System administrators and geeks with too much time have known about the ability to remote desktop for ages. In a nutshell, remote desktop allows you to use any computer in the world to control the computer in your home or in your office. Setting up remote desktop has always been where the layman has stumbled, but what if you could make it as easy as installing Chrome? According to the latest build of Chromium, it appears that Google is going to add something called “Chromoting”. If you have Chrome on your PC or Mac at home, “Chromoting” will let you use your Android or iOS device to control said computer.
Why exactly is Google going to bake remote desktop-ing into Chrome? Your guess is as good as mine. Again, I think of it as something only a few tens of thousands of users will actually use. Maybe it’s a step in a direction that for now seems farfetched: Google renting out access to servers. Amazon will already let you run Windows or Linux on their cloud and access it via a remote desktop app. Is Google going to start offering the same thing?
Coming back to the short term usefulness of this, think of all the press Google will get when they announce that Android users and iPhone owners will be able to access their computer right on their smartphone? If your job requires you to use Microsoft Office, you’ll be in heaven. If you want to access a file on your hard drive you forgot to put in Google Drive or Dropbox, you’ll also be thrilled.
