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Sporkman
May 3rd, 2010, 06:38 PM
End of the Desktop? Google Backs WebGL

Stick a fork in the desktop, it’s done! Recently Google demoed a port of Quake II to WebGL and HTML5, showing that even first person shooters are suitable applications to run in the browser. While the tide isn’t going to turn all at once, it seems more likely than ever that a browser-based desktop is a viable option and ultimately the way many users will experience all applications...

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7764/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LinuxMagazine+(Linux+Magazine %3A+Top+Stories)&utm_content=My+Yahoo

BrokenKingpin
May 3rd, 2010, 06:41 PM
This sounds horrible. I hate this general move to all web based apps.

Paddy Landau
May 3rd, 2010, 06:42 PM
Inevitable, I've always thought.

The day will come, but not until the vast majority of the world has reliable broadband.

andras artois
May 3rd, 2010, 06:44 PM
Inevitable, I've always thought.

The day will come, but not until the vast majority of the world has reliable broadband.

And considering even the UK doesn't have it it'll still be awhile.

I prefer things being on my computer rather than 'in the cloud'.

Irihapeti
May 3rd, 2010, 06:51 PM
Inevitable, I've always thought.

The day will come, but not until the vast majority of the world has reliable broadband.

And no data caps.

BrokenKingpin
May 3rd, 2010, 06:57 PM
Do people actually like where this is going? Web = Slow. I would rather take a bit of extra time up front and install something and have it perform faster. Especially high graphical video games.

NCLI
May 3rd, 2010, 07:02 PM
Do people actually like where this is going? Web = Slow. I would rather take a bit of extra time up front and install something and have it perform faster. Especially high graphical video games.
If we assume that the current growth rate is stable:

The Web in 1990=N/A
The Web in 2000=56 Kb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2010=20 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2020=~7500 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2030=~2685 Gb/s on average in developed countries

Google is looking beyond the present ;)

98cwitr
May 3rd, 2010, 07:02 PM
now if Google Fiber could just pick up ground in major cities they'd have us right where they want us...and to get away from TWC...I'll jump on that bandwagon to hell.

Paddy Landau
May 3rd, 2010, 07:02 PM
Do people actually like where this is going? Web = Slow. I would rather take a bit of extra time up front and install something and have it perform faster. Especially high graphical video games.
At the moment, absolutely, you're right.

But in ten years? I think we'll find that the broadband data transfers will comfortably handle the normal needs. Where I live, the slowest (cheapest) broadband Internet connection I can get is 10Mbs. I remember when cheap broadband was 150Kbs, just a few years ago.

scouser73
May 3rd, 2010, 07:05 PM
Whilst the cloud offers some good aspects such as storage and office applications, I'd not be so quick as to announce the end is near for Desktops.

swoll1980
May 3rd, 2010, 07:14 PM
Google also went out and bought a 3d desktop for $40 million, so what's that saying?

phrostbyte
May 3rd, 2010, 07:14 PM
"The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated." -- The Desktop

NightwishFan
May 3rd, 2010, 07:15 PM
I will selectively use cloud services but for me a computer is a like a toolbox on hand to do the job, whether I am on the net or in the jungle. I will resist the general move to cloud applications.

Cuddles McKitten
May 3rd, 2010, 07:19 PM
I like this, merely as it's a move towards more platform-neutral software. As much as I dislike "the cloud," good can come of this direction of development.

swoll1980
May 3rd, 2010, 07:22 PM
The Desktop has been killed 100 times already. The death of the Desktop is like the end of the world, or the year of Linux. It's supposedly going to happen every other year, yet it never does. Off the top of my head, palm pilots, cell phones, and Internet appliances were also going to kill the desktop.

Irihapeti
May 3rd, 2010, 07:28 PM
Originally, people wanted their own PCs because they got fed up with having to rely on a central corporate server for everything.

What's so different about the internet?

Shakz
May 3rd, 2010, 07:40 PM
In my house the desktop is dead. Its running Karmic/Vista and I fired it up yesterday after months for my nephew. We really only use our laptops and a netbook.

My desktop uses too much power. Damn thing is like leaving the lights on all in the house. Granted its a gaming system and pretty hoss with a 9800GTX + (yeah I know but it was 400 bucks when I bought it)

Since moving to linux I have found that my slower (albeit just a little) laptop screams with ubuntu and uses 1/8th the power.

Laptops are dirt cheap these days....DIRT CHEAP. Hell even my work computer is a laptop.

The desktop is already dead....at least it is in my world.

Sporkman
May 3rd, 2010, 08:29 PM
In my house the desktop is dead. Its running Karmic/Vista and I fired it up yesterday after months for my nephew. We really only use our laptops and a netbook.

My desktop uses too much power. Damn thing is like leaving the lights on all in the house. Granted its a gaming system and pretty hoss with a 9800GTX + (yeah I know but it was 400 bucks when I bought it)

Since moving to linux I have found that my slower (albeit just a little) laptop screams with ubuntu and uses 1/8th the power.

Laptops are dirt cheap these days....DIRT CHEAP. Hell even my work computer is a laptop.

The desktop is already dead....at least it is in my world.

They're not talking about desktop machines, they're talking about OS desktops with installed software.

tgalati4
May 3rd, 2010, 08:49 PM
The year of Linux on the Desktop is also the same year that the Desktop dies.

User3k
May 3rd, 2010, 08:59 PM
The desktop will not die. Even Google talking about Chrome OS says that the net book is only a companion to a desktop PC. Even when it shifts to even more basic things online the desktop PC will still be around.

However I do believe that when things move more online that this is a good thing for linux in general.

del_diablo
May 3rd, 2010, 09:02 PM
Do people actually like where this is going? Web = Slow. I would rather take a bit of extra time up front and install something and have it perform faster. Especially high graphical video games

I live in the middle of ****ing nowhere and got an entire 1 MB download, 1/8 MB upload, and reasonable latency(40~ usually in web servers). What bothers me is that i could have gotten 50-60 megabyte in uploading and downloading with less latency if i lived in a city.

PS: If you wonder where i am, i am in Norway

User3k
May 3rd, 2010, 09:05 PM
I forgot to add this to my previous reply. I also worry that ISP's will take advantage of this even more in the USA. Comcast has already set limits, Time Warner is a battle. If they have their way they will kill Cloud computing. Of course I imagine they will create their own just for customers to use that will not count towards their bandwidth cap.

If cable companies and phone companies do to the internet what they have done to phone plans and cable costs then the internet will be in trouble and cloud computing will die fast.

NCLI
May 3rd, 2010, 09:26 PM
I forgot to add this to my previous reply. I also worry that ISP's will take advantage of this even more in the USA. Comcast has already set limits, Time Warner is a battle. If they have their way they will kill Cloud computing. Of course I imagine they will create their own just for customers to use that will not count towards their bandwidth cap.

If cable companies and phone companies do to the internet what they have done to phone plans and cable costs then the internet will be in trouble and cloud computing will die fast.

Then I think Google will simply set up an ISP. It's in their interest as much as the people's.

Rokyking
May 3rd, 2010, 09:34 PM
now if Google Fiber could just pick up ground in major cities they'd have us right where they want us...and to get away from TWC...I'll jump on that bandwagon to hell.



Agreed

murderslastcrow
May 3rd, 2010, 09:45 PM
The whole reason the web wasn't the main programming platform back when personal computers were getting big is that the internet was slow and incapable of these things.

I wouldn't be surprised if apps are saved to your computer once you get them online, and open up in something like Prism. I can see a lot of stuff in the Ubuntu Software Center being Prism stuff (heck, we already have an installable GMail Prism in there!).

I don't think it's that big of a deal, since it makes apps instantly cross-platform. Buuuutt... I can see why it would upset some people, especially those who don't have the internet readily available.

Local apps won't go away overnight, if they go away at all. Their convenience isn't to be understated until everyone has internet all the time. Until that happens (unlikely), there will always be a place for local apps. However, there's no saying that you can't have a web app without the web, just without the ability to upload/download new data. It could be stored locally, after all.

Shakz
May 3rd, 2010, 09:58 PM
They're not talking about desktop machines, they're talking about OS desktops with installed software.

Guess its confusing because its still going to have to have storage of some sort, a gpu....what exactly is going away? Even a browser based OS will still be an OS with software running locally.

Sporkman
May 3rd, 2010, 10:07 PM
Guess its confusing because its still going to have to have storage of some sort, a gpu....what exactly is going away? Even a browser based OS will still be an OS with software running locally.

The "desktop paradigm", I believe is what they're talking about, where a user has locally installed software & data storage, and where networking is a small part of the machine's functionality.

Paddy Landau
May 3rd, 2010, 10:48 PM
Yes, the ultimate idea is that your computer -- whether it be a desktop, laptop, smart phone, ebook reader, etc. -- will be just a fancy browser. All the software will be on websites, and all the data in the "cloud".

gradinaruvasile
May 3rd, 2010, 10:49 PM
As this was said before, what stops the web software developers in making them available offline by caching them on the computer? Same for your stuff, why keep everything online, you may choose what to store in the cloud and what will stay locally?
The browser (at least its engine) will run the apps anyway, but when online you will be able to synchronize/share your stuff and upgrade your programs to the latest version (look at Opera's widgets for example).
So, there will be no essentially different workflow to what we know today. Your work will be in your local drive and you will be able to synchronize it if you choose to do so (yes, probably most defaults will be to synchronise as much as possible probably, but you will be able to control the settings).
Only that the browser will be a more central part of the OS, and maybe things will be even simpler because of this.
This is already happening, everyone has a browser lurking in the background or a browser in the front and everything else in the background. Only that the online apps are not yet at par with offline apps.
But given the wild evoloution of the computers/internet i assume that this will happen sooner than we might think.

So, its about the platform-specific offline applications being replaced gradually by equally featured and capable online applications - that of course will be able to run offline equally well - and when given the chance, synchronize data (of course, user-approved) with the cloud, make upgrades etc. Granted we are not there yet, but its an evolutionary next step...

The implications will probably be huge, the today's business model will have to be changed to be able to juice out cash from people in a world where the OS doesnt matter that much file format compatibility-wise, and vendor lock-in will be harder to accomplish -although i will not be surprised seeing M$ (or Google for that matter) coming up with some devious scheme for this...
And, as all revolutionary change it has its natural opposition who will do everything in its power to slow things down - yes, i think Microsoft (&co) - and that it has much to lose from this change.

andras artois
May 3rd, 2010, 10:53 PM
Tablets/Laptops will probably get used a lot more but desktops will always be needed for the hard work.

You can probably mock up a few sketches on a tablet but you're going to use Photoshop to get the final thing right.

You could make a few notes on your phone/netbook about a new programming/robotics/mech/cad project but you're going to use a desktop to get the real work done.


I would rather have my documents with me rather than keeping them in 'the cloud'.

oldsoundguy
May 3rd, 2010, 11:09 PM
At present, Verizon, with it's Fios alternative to ComCast and other companies, has ceased expansion. It may be because of the current financial climate in the US, but then it may be because they can't build and make money on the LOWER rates they advertise!

Platform neutral Cloud computing is GOING to happen, whether we like it or not. Because the software companies can control their product and NO MORE PIRACY .. you pay your fees or you don't play (or use the program)

In reality, at present, the #1 reason that it won't happen in the very near future is SEVER INTEGRITY! As long as MS is in the server business, that falls into question. (because of the general nature of what is still a DOS based system, it is IMPOSSIBLE to patch it to make it bullet proof!)

Those outfits that have gone Cloud, in the main, are on Unix /Linux servers!

I have a friend, Unix programmer, that has his major income centered around designing a neural net .. and his gripe is that the current tools are not really up to the task. But is shows you where things are going!

JDShu
May 4th, 2010, 12:06 AM
The year of Linux on the Desktop is also the same year that the Desktop dies.

Amazing statement.

xDarkicex
May 4th, 2010, 12:14 AM
Whats the point, why are they trying to reinvent the wheel? Unless google just wants to control not only the web but our computers Too..

User3k
May 4th, 2010, 12:40 AM
Then I think Google will simply set up an ISP. It's in their interest as much as the people's.


I really, really hope so. I would be one of the first to sign up for it in my area.

Bölvaður
May 4th, 2010, 12:51 AM
I saw this project on google code 2 weeks ago. If I remember correctly this project was part of the "do what you want" week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhMN0wlITLk

Rokyking
May 4th, 2010, 06:17 AM
Tablets/Laptops will probably get used a lot more but desktops will always be needed for the hard work.

You can probably mock up a few sketches on a tablet but you're going to use Photoshop to get the final thing right.

You could make a few notes on your phone/netbook about a new programming/robotics/mech/cad project but you're going to use a desktop to get the real work done.


I would rather have my documents with me rather than keeping them in 'the cloud'.


Well...I agree there with you to a certain extent. Many people said PC's would never get a graphical unit interface. Then people nay sayed about getting 3d....and then flash....and many other things everyone uses to this day to get just about every type of work done.
And in regards to get the "real work done"
In a probably less than 10 years. We will be so advanced laptops will probably be able to do everything a desktop can do. If you think about it over the years...they have always been "slowly" catching up. Now adays desktops still by far win. No doubt. But I have faint hopes that the desktop power houses will be kept for much longer. And technology will be advanced enough to pack that punch in a laptop.

Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows. it is simply a view point of mine. What do you think?

Rokyking
May 4th, 2010, 06:27 AM
Whats the point, why are they trying to reinvent the wheel? Unless google just wants to control not only the web but our computers Too..

Well hell, google controls almost everything else on the web.

Almost might as well give it to them.
lol
There already making that kind of progress with there cloud OS

andras artois
May 4th, 2010, 12:31 PM
Well...I agree there with you to a certain extent. Many people said PC's would never get a graphical unit interface. Then people nay sayed about getting 3d....and then flash....and many other things everyone uses to this day to get just about every type of work done.
And in regards to get the "real work done"
In a probably less than 10 years. We will be so advanced laptops will probably be able to do everything a desktop can do. If you think about it over the years...they have always been "slowly" catching up. Now adays desktops still by far win. No doubt. But I have faint hopes that the desktop power houses will be kept for much longer. And technology will be advanced enough to pack that punch in a laptop.

Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows. it is simply a view point of mine. What do you think?

The way I figured it was that desktops are easier to interact with than laptops.

MooPi
May 4th, 2010, 01:15 PM
The cloud reduces choice and freedom. It's DRM for the web and I don't forsee ever using the web as the sole location for my apps.

Paddy Landau
May 4th, 2010, 01:40 PM
The cloud reduces choice and freedom.
It increases choice and freedom. Yet another thing to choose from.

handy
May 4th, 2010, 02:12 PM
A huge battle is going on (& has been for quite some time), between the big players - content; system; software; codec; hardware & infrastructure providers. The technological evolution is speeding along & the players are trying to position themselves to be in the new future the way they foresee it. Which of course puts each one or allied group in control of as much of the internet as possible.

They are trying to obstruct opposition & manipulate the market & governments in their favour wherever possible.

Global internet/media control is the goal.

The MPEG-LA people for example have got the computer world by the throat if & when they choose to close their fist:

http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Th reatened_by_the_MPEG-LA

The telecommunication carriers in the US are eroding the laws that prevent them from being more than carriers:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/end-days-for-net-neutrality-at-the-fcc.ars

Apple (amongst others) are desperately fighting to position themselves as best they can (as usual) to benefit from the move of the internet into the lounge room/entertainment centres of peoples homes.

Intel & Sony see 94% of all internet traffic being video by 2013.

The internet is moving off of the desktop in more ways than just games, office tools & data storage.

As the corporations buy up our freedoms every way they can so that they can control & limit the internet, thus selling it back to us as subscription services (media services first then the kitchen will eventually come after the lounge room has been conquered by them) there are others trying to fight to maintain the free software paradigm & an internet that is as open as possible.

Hopefully in 10 years & beyond there is still a section of the internet available that is at least infected no worse by the marketroids than what we have to put up with today. (At least we can block much of their rubbish these days.) Though their mentality is such that they have to always be looking to make some kind of profit out of everyone who is using the internet, which is a similar mentality to that of a leech.

Peter09
May 4th, 2010, 02:20 PM
Hi,



Quote:
Originally Posted by BrokenKingpin http://ubuntuforums.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9227800#post9227800)
Do people actually like where this is going? Web = Slow. I would rather take a bit of extra time up front and install something and have it perform faster. Especially high graphical video games.

If we assume that the current growth rate is stable:

The Web in 1990=N/A
The Web in 2000=56 Kb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2010=20 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2020=~7500 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2030=~2685 Gb/s on average in developed countries

Google is looking beyond the present :wink:

Anyone any idea on the growth of graphics processing and bus bandwidths required to run games compared to the above.

I can remember when you didnt really need a graphics card to run games .....

Paddy Landau
May 4th, 2010, 03:05 PM
Anyone any idea on the growth of graphics processing and bus bandwidths required to run games compared to the above.
The Internet won't carry the graphics. That will still be done on the client end (your computer, in your browser). It's only the data that needs to be carried.

The programs will still be needed; the difference is that the programs will be downloaded as-needed by the browser, as already happens with flash games, Google Calendar, and so forth.

whiskeylover
May 4th, 2010, 04:33 PM
If we assume that the current growth rate is stable:

The Web in 1990=N/A
The Web in 2000=56 Kb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2010=20 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2020=~7500 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2030=~2685 Gb/s on average in developed countries

Google is looking beyond the present ;)

I need a pie chart of that.

98cwitr
May 4th, 2010, 04:43 PM
I need a pie chart of that.

more like a line graph

whiskeylover
May 4th, 2010, 04:46 PM
more like a line graph

I thought it was obvious I was trying to make a funny.

98cwitr
May 4th, 2010, 05:33 PM
smilies are your friend ;) They help insinuate tone on a forum. :p

xc1024
May 6th, 2010, 09:11 PM
Cloud as my main storage. Ha! Not in the next 10 years at least. Even then, I'll have my data on local storage. Never trust the cloud. *puts tinfoil hat on* :P

Sporkman
May 6th, 2010, 09:40 PM
Cloud as my main storage. Ha! Not in the next 10 years at least. Even then, I'll have my data on local storage. Never trust the cloud. *puts tinfoil hat on* :P

I store my data on Ubuntu one, but I encrypt it with ccrypt.

vacc73
May 7th, 2010, 02:05 AM
End of the desktop? Somehow when people mention cloud computing, I get then feeling that George Orwell is chuckling in the here after, even more that when news breaks about internet spying and what-not. Even though some may not agree I think that cloud computing is set to become a personal decision about one's own privacy. Not having grown up with computers the way the currant generation has, I have many many doubts and I am very concerned about privacy. After all, I think one reason most people switch to linux is because of safety from hacking, viruses and so forth. I think that until all the privacy/security issues are addressed, not to mention the idea of funneling that kind of control into much fewer hands than now, the desktop will stay a viable option for many people.:guitar:

handy
May 7th, 2010, 02:17 AM
@vacc73: Please don't use such strong text, it is akin to shouting (using capitals) & is frowned upon in forums.

Many of us don't have young eyes & when we see such text we don't even bother reading it.

Such is my case.

Mr. Picklesworth
May 7th, 2010, 03:16 AM
I can see this completely making sense. I am getting more and more jealous of the web as a framework for making applications. It's just amazingly easy to get things done and to achieve visuals that reinforce meaning. I think all the worry about consistency is unimportant, but I do think the client has a big role to play serving as pipes (it has the file system and the databases!). Remember that HTML5 has some awesome stuff allowing web apps to run offline, storing data on a local database. Using web technologies does not necessarily mean cloud computing ;)

My ideal picture for this is web servers providing read only data, the client storing its own data (eg: your personal information that usually gets beamed to an external web server), and then (since the web is magical this way) you can individually choose which bits of your own local data you want to give a web service, or where you want to put a file that a web service is sending you. A web service automatically storing everything about you should become a rarity as the client starts playing a bigger role with HTML 5, storing its own data.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of video games that favour simple, community-focused, silly fun over having the latest in cutting edge graphics. We'll always have games like Crysis and Doom 3, but I think it's completely possible to achieve nice, expressive and entertaining stuff under simpler tech like WebGL, and I expect the indie crowd would do a lot with it.

It's about having a simplified software stack. The desktop's software stack is insane. The web stack is not.
The advantage to be had is very significant. For developers, especially new ones, it makes simple tasks as simple as they should be :)


For those interested in seeing WebGL in action, Khronos has some directions (http://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/Getting_a_WebGL_Implementation). You can install Chromium, run “chromium-browser --enable-webgl” (you have to start it fresh with that command; make sure no process is already running), then browse to a site with lots of examples. SpiderGL (http://spidergl.org/code.php) is one WebGL library with useful examples, and there's also Ambiera (http://www.ambiera.com/copperlicht/demos.html).

Jpenguin
May 20th, 2010, 05:09 AM
The Web in 1990=N/A
The Web in 2000=56 Kb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2010=20 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2020=~7500 Mb/s on average in developed countries
The Web in 2030=~2685 Gb/s on average in developed countries


Where the **** do you get those stats? I'm in the USA- it was at least 1996 before I got 28.8kbps internet, 2007 before I got 512kbps-down/128kbps-up and iin 2009 I got 2mbps-down/256kbps-up...

madjr
May 20th, 2010, 06:05 AM
well quake3 in the browser:

http://www.quakelive.com/

Khakilang
May 20th, 2010, 08:48 AM
Firstly lets look at the good side. No need to worry about software license, cost effective, software crashes, software upgrade and virus.
The bad side will be privacy, security, internet bandwidth and freedom. What else anyome can think of?

oldsoundguy
May 20th, 2010, 09:18 AM
Firstly lets look at the good side. No need to worry about software license, cost effective, software crashes, software upgrade and virus.
The bad side will be privacy, security, internet bandwidth and freedom. What else anyome can think of?

And a monthly "usage" bill that will be fragmented from multiple sources and be of a varying nature so that budget directors of small businesses will go nuts trying to project expenses.

gnomeuser
May 20th, 2010, 11:02 AM
I saw this project on google code 2 weeks ago. If I remember correctly this project was part of the "do what you want" week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhMN0wlITLk

A game from 1997, and it's not even as far as I can tell running smoothly. Not exactly state of the art, it does open the door for a whole new set of casual games though.

It can probably be optimized but I doubt we'll see Crysis or a similar high quality FPS running in the browser.. pretty much ever.

gnomeuser is amused by this demo, but not overly impressed.