Brett_Tabke - 8:54 pm on Mar 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

In one of the more progressive CNET stories I have read in a few years - Molly Wood makes a surprising leap of deductive reasoning:

[cnet.com...]

...which is that I think Google's going to build a Web-based thin client-type hosted environment-slash-operating system replacement. Or at least, they should, and that's only if Microsoft doesn't beat them to it.

Althought I loath the idea, she is probably right. I know I'm old school, but this whole "web as platform [web2con.com]" brow beating is more of a threat than a promise to me. It represents the end of computing as we know it and the start of something much darker. The web as platform mantra, could look like the Blade Runner future (state as mother/father) many of us have had nightmares about.

One need only look at the way Google Desktop search results obliterate the line between desktop and web to see how web-as-platorm (or Google as Platform) can quickly blur the lines between "mine and yours". If you are on a reasonably fast connection, you can not determine quickly whether those serps are on your computer or out there on the web. Think about that, the next time you type that credit card number into your computer...