It’s hip2b2

I just bumped into another operating system called YouOS. A lot of people have been talking about making the Web the new Operating System. The folks at YouOS have created a cool experiment showing a possible look at a WebOS.

YouOS is a web operating system that lets you run diverse applications within a web browser. Small applications like sticky notes or clocks. Large applications like word processing, mp3 players, and instant messaging. Even better, it’s very easy to tweak an existing application or write your own.

It uses AJAX concepts to provide a single platform for the development, hosting and managing web-based applications. It provides developers a way to easily create applications “the YouOS way”. Here are some of its strengths.

• Full Desktop on the Web. The user interface inside the system really looks like a full desktop operating system. It even has applications like web browsers and chat clients running inside it.
• AJAX as a developer tool. It uses Javascript as its main development language. This is a benefit and a limitation too. It is a limitation because it forces applications to be online only. However, it is a benefit because it is easy to develop in and provides enough user interactivity. By the way, it uses the Dojo toolkit as its core.
• AJAX as an operating system. YouOS manages all applications inside its user interface. You can even load up a shell and manage (list and signal) processes. It even maintains the state of your usage after logging out.
• AJAX as a platform, AJAX everywhere. The applets on the YouOS operating system desktops really run on the client machine. True to the AJAX way. For example, the web browser actually loads on the host machine and then surfs using the resources of the host machine. It even boasts of 4,000 applications (most of them HelloWorld apps) with 250 in public release.

Here is a screen shot of my YouOS desktop. As you can see it is a complete desktop environment on the web.

The concept is pretty neat. It basically takes the AJAX-ification of applications one step further. Currently, we see a growing trend of creating AJAX versions of existing applications such as browsers, office productivity suites and messengers. This is the next logical step as a platform for containing all of them is built. A truly web-based operating system.

A possible problem with such a system is that it is entirely dependent on network connectivity. This is both a strength and a weakness. Strength because it provides portability. Weakness because it does not allow offline transactions. For countries with low broadband penetration (such as the Philippines), this might be a problem.

A possible remedy to this would be to create front-end applications as browser plugins instead (such as Firefox plugins). This way offline viewing and storing can be done. Also user interactivity is definitely improved as the application is snappier that its on line cousins. So instead of a WebOS a BrowserOS is made. Whether it is a WebOS or BrowserOS, the world is definitely moving on line.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 2:00 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.