According to some experts the proposed new Google GDrive could kill off the personal computer.
The Google Drive service will allow users to store information online on Google’s own servers rather than on the hard drive.
The process is not new and there are sites which allow us to store information online free or with a fee. The difference is that with Google it is going to be universal and although the amount of storage is not known it is going to be massive.
For ‘cloud computing’ to succeed all the tasks which are done using PC softwares should be able to be done and stored online.
The GDrive would mean users would no longer have to worry about their hard drives crashing as their data could be accessed from any internet connection, a move that could effectively make PCs redundant.
There are however concerns over the security of storing such a high degree of personal data online rather than a PC with experts warning that Google will gain unprecedented control over users’ information.
Dave Armstrong of Google Enterprise, said: ‘There’s a clear direction…away from people thinking “This is my PC, this is my hard drive” to “This is how I interact with information, this is how I interact with the web”‘.
Peter Brown, of the Free Software Foundation, a charity which helps defend computer users liberties told the Times: ‘It’s a little bit like saying, “we’re in a dictatorship, the trains are running on time”.
‘But does it matter to you that someone can see everything on your computer? Does it matter that Google can be subpoenaed at any time to hand over all your data to the American government?’
The GDrive would mark a departure from the Microsoft Windows operating system and will enable users to treat their computer as software rather than hardware.
Does it mean, we would not need to buy any softwares and hard drives anymore soon?
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