Google as your PC
p2p news / p2pnet: Pretty soon, if things go according to plan, Google will have access to everything on your computer because it will, in effect, be your computer.
Google Über Alles.
"The existence of the previously rumored GDrive online storage service surfaced after a blogger discovered apparent notes in a slide presentation by Google executives published on Google’s site after its analysts presentation day last Thursday," says Reuters.
"With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)," the notes in the original Google presentation state," according to the story.
"Google declined to comment on the reports but said the slide notes had now been deleted."
On SearchEngineWatch, Barry Schwartz describes GDrive as a, "virtual location to store your files without using a Gmail hack".
Google may have chopped the notes but, "Derrick posted a comment with the notes for those slides at Greg’s [Greg Linden] blog, where GDrive is mentioned," Schwartz points out.
Here’s part of it, from Geeking with Greg:
Theme 2: Store 100% of User Data
With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc).
We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today. For example: Firefox team is working on server side stored state but they want to store only URLs rather than complete web pages for storage reasons. This theme will help us make the client less important (thin client, thick server model) which suits our strength vis-a-vis Microsoft and is also of great value to the user.
As we move toward the "Store 100%" reality, the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache. An important implication of this theme is that we can make your online copy more secure than it would be on your own machine.
Another important implication of this theme is that storing 100% of a user’s data makes each piece of data more valuable because it can be access across applications. For example: a user’s Orkut profile has more value when it’s accessible from Gmail (as addressbook), Lighthouse (as access lis… [...TRUNCATED...]
Think about it.
And this would, of course, mesh very nicely with its apparent plans to found its own global internet. DRM to the nth degree.
Also See:
Reuters – Google lets slip talk of online storage service, March 7, 2006
SearchEngineWatch – GDrive: Google’s Virtual Hard Drive, March 6, 2006
Geeking with Greg – In a world with infinite storage, bandwidth, and CPU power, March 2, 2006
nth degree – Google wants its very own Net, February 3, 2006
