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Google buys BumpTop multitouch 3D desktop interface

May 4th, 2010 9:30am Leave a comment Go to comments

Google has whipped out its whopping wallet o’wonga once again and bought up BumpTop, a super-snazzy multitouch 3D interface for the computer desktop.

If you’ve never seen BumpTop in action, you’re in for a treat as it adds an eye-candy-laden, interactive 3D interface to the desktop, letting you do clever things like ‘stick’ items to the virtual walls, put documents in stacks, and then flick through them like a deck of cards.

Multi-touch magic

There’s support for social-networking widgets, sticky notes, changeable viewpoints, photo-browsing, with the promise of  turning the messiest of desktops into one groovy,  multitouch-enabled virtual space.

We tried this out on our own machines a whole ago and have to say we found it all a little overwhelming, and soon returned to the duller – but more practical and productive  – standard flat UI, but we’re sure others will enjoy wowing to the fabulous graphics.

Heading for Android?

Google haven’t announced what they intend to do with all this whizz-bang technology, although it’s been suggested that it could form the basis of a makeover for the rather flat mobile Android interface.

Check out the video of it in action below, and if you like the look of it, you’ve got a week to download it from here for free:  bumptop.com/download.

[BumpTop]

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  1. Hocus Eye
    May 5th, 2010 at 14:25 | #1
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    I had a little play with Bumptop. At first it was amusing. I at one point I found myself being ordered to ‘Buy a Goldfish’ – on a default Sticky Note. Then I foolishly I gave it permission to access my Facebook account. This was fine at first but soon crashed the computer – not really Bumptop’s fault but that it fired up Firfox my default browser without asking me, and my Firefox set-up doesn’t like Facebook.

    Next time I switched on my machine I wanted to uninstall Bumptop. Unfortunately it fired itself up straight away and that combined with ZoneAlarm doing a scan used up a lot of resources on my low memory computer so that the uninstall took several minutes.

    I can’t see much point in this application really – I don’t spend enough time on the desktop to need a new utility for it.

  2. Gordon Bleu
    May 8th, 2010 at 11:57 | #2
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    I love the look, but it’s all a bit too much. I’ve got a powerful PC but I can’t justify wasting CPU cycles on all that eye candy.