Put on your 3D glasses for BumpTop
January 27, 2009
Last week, I really felt like I was truly connected, just surfing along on the web’s many superhighway tubes. I cruised over to TED and watched a video of Anand Agarawala presenting the BumpTop desktop. Just as my web surfing was getting so pitted and rad, I noticed that this presentation was from way back in 2007. It was kind of a bummer, dude. Not gnarly. Other surfer slang.
But who cares? Even if it was from 2007, the idea is still very new and completely unique. This clever desktop interface, which Agarawala co-created, is still in private beta testing, so it hasn’t even hit the streets yet. That’s newer than new.
If your desktop is like mine, your icons are pretty much all over the screen — program icons, Word docs, and other junk. Different projects and priorities are grouped together. In boring old 2D, this is just an eye sore. If you show it to a baby, that baby’s natural instinct will be to start crying. BumpTop puts that mess into 3D and throws in some physics for your desktop objects. The end result is a very manageable mess.
Granted, Instructify strives to provide you with an actual tool you can start using now and I don’t like that we’ll need to wait. At least BumpTop is on your radar now. You can try signing up for a private beta invite by shooting them an email at info[at]bumptop.com and let them know that you’re an educator who could give some unique feedback. That might grease the wheels in your favor. I wanna hear some success stories you have about getting into that super cool kids club beta group! — NICK YINGLING
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