Picture this: You catch the 6:00 a.m. flight to San Francisco for a late-morning meeting. With only minutes to spare, you board the plane and throw your coat in the overhead. You put your laptop bag under the seat in front of you, when you realize you need to check something. The flight attendant is telling everyone to shut off electronic devices, but you need to check something fast and don't have time to turn on your laptop. You pull your bag out, unzip it, and instead of firing up your Vista-powered notebook and waiting for Windows to boot, you simply glance at an external LCD that displays the information that you need. You zip the bag back up and put it back under the seat. It took all of 30 seconds. This is Vista Windows SideShow in action.

 

Found exclusively in the Vista operating system, Windows SideShow is a technology that enables manufacturers to build a secondary or auxiliary display into notebooks. This display can be used to view widget-like "gadgets" or mini programs you can download. These gadgets collect specific information stored on your PC and send it to the Windows SideShow component for easy access. You can view scheduling information, phone numbers, addresses, maps, e-mail, and images. For example, you can download a gadget that enables you to view all of your instant messaging contacts. You can listen to music and view photos, too.

 

The reason all this can be done while your notebooks is powered off is because SideShow devices use their own internal flash to store information. This also helps preserve your system's battery life. Since the information in SideShow cannot be updated while the computer is off, users can set their notebooks to wake up and cull new e-mail from Outlook, every twenty minutes, for example, and then return to sleep state.

 

SideShow isn't limited to notebooks; manufacturers are including the technology in cell phones, remote controls, digital picture frames, and a host of other soon-to-be released devices. To learn more about this very cool technology, and to see the different ways it can work for you, we've assembled five of our favorite Windows SideShow-enabled items.