“I want to believe” has long been the motto of X-Files fans and Google followers everywhere. From GBuy (real, and now called Google Checkout) to a line of Google energy drinks (not real), the latter set of individuals will latch onto any word of future products.
Now, there are not only words, but also a picture. GDrive, codenamed Platypus, is real!
Well, maybe. But everything about this latest bit of information looks legitimate. Corsin Carmichel explains that he was looking at Writely, Google’s online word processor, when he “started to append index.jsp, index.py and so on at the URL.
But when I entered index.html,” lo and behold, up popped this page. (The page has since been taken down at the original location).
The would-be GDrive home describes the product as “a filer for the whole world. But better.” It makes a number of more specific boasts about Platypus, as well. “If you lose your computer, grab a new one and reinstall Platypus. Your files will be on your new machine in minutes,” it reads. It also claims to provide a solution for those times when you’re “not at a Google computer”-just “view your files on the web.”
This news is making the rounds quickly, and the general reception has been optimistic, though cautious. John Battelle describes it as “yet more evidence of a Google personal computing environment.”
And Philipp Lenssen found that, “within the source page, Google author Justin Rosenstein is listed (Justin was Product Manager for Google Page Creator),” which lends even more credence to its authenticity.
Oh, and perhaps the most important thing on the page: “Find a new bug, get a free Platypus t-shirt!”
Update: Corsin Carmichel’s page appears to be down at the moment, perhaps due to traffic. Or, as the X-Files fans might have it, a cover-up.
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Doug is a staff writer for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest eBusiness news.
