Bumptop has been around as a video concept for a few years. Now this amazing desktop organizer with a physics engine underpinning the UI is available for download (PC only). The software allows you to bump and toss weighted objects across the desktop and organize them into folders or piles the way you would on your real-world desk. It also includes the ability to pan and zoom on images with all the gesture support you'd expect. While a touchscreen (multi-touch supported when Windows 7 ships) display provides a more natural interface, Bumptop also works with a mouse. Check the video after the break -- then hit up the download link below which we suspect you'll be frantically searching for after the video ends. Granted, we don't want to spend our days with arms outstretched at "work" in front of a
touchsceen PC anymore than you, but software like this could be useful on our lesser used, kitchen PCs.
Update: Katherine Boehret and Walt Mossberg have
posted their review after playing with the wares for a few days. It's definitely "worth a try" but requires a shift from an application- to a desktop-driven approach to daily computing. Something they don't sound eager to do regardless of how "fun" Bumptop is.
Download
posted Apr 8th 2009 2:07AM
Looks pretty sweet to me
I really don't want my icon to the direct link to pornhub disguised as a boring word document to be the most massive icon on my desktop.
*Sigh* Leave it to Microsoft to over-complicate simple tasks.
Oh, LOL, it's not a Microsoft product. It's still lame, though. In a post-Quicksilver world, the desktop paradigm is quickly becoming outdated. Like I said in my other post, it's over-complicated, and furthermore, quite useless.
Yea I was gonna say this isn't Microsoft. I agree it's pretty useless, I'd play with it for a little while and then not use it, but it's still pretty cool.
Leave it to John to make a stupid comment and then desperately try to backpedal more like.
Do I really want my desktop to look like my cubicle (complete with walls)?
I don't even want my cube to look like my cube.
Sweet? I wouldn't want my virtual sticky note to fall off from my virtual wall...
Really fun to try.
Looks interesting, ill give it a try
If the bumptop was my cube, there would be a desk in it with a computer. There would be a little avatar of me sitting at the desk using the computer having an infinute recursion headache.
This is like Microsoft Bob 2.0
I think John meant that Microsoft makes the simple things hard. And this programs makes them simple again. I even got that the first time. He didn't mean that this program complicates things, it makes things easier.
@truthbringer obviously you didn't read his next comment, right below his first one where he says "Oh, LOL, it's not a Microsoft product."
woo! more clutter!
now i can have a messy desk AND a messy screen!
just wish my physical desk had google desktop indexing, so i can find the stuff i'm looking for.
Now that is pretty clever. That can have many uses with other programs. Interesting to see how it plays out. I am going to DL and install on Win7 beta and try it out.
let us know how it works. especially if your have a tablet with multitouch.
I am claustrophobia, I hate it
ROTFLMAO, I've never laughed so hard at a misused word.
What were your parents thinking when they gave you that name?
Dear God! This guys IS claustrophobia! I never imagined psychological disorders would become personified, AHHHH!!!!
Our God, Claustrophobia, is not pleased! Quick, we must sacrifice Engadget commenters until he is appeased!
I say we offer up Chapell first.
+1 for this comment. Loving it.
this is my idea for autocad, any one know what I'm talking about, manual drafting brought to the computer the proper way
Oh god no.
I can't imagine having to take a ruler and a t-square to my screen and having to literally draw a digital line.
It sounds counter-intuitive. The only thing gained from doing this as opposed to manual drawing is the ability undo and make the drawing prettier. Otherwise, you'd miss the precision of keyboard and mouse data entry**
** The current system still has it's flaws though.
I know AutoCAD but I'm not sure how it relates...then again it is 3 in the morning and I'm very tired lol
Oh well thanks to melloncollie I get what you're sayin now lol. Nah, I have to agree I like the keyboard and number pad for the precise inputs
On the one hand, I was thankful to finally sit down away from my 36 x 60 desk that was often a pain in the ass to draw on. On the other hand, I know many people that believe that the art of manually drawing something results in a somehow more powerful connection to the design. I disagree but that doesn't mean I'm right or that they're wrong. What I think would be kind of neat is if a full pn digital drafting surface was developed that was touch, allowed you to draw, interact with items on screen, allowed you to work in pixel or vector mode, etc. Think of something like a huge 30 x 60 Wacom tablet but it was also the screen and not just a drawing surface. It would pick up smudges too, to make the old school boys happy. That would get me off my ass and make me possibly more flexible / limber again. I think the product I'm describing has a place in this world... will anyone make it? Who the hell knows.
It looks like a very easy way to get totally disorganized. Also browsing through a photo pile is good once, after that it's annoying having to straighten and arrange crap. The "bumptop" looks like a mess. I don't see how it's any better than what Mac OS or Vista already lets you do.
I also got a claustrophobic feeling during some parts of the video.
ive always thought bumptop was pretty cool. only time will tell if it or something like it gains popularity. to me, it seems more of a novelty than anything (right now, at least).
I thought BumpTop had been available for a while now? Or was that just the beta I was using?
i love how Steve jobs is in the top left hand corner....
how Microsoft-y...
Yeah I know. I noticed that too. lol i was like wait....what? o.0
the video ends kinda abruptly (1:11), or is that just me?
like all those "revolutionary new ways to organize your desktop" we've come to see over the years, i think this is nothing more than a toy. might be fun to use for a while, but i can't see myself actually working with this day in, day out.
It's you. Or rather one of those glitches we all get from time to time. Refreshing the page should fix it.
Looks like the desktop... *puts shades on* is really the floor *YYEEAAHHHHHHHHH!!*
Not bad.
I beta tested this. I guess it was only a select few who were selected?
I never tried the multi-touch functionality but I wrote a few bugs for the program.
Personally, I prefer mouse and keyboard... That is, as long as my monitor is faced towards me a 1 1/2 feet from my face and at a 90 degree angle.
If I had an HP Tx2, I would totally try it out.
Does it support multi monitor setups though? I've got 3 screens!
"is that..."
is that what?
Excuse me while I go create "a piles."
1- screen is laggy
2- my desk is messy, i don't want to have a messy screen too
1 - my computer runs it beautifully, and with flickr feeds to keep the frames updating = awesome
2 - you can quickly sort files into piles by type, spread them out, throw them around... this makes my desktop MUCH more organized.
only thing i want now is the ability to change the floor and wall textures.. maybe that's in Pro?
Spoke too soon - it's got that, too.
This needs to be combined with OneNote
Does it have undo for when I screw up the way my stuff is organized?
go to bumptop settings, then click - reset bumptop layout. Will return your icon placements to what they are with bumptop off.
this is amazing jsut installed and bout to buy pro. works great with the tx2z and it looks AWESOME! re size things, move em around. i have a 2.1 GHz dual core laptop and its pretty low cpu useage, and xustomize the background images
It may not be the most efficient thing ever, but it's the coolest thing I've seen to happen to the desktop in years.
Loved the bit when he couldn't minimize his browser. A+++ would watch again.
they need to make the flicking between photos inverse. So to look to the picture on the right you flick to the left, and vice versa, like pic lens... It makes it more realistic in terms of physical interaction I think...
Project looking glass anyone?
I love how people still think touch screens mean that you have to work with your arms outstretched all day. Because obviously it's impossible to position your monitors in any other way than straight up like they are now.
yes, the only other way is to hang it upside down from the ceiling.
Actually, I love how some people think you have to use a touchscreen exclusively rather than as a complimentary input method.
"but software like this could be useful on our lesser used, kitchen PCs."
Granted they are not using merely Windows 7 Starter Edition, right?
BTW, Microsoft needs to buy this software right now, THIS is surely innovation and the guys that developed it really deserve to be well paid. It would also mean that Windows is more than just a copy of KDE4, IMHO.
It's awesome.
I just wish there was a Mac OS X version.
Wow, this is awesome.
Blows away any other desktop interface I've seen in terms of cool factor at least.
using this on my lenovo s10 netbook and its great! no lag whatsoever!
Remind me please, why is there a foto of Steve Jobs in the Top-left corner of his Desktop?
Daily worship?
Actually, you can play a pretty nice little game of throw him in the recycle bin with a healthy dose of physics allowing you to bounce him off of walls and other objects.
"This thing, uh, really brings social media to touch. *Long Pause* *Click Click Fail*"
This is a fail IMO. Computers interfaces should be designed with human capabilities in mind. Why recreate the problems of the physical world when you could be using the interface to solve them? Fun, but ultimately poor design.
Completely agree. I have piles in the real world because i don't have time for filing, not because it is a perferrable means for organizing my work. This utility and any other that tries to mimic the real world is bound to fail because the reason we invented computers is to overcme the limitations of the physical world... otherwise, I'd be counting shells or my fingers / toes or using an abacus instead of a digital calculator.
The novelty of this is that it does a few things that people already do. People organize work into folders (piles), then view them in graphical mode (icons) to access a document. I don't, I use detailed view. People can use application icons now the same way they were being used in the video. Organizing by file type is not new, unless you're stuck in icon view. Multiple desktops is not new, virtual desktops have been around as long as desktops. So on and so on.
I think the best representation of an organizational paradigm is The Brain although I haven't used it yet... it just seems too much work, it should be more automated, but the concept is what I think is needed. http://www.thebrain.com/
this is what windows should have been a long time ago. 3D desktop organization
did anyone realize how many programs he has opened on the taskbar?
this is pretty cool interface that could go somewhere if developed over time. microsoft should really be coming up with things like this, new UI from scratch, experimentation etc. with all the money and people it has rather than vista or 7.
lol at poster of steve on the wall.
I am so addicted to this right now. So much fun! I wish that regular application windows were treated as 3D bumpable objects though.
This is pretty badass. However, up until tidying up my OSX Desktop this afternoon, I had 1300+ items, which would be ridiculous to work with! The Desktop app Camouflage saves my life...
So I've been using it for about 20 minutes now. My initial impressions are that while I'm not sure how useful the whole 3D aspect is, the pile function feels like something I've desperately needed for two decades.
Hmm...it's cool and clever, as has been mentioned. But I think this kind of interface is more appropriate for either a desk-sized screen laying flat on a desk or a wall-sized screen. Even with that, I don't know that the 3-D aspects of the simulated walls would feel natural. Both desks and walls are flat, and trying to make them 3-D seems counterintuitive. Now, something like being able to dive deeper into the screen and navigate around, that might fly. What I think has happened, is that the graphics technology has matured to the point to allow such desktops to fluidly move things around, but that doesn't mean that doing so is an appropriate use of the underlying hardware. It seems cool because it's new, not because it's appropriate. Still, it's quite well-executed, and perhaps something from this metaphor will lead to something that really fits and handles well. Consider this a first-approximation and go back to the drawing board, then perhaps something will come out of it that can really be ubiquitous that is simple to use and not overly complicated.
When Apple invents this next year and adds multi-touch Mossberg and the rest of the Apple fanboys will think it's the bee's knees.
And the Apple fanboys will also continue to think that anyone who uses the expression "bees knees" is a complete & utter cornball.
...or about 80 years old.
"Life without walls"
I see walls, a floor, and no windows.
However, that is a nice UI.
Ok, ok, "Life without ceilings".
You happy now?
now if they did developed it furthur and added windows and bookshelves to store stuff, and then people could buy virtual ikea or designer furniture. that would be cool.
I tried this before I went to work this morning, and I gotta say, it's really fun; and very pretty to look at. That said, it doesn't work for me. For some, this is exactly what they've always needed. Me? I don't enjoy my desktop being a launcher for anything. My Vista desktop has the Sidebar, that's all. My Ubuntu desktop has a few widgets locked to the desktop, and in both systems the opacity is around 20-40% based on how it looks against whatever wallpaper I use that day/week.
I prefer a "back-to-zero" approach where my desktop is empty as it allows me to find them all through either the Launcher Window in Ubuntu (Alt-F2, whatever that method is called) or through my pinned programs in Vista, or by typing them into Instant Search in Vista. I don't need to organize things by "piles" or whatever else, that's why my most important files are within folders that again, all I need to do is search in Ubuntu or Instant Search through Vista. Mac OS X also has this sort of searching within Spotlight. What happens when you have a ton of piles, or piles within piles? Me, I would go back to Instant Search or it's comparables. Searches are so well cached that for me they are not only almost instant because I have my entire system indexed, but the method is so much faster. I type what I need, boom, it's right there. My desk at home can get messy, my computer should never get like that.
Fun toy though, really.
Fun...but useless.
"Katherine Boehret and Walt Mossberg have posted their review after playing with the wares for a few days. It's definitely "worth a try" but requires a shift from an application- to a desktop-driven approach to daily computing. Something they don't sound eager to do regardless of how "fun" Bumptop is."
I wonder what would have happened if this was a concept in OSX, rather than Windows? Walt Mossberg would probably declare it the most important step in computing since the 'Apple II'.
And if it was Apple that came up with it, you would dissect, disparage & dismiss it immediately with the anti Apple smugness & ignorance we have all come to expect. But seeing as it is for a PC, you are probably secretly playing with yourself as you type.
actuallyi would say apple should have done this in the 80s, and MS copy it in the 90s
Skeezle - don't be a douchebottle. It's in dev for OS X right NOW. Soon you too, can have a fapfapfap while trying it out there, toughguy.
@Skeezle
Yup, that's me. CJ; erotically obsessed with computers.
Actually, I don't give a damn about this bumptop. Touchscreens are unintuitive and pointless for me, especially since I've already got a physical keyboard and mouse. But hey, if it makes you feel better, I'll pretend like I give a shit.
This is horrible! I don't like it at all!
How fun! A clever example of what you can do with a list of stuff. That's pretty much it isn't it ?
This is SO MUCH fun!! downloading now :)
Looks to be one of the most pretty and innovative ways to organise about ten photos...
This is pretty and an interesting concept. Thinking about this as a good start I think it's quite promising for certain applications, it's just not totally baked yet. I could see something like this as an alternative input device - i.e. you have a touch screen tablet in front of you that you use as a keyboard, mouse, organizational system, etc and a screen in front of you that you use for viewing images, reading email, videos, etc. Combine this with pen for drawing, etc.
In the meantime, I'm happier keeping a mostly two dimensional desktop mostly uncluttered with gnome-do, compiz and conky.
I have liked this idea since I first saw it a few months back. It completely changes the desktop paradigm. (Yes! got to use the work 'paradigm' once today!) As it stands now, the desktop is wasted space. Just a place for icon "launchers" and some other widgets that could be accommodated elsewhere. Although, I think bumptop needs to go further before it could be useful. This bumptop desktop is still just icons. It needs better application integration. If there is a 150 page spreadsheet file sitting on the desktop, it should be 150 pages thick and look like the document (first page visible, landscape/portrait, 8.5x11/11x17) and I should be able to leaf through from within the desktop environment. This could turn the standard "desktop as a launcher" interface into an active work environment.
As an engineer, this would be perfect for my office. Drawings, spreadsheets, specs, all piled around for quick access. (Need to support symbolic links for working with network drives). Open programs should be active on the desktop just like the other document piles, but interactive and able to bring to the front. This would give the best of both worlds... meaningful physical organization (or lackthereof) with the power of copy/paste, find, and undo. There could also be saved desktops, or multiple desktops for different projects. Working on the Chicago project this morning? thats desk 1, Houston project this afternoon is desk 2. And of course it would have to be easy to move documents off the desktop into a "permanent" filing location. Needs full email integration, too.
Developed properly, this type of interface could go from gimmick to office standard.
"(PC only)"
You mean Windows only...
no PC only. all other machines not running Windows are not PCs, so say MS.
@darkman: Really? I seem to remember Apple telling me that a long time ago...
this is pretty good but it could be more stable... the screen flickers sometimes (not too often) and icons spaz a little when using a mouse. Its very fun but windows usually pop up behind it and i cant get to them easily without going through task manager. i was relieved to see that none of my icons were rearranged when i went back to my real desktop. Im going to keep it installed but wait for more updates.
Bob's gone 3D.
I would go so far as to say 'Microsoft Bob returns in 2009- now with touch screen 3D graphics!'
I smell a lawsuit: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/11/apple-bringing-its-operating-system-into-living-3d/
Bumptop was in the works way before that patent came around. In that link you posted, check the comments on the first page.
Try reading the comments on that very post(seriously? it's the 9th freaking comment), bumptop already existed before apple filed that patent application.
Oh, a me-too company.
Fanboys, assemble and rationalise!
Bumptop: The OCD friendly desktop.
So true. [lol]
This is neat and all, I've had it since it's been in beta for at least 4 months now. I installed it on my tablet, tried it for a day and decided it wasn't worth the resources it used up. It's a neat concept, but wasn't actually useful to me.