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The future of computing is at hand, and my crystal ball says that it will take place on a browser. Perhaps not on Internet Explorer or Firefox, but on a successor. Very shortly, you will not need Microsoft Office to do your word processing and PowerPoint presentations. You will just select the web site that provides the functionality you need and get to work. This has many advantages to the user.

First, let's look at a few examples of this that are already happening: When writing on something that does not have a built-in spell checker, such as a birthday card or the text field on a web site you want to comment on, I used to open up Microsoft Word to check the spelling of a word I was not sure about. But now, I just type the word into my Google toolbar and get the result much faster. No more waiting for a bloated word processor to start up - just bang, I have my answer. Furthermore, if you want to write a short paper or article, you do not need Word for that either. Just open up your Gmail account and type. It has most of the word processing functions you need, such as editing and spell-checking functions. When you are done, you e-mail it to yourself and you thus have saved a copy. It even saves as you write, so if you suffer a power failure, most of what you wrote will be backed up.

And truly, what should you trust your work on more: Your laptop's fragile hard drive that you probably do not backup, or a laptop that can get stolen with all your work gone as well? Alternatively, you can save your work onto Google's computers that are reliable, backed up and maintained by a trained staff. Since Google is worth billions of dollars, and they want to keep it that way, it is in their best interest never to allow their data to just disappear one day. You can bet that they have backups of their backups. It is for this reason that I switched from using Outlook to Gmail: I do not trust my PC and my backup routine as much as I trust Google's.

So we have a taste of the future with web-based e-mail, dictionaries and even word processing. What is next? Well, Dan Briklen, the inventor of the spreadsheet, is working on a web-based version right now. Instead of firing up Excel, you can just fire up his web site and do much the same thing. The advantage of a secure backup is here as well, with the addition of being able to send people a simple link to an online spreadsheet instead of a huge file you have to e-mail. Hopefully it works out for him, because for all the money they made with Excel, Microsoft never gave him a penny.

Just like online gaming is often a richer experience than gaming alone, new web-based applications may be enhanced by the collaborative work that working online enables. It is hard to predict what may come of it, as I am sure it was difficult to predict the Timbit from the invention of coffee or Internet dating from the invention of the computer.

Another advantage is simplicity. For the same reason rockets tend to work while space shuttles tend to explode, future operating systems may have an advantage if they are simple rather than complicated. Just like there are far too many things to go wrong on a space shuttle, any one of which can end in tragedy, Windows has reached a similar level of complexity: It is virtually impossible to ensure that it will never crash. But if all your PC is doing is serving up a web site, then it does not need even a fraction of the power, complexity and inherent unreliability of Windows, MacOS or even Linux.

With a simple operating system such as QNX or some future tiny system, your PC would not have to run as fast, as hot or as noisily as it does today. It would have a much longer battery life, be silent and could be comfortably placed on your lap without any question of its effect on your reproductive future. Best of all, you would never need to go to the store to buy software. You would not need to install software. You would not need to download updates, patches, service packs or anything else. You would not need anti-virus programs or worry about spyware. These would all be the responsibility of the application service providers

Okay, so what is the catch? Well, you will need fast Internet access wherever you want to work. Fortunately, this is becoming more and more common. If the idea catches on, you can bet that fast Internet access will spread even faster and further as a result.

The other catch is cost. How much will it cost? Will it be cheaper, more expensive or supported by ads? We do not know yet - probably some combination of the above, or some new revenue system. Or maybe it will be free. All I know is that the space shuttle never reached the moon, was expensive, accidentprone and is being retired. Windows, you are next.


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