not to control or switch apps, but to actually be able to see two or more apps at once.
For example writing something on word while I look up something in wikipedia. And of course switching between should be made a lot easier. I wouldn’t want to see kind of a start bar or a dock, I really believe the running apps should be concealed (other than the apps I want to see obviously), because I wouldn’t want it to get crowded. So double tapping home button in this case should be sufficient.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 2:33 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
i think that windows aren’t as good on tablets because they aren’t really as good on touch screens. better multitasking methods are available.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:39 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
As a daily user of tablet devices, I can tell you that the reality of multitasking on any of them currently is nowhere near as good as even a minimalistic desktop GUI OS. There are often times that I wish that I could really run more than one app and also VIEW them at the same time—even on a 10" screen…
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:03 AM EST via mobile reply Recommend Flag actions
I love the portability and low power consumption of tablet devices, but I hate the lack of flexibility in their multitasking capabilities.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:06 AM EST via mobile reply Recommend Flag actions
If the current crop of mobile OSs can’t step up soon, we may have to hope for the best with Windows 8 on ARM…
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:08 AM EST via mobile reply Recommend Flag actions
you may get your wish soon enough. Intel projects can die, but ATV2 will surely be getting that functionality as it was previewed to us over xmas.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:18 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
As an owner of an Apple TV, I have to say that I’m not talking about jailbroken hacks here, I’m talking about actual and deliberate functionality for the OS and underlying hardware… Sorry, but what,s floating around on YouTube isn’t all that… Nobody is making the claim that ARM processors are incapable of true, live multi window or screen multi-tasking (just look at the Playbook). It’s the execution implementation (or lack thereof) on preferred platforms that is lacking…
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 1:53 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Linux > Android > Linux
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 9:54 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
May just as well run a proper Linux OS with a tablet UI. Not like theres a short supply of them.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:16 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
yeah but for 90% of people that means unity.
which sucks.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:17 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
By all accounts Unity has gotten much more functional in 11.10. And task-oriented Gnome 2.x level extensibility isn’t a goal on touchscreen UI.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:19 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
That last time i looked at it, it was a launcher. Anything significantly change in terms of functionality?
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:31 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Unity a shell interface or a desktop manager. It comes with a launcher but it is a lot more than a launcher. Ubuntu replaced Gnome desktop with Unity in 11.04. Personally I prefer Gnome over Unity but I also think unity is not as bad as people say.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:59 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
seems like wind river takes the old approach of android and gets it done as shown in the tour of androids ui. interesting, though :)
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:32 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
So Android has windows but Windows Metro doesn’t have windows. That’s messed up.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:50 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
And so Android for desktop was born.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:51 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
It was born as Linux 21 years ago
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 10:53 AM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
This is a terrible, terrible idea. You take away simplicity that made tablets so popular and you replace it with complexity that was so unusuble on tablets in the first place.
“perhaps make mobile devices act more like traditional PCs in the process” … WHY? Why would I even want that? Tables are sucessful because they are NOT like traditional PCs. I really don’t understand at all why would anyone want to make devices that are not at all like PCs to act more like PCs. I thought that everyone understood this after huge success of tablets and tablet operating systems carefully crafted to avoid exactly all these old cliches of traditional desktop UIs.
I can understand the need of seeing 2 apps at the same time sometimes. But do it like Win8 then – in some new more tablety way. Not with dumb old windows again.
I can see this on some super cheap indian/chinesse notebooks sold for $30 using this “Windroid” to run it on cheap hardware and mimic desktop OS. But I really can’t see this being sucessful on tablets and other mobile devices.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 11:32 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Thank You! I was just thinking the exact same thing. Is this REALLY where we want tablets to go? I thought the point of a tablet UI was that its NOT windows. Why would Google/Apple/Microsoft work so hard at making a brand new user experience and UI only to go back to exactly what they’ve had for 20 years? I mean do they think that it was just hardware why tablets haven’t taken off before now? It was because the windowed OS interface is a failure on small touch screens. The market has proven this over and over. Don’t believe me? Have a look at the HP windows tablet that failed miserably a few years ago. Or any of the other convertible notebook to tablet computers that came out the last 10 years. None of them had major commercial success.
If you need a windowed environment go get a notebook.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 11:49 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Controlling Windows and Mac OS X through remote desktop apps and the experience it provides leads me to agree with you completely.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:45 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
the alarm just went off in redmond
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 11:42 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
This is awesome. I plan someday replacing my soon-to-be-dead laptop with an ASUS transformer prime or whatever is the best when my leptop dies and this really makes it more of a practical option. And as far as competing for space, I can understand that for the 7 inch screens but for a 10 incher, I’m sure it’ll work beautifully.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:05 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:12 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
http://www.facebook.com/onskreen.cornerstone
Why hasn’t this really gotten any press? I mean, besides the fact it hasn’t really been shown I guess, but I think this is a potentially very useful implementation of Android multi-tasking.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 12:29 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Thanks for the tip on this! I’ve added the link to their YouTube video of the app running on ICS to my earlier comments. Awesome app tat I hope they make available soon. I hope it works well even on a dual core Tegra 2 platform. If not, getting this functionality may be enough to push me to upgrade even sooner than I expected to. ;-)
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 2:25 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
They had actual hardware running it on gingerbread I believe. It looks very useful, especially for someone like me with an Asus Transformer.
Technically it’s not an app, it’s baked into the OS.
On a side note, the fact that people can build stuff like this right into the OS is one of the really cool things about Android
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 3:41 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
The Gingerbread demo worked on a Tegra 2 very smoothly.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 5:01 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
That’s just perfect. Asus really ought to put that on the Transformer Prime. Differentiation and put the four cores to good use. Shame I can’t download it in some form and roll up a ROM with it.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 5:01 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
ive always thought of android as the mobile type of windows. Microsoft no longer wants to be that but google does. I guess google is turning into microsoft.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 1:47 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
This isn’t Google made.
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 1:57 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
i know but still
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 3:46 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
this would ease the problem of not having enough tablet-optimized apps on honeycomb. having phone apps in small windows would feel a little more ‘natural’
Posted on Jan 07, 2012 | 2:41 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
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