April 30th 2010 saw an important announcement over at the BumpTop Website which revealed that their BumpTop desktop software had been acquired by Google.

So what is BumpTop and why should it be of interest to Google?

BumpTop is a rather quirky 3D desktop environment with some excellent touch screen innovations that, like Marmite, you either love or hate. But rather than go into technicalities or long winded descriptions I have posted a YouTube video below that shows BumpTop in action.

I can only hazard a guess as to Google's motives in acquiring this software. Could it be a new touchsceen technology for the Google Android platform? Or could Google be looking to take on Windows 7 by producing a web based touch screen operating environment that brings together all their offerings such as Google Docs, YouTube, Picasa and Google Mail etc into one neat little package.

Only time will tell.