What Next for BumpTop?
BumpTop is a cool utility that got a lot of attention when it was demoed at TED in 2007. It makes your computer desktop three-dimensional, and lets you organize its files into tidy stacks (“piles” in BumpTop parlance). As I usually leave my desktop very badly organized I’ve found it to be a big help.
On Friday, the company that produces BumpTop was acquired by Google. It won’t be available for download after this week, nor will any updates be released. I’m somewhat disappointed by this - it makes my everyday computer use a little more enjoyable, and I liked the idea that I’d be able to download it for my future computers.
Rumour has it that BumpTop will find its way onto other Google products, like Android or Chrome. It would be awesome to see BumpTop incorporated into some kind of multi-touch tablet device, or somehow used for web browsing. Right now though, I’m surprised that it’ll no longer be available for normal PCs/Macs. I hope that, between finding crazy new innovative applications for 3D interfaces, Google eventually reintroduce a new and improved BumpTop Desktop - otherwise, my next computer’s desktop will be a complete disaster.