Microsoft and Apple beware - a 'virtual computer' could spell the end of the traditional operating system, says Claudine Beaumont.
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Thanks to web-based services such as Google Docs and Zoho, users are able to create Microsoft-compatible presentations, documents and spreadsheets that can be accessed, shared and edited online, from any machine. You can customise and personalise your virtual desktop with widgets - small programs that grab information from the internet, such as news headlines, weather reports and sports results, and present them in a clear, easy-to-use format on your desktop. Store your digital photos online, using services such as Flickr, so that they can be accessed and shared from any computer. Other web-based services, such as Meebo's instant-messaging tool, are a great way of staying in touch online. Next week, in Los Angeles, Microsoft will reveal details of its new Windows operating system, and is also expected to explain how it plans to enter the world of "cloud computing".
Cloud computing is considered the next big thing in the world of technology. Put simply, it means that rather than storing personal files and documents on your home computer, they will instead be stored on remote servers - known as the "cloud" - that can be accessed from any internet-enabled computer.
Likewise, software and programs, such as your word processing or photo-editing software, will not be installed on your home computer from an installation CD, but will live online instead and go with you, which ever computer you use.
Increasingly, software companies are waking up to the potential of products and services that make the best of cloud computing.
Google, for example, offers Google Docs, a free suite of Microsoft Office-style products that allows you to write letters and spreadsheets and create presentations online, and call up those documents on any computer.
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The fact that documents and photos live online also makes it easier for them to be shared, meaning that colleagues could collaborate on a project, or family members could follow an online photo travelogue of a student's gap-year by viewing the photos they've uploaded to services such as Flickr.
Microsoft is perhaps beginning to understand that its traditional business model of selling software on CDs is not built for the world of computing we now find ourselves in. The company is widely expected to announce plans to put some of its popular Microsoft Office software online as part of a move to diversify its core services into cloud computing.
The big problem faced by companies who provide cloud computing services is finding a way to promote and deliver these products to consumers without blinding them with science. Pulling disparate products into one simple user interface that looks and feels as reassuringly familiar as the traditional computer desktop could be one way of doing it.
G.ho.st (
www.g.ho.st), a technology start-up founded by a team of Israelis and Palestinians, could become the friendly face of cloud computing. It provides what is known as a "virtual computer" - a free, web-based interface that allows users to access their files, documents and online services from any computer with an internet connection. It looks like a traditional computer desktop, with menus and icons scattered across the screen. Once you sign up to the service, you get a unique username and login, which means you can bring up your own G.ho.st desktop on any computer you use.
Not only does it provide a single point of access to a host of online "cloud computing" services, but also one-click access to a user's Flickr photo library or music collection, the latest weather reports and news headlines, and important documents. "I felt the ultimate goal was to offer everyone a computing environment which is free, and which is not tied to any physical hardware but exists on the web," says Dr Zvi Schreiber, one of G.ho.st's founders.
"Our virtual computer will enable users to get their computing environment from any browser - and we'll eventually compete head-on with Microsoft."
G.ho.st, which can be downloaded free from Halloween (Oct 31), helps users to build a virtual desktop festooned with clever online services such as email, a photo-editing tool called Snipshot, and Meebo, a web-based instant-messaging service. It backs up everything a user has stored online to a remote server, and will automatically ensure that all applications and services are up to date.
If services such as G.ho.st take off, they could spell the end for traditional operating systems made by the likes of Microsoft and Apple. In the future, when you turn on your computer, it will connect straight to the internet, and the desktop you're presented with will be a virtual gateway to a host of online services, accessible wherever you are and which ever computer you use. To access G.ho.st's virtual desktop, you first need to sign up to the service. Thereafter, you can visit its website from any internet-enabled computer, type in your unique user information, and you will then have one-click access to all of the documents, files and photos you've stored online.
While a battle rages at one end of the computer market to produce small, lightweight "netbooks", at the other end, manufacturers are slugging it out to produce the thinnest, lightest and best-performing machines. First came Apple's MacBook Air, then Samsung announced its X360. Now Toshiba is launching the R600, a laptop that tips the scales at just 800g, but which packs in a host of high-end features. It's got 3G internet access, 3GB of RAM, a 12in screen and full-size Qwerty keyboard, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and a choice of up to a 200GB conventional hard drive, or a 128GB solid-state drive.
