Will OS in the future be online

I have been thinking about this more and more since google started talking about it. Rather quiet subject lately. Is it about storage security. Is this why it isn't happening, otherwise it seems logical this will eventually happen. Sooner or later? What do the experts here think.

As long as I depend on a physical wire for my internet connection, I will not run an OS from the internet. Maybe someday when we all have Satellite-access directly from our laptops I'll consider it

The internet will need to undergo a huge evoloution before this is possible. Data transfer rates are far too low as well as too costly and lets not even get started on how secure the internet is.

I can see the future of *some* parts online, emphasis on some and services mainly, services that let you take your data everywhere, but the core OS I beleive will remain on personal computers.

jsampsonPC wrote:

As long as I depend on a physical wire for my internet connection, I will not run an OS from the internet. Maybe someday when we all have Satellite-access directly from our laptops I'll consider it

By what defination you mean it's "Online OS"?

If you mean "when the machine boots, it'll download a copy of OS an placed in my HDD to boot automatically", it's not something new as many big organization use that already.

If you mean something like "Flash desktop" or so, sorry it doesn't meet my defination of OS, as it don't boot hardware. The "Online OS" described by Google is more likely "online application"...

As a side note, I don't think physical storage is the problem they met (consider the giant cluster that they used to store search engine data), security isn't much problem as something like Briefcase has been on the web quite some time already. I think it's more likely about the resource (i.e. the RAM) the applications consumes... Imagine 12 people logins to a server requesting graphics application like OODraw, how much memory would they need even if it's only a web application? Memory space don't come free from the outerspace...

Isn't this the basis for some thin clients with special NICs that allow remote OS booting?

A true remote OS doesnt seem feasible because the internet is really mesh of Internetworks all linked together by routers and whatnot.

At the end of every networking medium is a computer. That computer usually has a client-installed OS so that the modem or Ethernet NIC can interface the OS's networking stack and thus the OS's high-level features like network services, software network protocols, and client-side apps like browsers and email clients.

cheong wrote:

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If you mean something like "Flash desktop" or so, sorry it doesn't meet my defination of OS, as it don't boot hardware. The "Online OS" described by Google is more likely "online application"...

I wouldn't use an Online OS. Basically I feel that even if my internet connection was quick enough, there are always reliability issues which although now might leave me without the internet, would leave me without an operating system on an Online OS. I might consider having some storage online that wasn't all that important, but I really think that I would have the operating system in storage on my computer, it just seems like an Online OS would be tempting problems.

Angus Higgins

'web os' is vaporware. and google is known to innovate in such directions.

Such a thing is not an operating system.

Give away wireless (802.11/GPRS) tablet PCs with a bootstrap local OS containing marginal offline capabilities (Linux/XP - not Vista) accessing self-updating online rental or ad-based applications, keeping all of your most personal data on a secure, biometrically-controlled removeable or untethered storage device (iPod, USB fob), while having that data backed up in split multiple locations that could be reassembled if your personal/family device was lost/stolen. Build this and sign me up.

If such a thing was even technically feasible, would you even WANT one??

I want rich clients.  I am so sick of all this web 2.0 crap!  I want graphically intensive, multimedia rich apps that are fun to use!

Sorry, had to rant.  Web 2.0 is obviously here to stay and important.  I just don't like where things are going.

Most certainly not in Australia. With our ridiculous data rates, we'd all exceed out monthly data limits within a week (If not much, much less) of a new quota month, plus those of us who embrace computing will all be living on the street due to either insane excess charges, or just the inability to do anything.

No.

nightski wrote:

If such a thing was even technically feasible, would you even WANT one??

I want rich clients.  I am so sick of all this web 2.0 crap!  I want graphically intensive, multimedia rich apps that are fun to use!

Sorry, had to rant.  Web 2.0 is obviously here to stay and important.  I just don't like where things are going.

yes
*stay tuned this week.....

I'm still sort of baffled by this obsession regarding operating systems as the central point of computing. What people do with their computers, most of the time anyways, has very little to do with the operating system itself. It's really all about applications, what system you run it on isn't really that important. Now I'm talking about applications, not games, and those are by it's nature fairly platform agnostic. Gaming is more tied to a specific platform as it needs direct access to the hardware.

Most of the time I spend on the computer I do things that isn't bound to hardware, things like writing, coding, listening to music and browsing the web. That's the sort of things that easily could be done over a network, if you can figure out a clever way to remotely render applications windows you're pretty much set. The "only" need for real hardware is when you're doing more media-intensive tasks like video-editing or gaming.

Went off on a bit of a rant there but the point I want to make is that the answer to the thread's question is two-fold. Yes, I believe that the general-purpose OS for light home-use could very well become more web-based. But at the same time I also believe that OS:es will become more and more specialised for narrow fields of computing. We'll have media-editing OS:es, server OS:es and so on.

One platform I think was about 10 years ahead of it's time was BeIA. If it was launched today here in Sweden I think it could be pretty succesful since internet infra-structure here is very well developed. Fiber connections are common and we also have cheap unmetered cellular high-speed internet access with UTMS and EDGE networks.

RoyalSchrubber wrote:

'web os' is vaporware. and google is known to innovate in such directions.