Intel revealed some interesting research on EFI or Extensible Firmware Interface on the IDF Spring in San Jose. Mark Doran, Intel's principal engineer behind the new approach to the rather old Basic Input / Output System said, that BIOS is producing more and more problems as technology advances. Read more... EFI is a tiny operating system in its own right, freed from the constraints of the BIOS. The first difference people will see is in the splash screen, the display the PC shows when first turned on. Unlike the BIOS, EFI supports high-resolution displays. Likewise, it can run with a proper graphical user interface, rather than the blocky text-only interface. EFI also has its own networking, so it can be used for remote diagnostics. The EFI specification is primarily intended for the next generation of IA-32 and Itanium® Architecture-based computers, and is an outgrowth of the "Intel Boot Initiative" (IBI) program that began in 1998. The BIOS is the last place on the PC where people have to write in low-level assembler code, and we want to end that," he said. Instead, EFI is almost entirely written in the C programming language and allows additions to be created using standard programming tools. Such additions can include much more detailed and useful diagnostics, self-configuration programs, and ways to sort out problems even if the operating system has died. Visit Intel EFI