Google Desktop. Knowledge banks & popular science

MANILA – I had been terribly disappointed many times before in the past months. Nonetheless, yesterday, 29 July 2009, I installed Google Desktop for the nth time, and when I finished – actually, it almost installed itself after I downloaded it, all of 1.9 MB – when I looked, suddenly I laughed. Why didn´t I see that before?! An embarrassment of insight.

What made me laugh? Suddenly I saw the Ghost of Creative Past, how years ago Google Desktop was really designed to be, ultimately, not the sweet, innocent program it looks to me or you. If it were fertilizer, this is slow-release Google.

Today, I have another insight: Google Desktop gadgets are actually objects of my desire – as in object-oriented programming, your OOP. While not a computer programmer, I have always been interested in OOP, especially in the use of Smalltalk. On 31 December 2003, at PhilRice Headquarters in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, I finished the 3rd draft of my book Geography of Rice (unpublished). It was my 198-page book / report on my 2-month consultancy at the Philippine Rice Research Institute; I submitted it to Roger Barroga, who was the project manager of the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, and I heard nothing more of it. And they heard nothing more from me.

Rereading it today, I see that book comprised my expositions, all original, on the different present and future components and considerations of the Open Academy, especially its knowledge database. Among the articles was ´Options-Oriented Popularizing Service, Object-Oriented Programming System. OOPS!´ where I proposed the radical concept that a 2-in-1 knowledge bank be built: one for the scientists and one for the farmers. I had yet to see a knowledge database that was truly farmer-friendly. What I had seen were invariably scientists talking to scientists, hoping that if the farmer would just sit with them and listen, he would understand all the technical stuff. If you have seen one knowledge databank, you have seen them all.

That year, I had been reading about Smalltalk, and I thought I had understood enough of it to suggest its use in building essentially a knowledge database of options – suggestions, prompts, choices, alternatives of action and such. Indeed, I thought I had the practical, implementable metaphor: objects for the programmer, options for the user. For the programmer, everything is an object; for the user, everything is an option. Each object is a useful little thing; each option is a useful little idea. Combine objects and you may have a new menu for a program; combine options and you may have a unique technique for your farming.

The slogan of the American Smalltalk Industry Council is this: ´Smalltalk makes the hard things easy and the impossible possible´ (stic.org). Like I said, I´m not a programmer, but when I meet something (or someone) I like, I try to understand, no matter how difficult. So, in my non-programmer´s book, Geography of Rice, the PC program Smalltalk was a major part. I wanted the knowledge database to become the small talk of farmers.

To relate all that to Google Desktop, to explain, let us assume that the Open Academy has for literate farmers a knowledge databank that comprises mostly options for action. Further, let us limit the knowledge database to these few options for a farmer in planting rice: protecting his crop from 2 diseases, and enriching his soil (the code is the Open Academy's GUI icon):

Cut weeds to make compost / WM1 /
Handweed and burn / WM3 /
Keep the field flooded / WM2 /
Practice zero tillage / WM5 /
Resistant to sheath blight / SV41 /
Resistant to sheath blight, susceptible to rice blast / SV43 /
Resistant to both sheath blight & rice blast / SV45 /
Spray herbicide / WM4 /
Susceptible to sheath blight / SV42 /
Susceptible to sheath blight, resistant to rice blast / SV44 /
Unknown in disease resistance / highest 4 tons/ha / / SV46 /
Use weed control action indicators / WF2 /
Use your eyes and better judgment / WF3 /
Weed regularly / calendared weeding / / WF1 /
You don´t weed at all – do zero tillage / WF4 /.

(In the real knowledge database, the advantages and disadvantages of each option above and other considerations are discussed extensively when the literate farmer clicks the appropriate icon, an object that represents an option.)

The literate farmer browses the knowledge database and, clicking on the options he likes, he finally gets a piece of paper with these codes written – / WM1 / WF4 / SV43 / – and deciphered. WM1 means that the farmer is expected to cut the weeds to make compost; WF4 means that he is expected to practice zero tillage; and SV43 means that he is expected to choose the variety that is resistant to sheath blight but susceptible to rice blast – the sheath blight is the #1 disease in his area and rice blast has not been reported anyway. A calculated risk on the part of the farmer. That´s why I call it an option rather than the usual instruction.

Now then, yesterday, when I looked at the new Google Desktop (´Info when you want it, right on your desktop´), downloaded from desktop.google.com, of course I saw these words underneath the huge word Google on top of the tiny word Desktop as menu:
/ Web / Images / Groups / News / Shopping / Maps / Scholar / Desktop /

But then I also imagined I saw all these in the Google Desktop menu:
/ Web / Images / Groups / News / Shopping / Maps / Scholar / Desktop /
/ Word / Photoshop / PageMaker / Picasa / PowerPoint /

You get the point?

I mean, I saw Google Desktop as in fact Google´s hidden agenda: the unannounced operating system that is light & fast and devoted to the World Wide Web. Google Desktop is designed to be a minimalist OS that resides on the Internet rather than a maximalist OS (like Windows) that resides on each individual PC connected to the Net.

That is to say, Google Desktop intends to transform Word, Photoshop, PageMaker, Picasa, PowerPoint etc into objects of mouse programming, icons, literally objects of your desire, at the click and call of your mouse. In other words, no more worry nights about installing any program from Microsoft, Adobe, Google, Yahoo, IBM, Apple what have you. Except for a kernel of an OS to boot up your PC, all the software you ever need are already online, ready for your mouse. No more CDs or DVDs, no more setups, no more program crashes. Goodbye to all that!

If my theory is right, the real Google OS was first officially unannounced about 5 years ago. According to Danny Sullivan, the very first beta version of Google Desktop was released on 14 October 2004; this program ´allows people to scan their computers for information in the same way they use Google to search the Web´ (2004, searchenginewatch.com). I quote from Danny who quotes someone else (with my editing): ´This is what I think one of our more exciting announcements this fall,´ said Marissa Mayer, Google´s Director of Consumer Web Products. ´Our users have been asking for this. They say, ´Google is great, but why can´t I search my computer the same way?´

Substitute ´search´ with ´use´ and ask: ´Why can´t I use my computer the same way that Google is great in search?´ Why can´t I have a Google computer, not a stunning & slow Windows computer, and not an elitist & expensive Mac computer? You are asking for the network computer. That is to say, with Google Desktop, the network computer has become reality, was physically born on 14 October 2004. With such a network OS, you need only minimal memory, disk storage and processor power to connect to the Internet and have your fill. Your personal computing suddenly becomes dirt cheap. And fast, very fast. Earlier, immediately after I installed Google Desktop, I searched for "Smalltalk" (minus the quotations) and in a split second, I got the Word file of my manuscript, ´Geography of Rice,´ all 4 MB of it.

The tool is remarkable for its power (despite its) simplicity. Rather than create a standalone application, Google Desktop Search seamlessly blends into Google itself.

That´s the whole idea! Google Desktop blends not only into Google but the whole Internet highways and byways. Ultimately, the design is that Google Desktop is your home page away from home, so you can close all your Windows and leave home without them.

In other words, sooner or later, you could be calling Google Home.