Dude where's my desktop?
A number of companies have been working on web sites that feature a virtual desktop. The basic premise is surprisingly simple, you log onto a web site and see icons, windows a task bar - not unlike the metaphor presented by your laptop or desktop computer.
YouOS - A web operating system
Like your machine's desktop you can move, size, and close application windows as you please. Your files reside online where they can be easily shared and transferred. Comfortable computing may finally become a reality, as ultra-light-weight devices forgo their own internal software for remotely accessible applications.
The concept becomes appealing when you consider that many people use more than one computer during the course of a day. If you do a fare amount of traveling the thought of being able to enter an Internet cafe in a distant land and access a familiar desktop may be appealing.
It's enticing to be sure! However, The concept has been around for a few years and hasn't taken off. The problem is at least two-fold, rich media technology still doesn't deliver a comparable desktop experience and online application suites are still limited when compared to their desktop equivalents.
Do a search on "WebTop" and "WebOS" and you'll find at least a dozen companies offering a web-centric computing experience. There's a good Wikipedia article on WebOS that might be a good place to start.
I've played around with this concept for nearly two years and can appreciate the difficulty in making this vision a reality. My own ZoeyBot website offers kids a desktop centered around the concept of search. My plan (time permitting) is to extend the site by offering desktop tools and the ability to customize the virtual desktop environment.
Search goes Open Source
January flew by in a flash, and it's already past mid month in February. I was going through the list of GigaOM episodes when I encountered an interview with Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia). His current focus is a for-profit venture called Wikia.
The basic premise behind Wikia Search is that search should be Open Source. From a technical perspective Wikia Search leverages other open source projects such as Lucene (an indexing and search technology) and Nutch (a web search application which builds on Lucene). Wikia search combines traditional search and people powered search, as Wikia search results can include 'mini articles' which reference wikipedia-like content. An alpha version of the Wikia Search was launched on January 7th, just under a month and a half ago, so it's still very much a work in progress.
Wales appeared at the Digital Life and Design conference held last month in Munich where he spoke a bit about Wikia.
Carlos Justiniano: technologist, veteran software developer, world record holder, entrepreneur.