ARM-optimized advanced platform

Our devices come with multiple Linux-based distributions, running on an ARM processor. This includes our home-made Angstrom-based OS, Android, our own adaptation of Google chromium (while waiting for a stable and complete release), Ubuntu.

Tremendous work was necessary to adapt all these distributions to our devices, especially because of the need to optimize the support of our hardware (accelerometer, screen rotation, touchscreen, and more). All OS are running on the 2.6.32 Linux kernel, and got several optimizations to take benefits of the advanced instructions available in the chipset.

Note that you will not be able to install Windows OS or Mac OS on the Touch Book or the Smart Book.

Hot multi-OS switching: You won't have to choose any more!

Several OS on the same machine at the same time? Yes, that's possible and without any performance loss. You can indeed choose and switch between several OSes installed on the device at runtime.

By just pressing the magic AI button, you get a simple menu, letting you literally switch between several OS running at the same time on the same machine on a single processor. Instant-play, you can take the most of each OS, which means in our case: our AIOS, Android, Ubuntu, and ChromiumOS. Best of all, you can share your documents between those side-by-side instances.

Everything out-of-the-box

You want to run all OS at the same time, but you also want to access all services and run all applications. That's what we are offering on the Touch Book and the Smart Book! Everything comes ready out-of-the-box! You like video streaming websites such as Youtube and Hulu: not a problem. Enjoy the videos in your sofa with the Touch Book. You want to do free calls within the US, use Gmail phone on the Smart Book. Your prefer to use Skype: you can do it too.

There is one thing that we don't provide: Flash because we think that it's very bad software. Adobe has released some poorly written products with many security issues. Their business model relies on a monopoly while closing their standard as much as possible. As true innovators, we prefer to leave on the side such a product that behaves at the opposite of our core beliefs. But our device is open: you are free to install it yourself if it's what you want.

Open source, really

Our team believes in the *real* open source model and strongly supports it. Following this philosophy, you can freely access our entire existing code, and even compile it yourself following the instructions on our wiki.

More than that, we provide as much as free support as possible to our user community, through our forums and in the IRC chatroom (check out #touchbook). There you can ask us for any help, especially on building your own software for our products.