Summary: HP gets WebOS and Google gets BumpTop (for 3-D desktop), which in turn help replace Windows that is simply too bloated and unimpressive

LAST WEEK we wrote about HP buying Palm, later to point out that HP products that run Windows are now dead ("Slate" as we knew it from public demos is called off).

Some say that "Slate" is only delayed (unlike Courier which is dead for sure), but it is likely that it will just come with Linux rather than Vista 7; it's not the form factor, it's the software. As Perlow put it some days ago:

HP's Slate was an Ugly Baby with Windows 7

[...]

The existing WebOS application base of 1500+ programs, while not huge, will run pretty much as-is with some simple re-packaging and screen optimization, because the apps are all written in the lingua franca of the Web, HTML and Javascript, and are completely CPU platform neutral.

Other reports tell us that WebOS might have something to do with Windows being abolished.

Techcrunch is reporting that Hewlett-Packard is killing off its Slate tablet before it comes to market.

The reasoning, according to a Techcrunch source, is that HP isn't happy with the performance of Window 7 as a tablet operating system. That means HP will be shopping around for a new operating system such as Google's Android OS or they could be fixing to convert Palm's webOS for tablets.

In other interesting news, Google acquires BumpTop probably to put it on top of Chrome OS or Android. Will Google port it to Linux/Android? Will it become Free software? We shall see.

Google is acquiring BumpTop, a startup that aimed to improve the interface of your computer desktop.

BumpTop launched its first product about a year ago. The idea, as founder and chief executive Anand Agarawala described it during a talk at the 2007 TED conference, was to do away with the “same old crap” found in the layout of both the Windows and Mac operating systems. By turning the desktop into a three-dimensional space, users can arrange things more naturally and creatively. They can pile things up, just like they can on a physical desk.

BumpTop is rather impressive and Google will probably bring it to GNU/Linux in one form or another. Given that Chrome OS and Android are mostly 'open' (not entirely), it would be reasonable to assume that BumpTop will augment the GNU/Linux experience as Looking Glass once did (even though it was proprietary). ⬆