This post is actually a step short on it's conclusion. As someone who has been drooling over every PC out there under $400 (as my own is dying and I have literally like... 75 cents or a dollar to my name ANYWHERE...) ... I can tell you there's a very good chance Google is more ambitious than anyone has yet to give them credit for.

One of the seductive charms of technology is that it is always changing, always evolving... but what about computers and the net? They've been the same, it seems, for ages (in the eyes of the impatient and materialistic at least). You go out and buy a machine with oodles of RAM so that it should be lightning fast, and you get stuck with Microsoft Windows... the latest version of which was so obnoxious in that sense that the hardware pretty much had to catch up with it!

So to recap... you buy a brand new, state of the art computer, thinking "now THIS baby's gonna be FAST! Mua ha ha ha ha!" ... but when you boot up, you can probably fry yourself an egg before your computer can boot up and finish it's 10,000 (exaggeration) tasks so that you can actually start using it. And if you're lucky, you MIGHT get some decent speed then. Maybe. At least until Microsoft automatically updates your computer right into molasses mode. (I've had to actually uninstall some updates, which have brought my computer to a crawl.)

Well, what's going on in the computing world right now, behind the curtains, and in a galaxy so far away Bill Vader hopes you never even hear about it... is that the nerdic empire are trying to reinvent the whole blooming thing... Not just the net... the whole experience... including your OS.

There's this thing called "cloud computing" ... maybe you've heard of it, or even unknowingly used it. It's like when you use Google docs or any application online that stores your docuмents online, so you can get them from anywhere. Yes, it's something relatively new. But then there's something that's even newer. So new, in fact, you probably HAVEN'T heard of it... a Cloud OS.

Basically what it is, is rather than having windows (a veritable RAMpire), you'll get something completely different. There will be (the nerd visionaries tell us) next to nothing on your actual PC. Which means you get to keep 99.999% of all the memory and RAM you actually paid for. Which is like... unheard of. But anyways... instead of the typical OS, with tons of extra installed apps tacked onto it, basically everything you need will be on the net, on a server somewhere else. Moreover, the apps you'll get, will be meant to replace the ones you're paying hundreds of dollars for right now... like Photoshop. Even sweeter than the fact that all of this will be someone else's memory nightmare, is the fact that they plan to have the software updated on the servers... So instead of buying a great paint program, you'll GET a great paint program, and instead of then buying update after update, the software will be automatically updated on the server ... free, from what I can tell.

So basically, you'll buy a PC, and everything you need will be online, and you will even store your files online (I don't like that part either, but hey... there are always bigger hard drives). And what THIS means, is that the so-called OS you do get, will be microscopic. Maybe even more microscopic than linux, since linux still uses the apps you install. (Is that possible?!) And THAT brings you to their vision of the computer of the future...

According to the nerds of today, the budget computer of tomorrow will be the size of a paperback novel, and use just a few watts of electricity, because it won't need a killer amount of memory or RAM to run that OS that eats it like kids eat ice cream. All of this depends on what they're calling the concept of the "Cloud OS" ... an "operating system" that boots up to a desktop, that will basically be an internet portal to everything you need and own, online.

Call me crazy, but I'm betting this is what Google's people are fantasizing about while getting those free, on-the-job massages. Today Chrome is "just an innocent little web browser" ... but if they can sell people on the idea that their stuff is really, truly safe online, tomorrow it might be the bumper of the semi that just flattened the microsoft empire. The computers that hold it will be tiny (read "cute"), they'll be "green" (some run on less than 5 watts!), they'll cut software budgets to shreds with free, online apps... and maybe best of all, if you actually do buy one for over $300, you can actually keep all the memory and RAM to yourself... for those things you really DID want on your computer.

And if they released it for free, they'll not only flatten Microsoft, but all the "cloud OS" competitors, in one blow. The guys doing it right now charge subscription fees for larger online space allotments.

For more info, google Cherrypal and Zonbu.

Hey, if you're going to dream...  :rolleyes: