It’s also almost exactly what Google tried to do with a tool called Google Desktop all the way back in the prehistoric era of 2004. But that app, like so many other potential-packed Google projects, eventually got abandoned and then axed entirely a handful of years later.
Ironically enough, at the time of Google Desktop’s death, Google said it was moving away from the concept because there had been “a huge shift from local to cloud-based storage and computing, as well as the integration of search and gadget functionality into most modern operating systems”:
People now have instant access to their data, whether online or offline. As this was the goal of Google Desktop, the product will be discontinued.
Well, here we are, over a decade later, and there’s been a huge shift again. We all still have instant access to data online and off, of course, and most of us still rely heavily on cloud-centric storage and computing. And, yes, virtually every operating system still has its own native search setup built right in, too.
Read the full article here
