Can you imagine travelling to visit family, sitting down at their computer, starting up any web browser and having complete and secure access to your desktop, including your applications, messages and information? I sure can. Enter the idea of WebOS, a research project by various universities, which has resulted in the creation of EyeOS. EyeOS is an open-source web desktop environment, enabling the user to setup their own small (and easy) EyeOS server (a public server is also available) at home which they can then remotely connect to from virtually any internet-connected PC. Set it up with the many EyeApps available and the user is then able to easily and remotely access email, documents, files, photos, and much much more. This is known as the WebOS, a rich and powerful remote operating system available to the user from any location. Still a little rough around the edges, with a 1.0 release approaching, EyeOS is trying to simplify and revolutionize the way we interact with our data and the internet.

[EyeOS | EyeOS Public Server]

Are we seeing the future of human computer interaction? Could we see this desktop replacement reviving the slowly dying tablet computer market? The brilliant mind of university student Anand Agarwala has created the prototype for BumpTop, a fully-featured, physics-enabled desktop replacement, which enables the user to ‘push’ around their documents using expressive and lightweight techniques found in the real world. While I could only try and explain how it works, I encourage you (all) to watch the video and be amazed (hopefully). As one of our resident nerds says, “revolutionary”, we agree.

[ BumpTop Prototype | Video demonstration | Via Google Blogoscoped]