I saw this the other day and that it was cool. Google in their quest for world domination/organizing information, has possibly bought another company that makes 3D multitouch desktops. Ever since I saw multi-touch demos around 2007, I've figured that was going to be the future of computing. And while I'm pretty skeptical of bringing computer desktops to 3D, that's because I'm a power user. I know that to get the fastest performance out of my computer is to learn how to do with keyboard shortcuts/commands. 

However, for the layman, I think this is a good thing. Someone who is a novice to computing would probably be put off various abstract concepts that have been a long standard in computing: file formats, drive letters, and so on. The problem is that the computer system, in order to be usable, assumes various prerequisites of knowledge that a user might not be familiar with. In this sense, it's help to take existing computing concepts and render them in a way that the real world works. It's giving data tangibility.

Our economy has moved from manufacturing as the basis of growth to a knowledge. Computers are key part of this. They have replaced a lot of jobs, operators are handled IVM's, email has replace mail services, and so on. As we become more dependent on these machines, we need even the rudimentary-level user to be able to easily use these computer systems lest we lock a lot of people out of the knowledge economy.