Google Buys Bumptop for Flashy Desktops

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Google looking for a UI maker to bump itself to the top?

Google has just added a new group of UI specialists to its roster of talent.

The makers of Bumptop, the desktop-transforming software for both Windows and Mac, posted a notice on its website that it has been acquired by Google.

Google's purchase puts an end to the sale of Bumptop software, though fans can still download it for free for the next week. Owners of Bumptop Pro will still be supported, though long-term plans are unknown.

Check out Bumptop in action here on a multitouch setup:

Could this be a sign of where Android and Chrome OS could be headed?

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cryogenic
    This is the kind of natural interface that could finally make my mom to clean her desktop. Her PC's desktop is far more messy than my room was when I was a child.

    I'll still be a mouse and keyboard user for a long time, but I can clearly see how this type of interfaces can help allot of people for witch computers are (still) not intuitive.

    Reply
  • requiemsallure
    makes me kinda claustrophobic. i would probably like it though.
    Reply
  • Kelavarus
    Got an HIS card with this on the CD. Tried it out. I didn't like it at all. Others might find it nice though.
    Reply
  • bravura
    Looks pretty, but is it really productive? I mean in real life I have not just a dozen of pictures, but tousands of different files, including latex files, source code, mathematica notebooks, pdf and ps files. Some files have multiple versions organized by date modified, some live in repositories,... I need to be effective, I don't wanna play a game.
    Reply
  • zoemayne
    looks useful for photo management but not for shortcuts. Thats about it..
    Reply
  • reklatsa
    I played around with this months ago and it made me feel quite queazy. Maybe it was their choice of wall textures or the perspective, but I kept wishing there was a hand-rail I could grab onto whilst emptying the contents of my stomach into an imaginary sea.
    Reply
  • Shadow703793
    Nice. I bet Android will eventually use tech from this.
    Reply
  • pluripotent
    how many people actually have touch screens for their desktops or laptops? They are pretty expensive and usually smaller (and probably only really useful in specific circumstances). I've never seen them in a laptop. This might be cool for phones, but then the screen is maybe too small.
    Reply
  • JasonAkkerman
    I loved this desktop during it's beta, when it was free. I hope google makes it free again.
    Reply
  • gpace
    I personally like to keep my desktop clean and organized, so I don't use bumptop much, but I have it installed and use it when I have a large project, makes things easier to organize in my opinion.

    I wonder how google will go with this, it'll be really cool to see this on a phone or something (shake the phone to align to grid for example).
    Reply