Sanity check: Have we now entered the post-OS era?

[sulekha]

Hi all,

see this:-

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=1484

[Paqman]

He makes a good point. The difference between the big OSes these days is pretty minimal in terms of function. Even a lot of the apps are the same. Differences between different versions of the same OS are negligible.

[James_Lochhead]

I don't know if cloud computing is the way forward... if you are a very low level computer user then maybe... But gaming, PS etc from a cloud? I doubt it.

There just isn't the infrastructure yet. Apparently Japan is the only country in the world capable of replacing the TV with the Internet (read in a timesonline article)... think of the resource consumption if everyone started getting everything off clouds.

Here in the UK the max you can get in most areas is 20 MBPS (Virgin rolling out 50 MBPS in some places), which is arguably fast enough. However, if everyone starts sending huge amounts of data at once the service slows down... Plus that is just the download rate, you would need a good upload rate as well.

Cloud computing isn't a technology for the mainstream now. It might be in 10 years though.

[Paqman]

Cloud computing isn't a technology for the mainstream now. It might be in 10 years though.

The article doesn't really go into the future much, it's talking about how people interact with their machines today. The point is that the browser is now the most important application, and that the browsers are identical across OSes. Hence, the importance of the OS to the user experience is minimal.

[James_Lochhead]

The article doesn't really go into the future much, it's talking about how people interact with their machines today. The point is that the browser is now the most important application, and that the browsers are identical across OSes. Hence, the importance of the OS to the user experience is minimal.

No he doesn't... I scanned the article and in my tired state just read cloud computing lol. That means its bed time.

[Sealbhach]

I would think a good file manager that works really well would be just as important as a browser, if not more so.


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[lisati]

We can't afford to have our heads in the clouds: at the end of the day, our machines need some kind of system under the hood to keep them operating.

(Puns intentional).

[Paqman]

I would think a good file manager that works really well would be just as important as a browser, if not more so.

Well, all the file managers are pretty much identical too, so his point stands.

[dragos240]

For the people that have gone through each os and decided why we should/should not have gotten that,the answer is no. The new people of our generation, the majority of people at our school couldn't care less about this topic of os. My opinion is the people of our age don't care about the new shiny new features that their os has to offer,they just care about the many social sharing networks of today, chatrooms, and RPGs. But we, the people that have opinions about our os, we are the ones that have stood still, I don't want to move.

[betrunkenaffe]

Almost

[SomeGuyDude]

"The only safe computer is one that isn't connected to the internet."

"I have a better idea, let's put the entire computer ON the internet."

[fatality_uk]

Not now, not ever.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-10052188-80.html

[Bölvaður]

OLD NEWS!!

There was a topic about this on this forum last year, and that was kind of old topic as we all knew the internet was becoming bigger than the OS, mostly because of google's "office pack".
We visioned that all computers came with very minimalistic linux distro with almost only a browser.

Then we went on cursing mr.Bill Gates for stalling this development and his dirty trick to bundle iexplorer with their OS, knowing it would kill Netscape, slow the development of internet as a platform for applications, and thus prolong the lifetime of their crippled products (that word was used to express how happy I am with it, not the actual quality of the product which in all fairness could be better)

[hesjnet]

I'm not writing this of. The 5 second boot computer has to have alot of its features placed online. Why not? Security? Is computing so secure today?

This artikle is in line with what Kevin Kelly talked about awhile ago:
Talks Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web(Video) (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html )

[Sealbhach]

Switching from Vista to Ubuntu was a big deal for me last year and it has enhanced the enjoyment of my computer by a factor of a least 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000

So yeah, I think the OS does still matter a lot.

.

[SomeGuyDude]

I'm not writing this of. The 5 second boot computer has to have alot of its features placed online. Why not? Security? Is computing so secure today?

Cloud computing is like keeping all of your valuables in one of those storage facilities, normal computing is keeping them at home. Technically a robber can get at either. Which makes you feel safer, I suppose.

Personally, I'd rather be the one keeping an eye on my own data and know that I can put all my important stuff on a removable drive that's hardly ever connected to the network than have it perpetually sitting online for an enterprising hacker to browse.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

It's down to the operating system to help the user interact with those "cloud computing" services, for example integrating them with good file management tools. So far, at that, they all fail.

Further, these guys need to get their heads out of the clouds. Cloud computing is not that big. At least not yet. I have yet to really encounter a "normal person" who cares about it or wants to use it. Remember that lots of people are still pretty paranoid about email, let alone putting everything on the Internet. I'm not saying it can't happen, but they are already writing off the alternatives and pretending cloud computing has dominated the universe.

Further, storing all one's personal data aboard a subscription service (be that subscription the ISP or the specific web site), or an ad-driven service like any free sites, is not going to take off. Those services are great as fun add-ons, but not permanent fixtures.