I’ve been playing with the new Moka 5 virtualisation software and it’s pretty cool. They call it ‘freedom computing’, but what they really mean is that you can install a Moka 5 ‘virtual’ computer to your iPod or USB drive, PC or whatever and then download and install any of a growing number of computer environments (called LivePCs) which are like small operating systems in a box.

So for instance you can install the basic LivePC engine on a USB pen drive and then install Ubuntu or MSDOS 7.0 or even a LAMP web server on there too. The latest environment on offer in the library is the OLPC, which you can use to experience what little kids in Africa will use when the cheap laptop arrives in their school. There are dozens of different environments you can choose from in the library, including games and applications environments, most of which are user created. The downside? It’s kind of sluggish to install new environments, even over a fast connection, and the system is not open source, so expect to start paying money once the free beta is done with. Which begs the question, who is going to buy something like this?

The nearest product I can think of is Mojopac, which lets you carry around a virtual image of your Windows environment on a USB device, and that has a clear market for people who need to access their stuff in multiple locations (especially teleworkers). But this product looks to be much more of a solution looking for a problem. Will we all need to carry around a Linux distribution for emergencies? If so, why not just install a Live version directly? Hmm…maybe great for geek testers, though. Anyway, time will tell. Check it out for yourself and have a play, it’s entertaining.