Remember back when Windows 7 was first being talked about? We'd all gotten wind of that mysterious "MinWin" feature, which had scores of people thinking Microsoft was going to build in some sort of stripped-down instant-on computing option. That, of course, turned out not to be the case.
A new patent filing uncovered by Manan Kakkar seems to indicate that Windows 8 will, however, include instant-on capabilities. Dubbed the Direct Experience Platform (or DEX), the patent describes a system which closely resembles what you can already find today on a number of systems running Splashtop: press a button, see a splash screen, log in and check out your media.
The patent (and diagram above) also spells out that a sandbox mode will be part of DEX. Sandboxing is also a feature in the upcoming Windows Phone 7, so it's not too surprising to see Microsoft incorporating its security-boosting potential for Windows 8.
Tags: dex, direct experience platform, DirectExperiencePlatform, patent, sandboxing, win8, windows 8, Windows8
