YouOS: A Web-Based Operating System
YouOS is a startup with a really neat idea - creating an entire operating system through the web browser. It sounds like a crazy idea, but with recent developments in AJAX and server-side technology, the web browser is being used for a lot more than just the web. Applications like IM clients and word processors, that were once thought of solely as desktop applications, now have fully functional web verions.
YouOS isn’t an operating system in the strict sense of the word (you can’t boot off of it), but it does have a number of features that you would expect from an OS, like a shell, a browser, and a file explorer. There’s a recent blog post on their site that gives a good intro to the project. Also be sure to check out their live demo.
I think we’ll continue to see more and applications that exist only on the web. The real boon for web apps isn’t so much the ability to run everything through one program (although that’s nice) as it is being able to work from any computer that has a browser. With YouOS, that means potentially from any Internet cafe or public library you could access every file or application that would normally exist just on one computer.
