Fed up with your PC? Why not get a VC (virtual computer)?

From the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco

G.ho.st is trying to solve a problem that is being flagged up more and more as users flock to web-based services like Facebook. Namely: how do you ease the hassle of logging in everywhere? One solution is so-called 'open ID', where websites work out a way to share login information so that a user can have a single sign-in for multiple sites.

G.ho.st is approaching the problem in a slightly a different way - by transferring the entire operating system of a computer onto the web. That way, a single login on any computer with a browser effectively opens up the entirety of the web and PC-based applications that a person regularly uses. All document management and storage, for instance, becomes web-based. Creating and writing documents happens via free web-based products, like Google Docs.

G.ho.st is effectively trying to make us move towards a world where the entirety of a computer's 'functions' occur on the web - a type of computing that is referred to in the industry as 'the cloud'. Zvi Schreiber, the company's founder, said: "For 30 years we've all worked with the assumption that everything has to exist on the computer, but these days a browser is all we need."

Comments

[R. Krachan]

Sounds like putting all ones eggs in one basket to me.

[Ron]

With all our world being held somewhere in cyberspace we'll be at the mercy of the hackers. Happy goldfish bowl!

[Avenyet]

Isn't going backwards a bit? you know back to the old mainframe days were there was one computer and main dumb terminals

[jhygjh]

Responding to all three comments I reply:
The web is the web, not a basket. Its difficult for me to imagine using a pc without an ip connection, glad you find the connectionless experience so satisfying; comments about the hackers- it doesn't matter, we're all going (already) wired, hackers or not.
And going backwards? The internet is not a big giant timeshare system- you are increadibly limited in your thinking.

[Rami]

Thanks so much for reviewing G.ho.st and we promise you to solve the problem.

Our alpha is live at http://G.ho.st including 3GB of free storage.

Rami

[Mark]

although the centralised web storage and shared data is the future, eventually it'll all be rejected when writing on a piece of paper with a pen, or reading a book made from trees, becomes popular again.

[Daz]

Won't that take massive amounts of brandwidth? And It'll still need a pc to display the web-pages. In fact, its pretty much the same as saving your username & passwords to your browser anyway

[dude]

can i play counter-strike on it?

[D]

so our private data would be running 'somewhere' on the net?? this is the worst idea i have heard in a long time

[simon]

that is the future for sure. no more worries about hard drives, losing data, etc. all your information available everywhere u go. whats not to like?

[Nico]

Change is good. But if it cost more than a desktop PC then it is not worth it.

[Tim]

What is new here that isn't already available from from Desktoptwo (www.desktoptwo.com)? A quick wizz as a Guest user reveals it's a pretty similar concept, although it seems to have no useful applications - well, other than a basic text editor and calculator.

[Graham]

As an senior IT person I have been dismayed by the move to web based technology. There are certain times when it is very effective and it may be easier for the general public in certain circumstances. But a computer that is snappier to use is far easier to use, and a lot less tiring. And that can only be the case when the software is run locally, on your PC. Otherwise there is a delay between your actions and what happens on screen. There are also many applications that simply will not work in this online way. It is a pipe dream. Having seen this implemented in the NHS I have been appalled at the lack of consideration for the end user, in a protracted and hellishly expensive cost cutting excercise.

[Hisham]

We are currently at an age where almost everyone (at least up here in Canada) have an internet connection that is only a little bit slower than your local hard drive!

Why is it so difficult to imagine that in 10 years (at the very most) our internet connection will be faster than a hard drive running at 7200 rpm??

Why is it not possible that in 20 years you can play a game where everything (and I'm talking about streaming realtime graphics like its a video) is pushed through your broadband connection? Its not entirely hard to imagine!
You send in keystrokes, it goes over the internet connection to distributed gaming servers and sends back the resulting action in a way where all the processing is done online, and the only thing your local machine (weather it's just a terminal or an actual desktop) does is display the action and your local CPU and Graphics cards won't be used.

Why is it entirely hard for most commentators here to imagine that maybe future consoles will work that way too, where hardware will not be the main cost or the determining factor of a successful console, and that console makers will instead be competing over who has the better server with the most stuff on it (like XBOX Live and PS3's own online service).

No CDS or DVDs to buy, just click on the game and play it streaming(and they won't be flash games either!)

I can definitely see that as the future!

[Bob]

Not a bad idea, I suppose, if you don't mind forced upgrades and being at the mercy of high tech companies that disappear as fast as they appear. You may go on a long vacation, only to return to find out you really own "virtually nothing." Yet another scam to take control away from people.