Google To Launch Storage Service Next Week

Google To Launch Storage Service Next Week -- Spiegel Online

Internet search engine Google is expected to enter the cloud computing fray next week with the launch of GDrive, the company's answer to similar offerings by Apple, Microsoft and Dropbox.

Speculation has been rife in recent days over the timing of the planned launch of US search engine giant Google's new cloud-based online storage service, but SPIEGEL has learned the company plans to announce the availability of GDrive next week.

Users who sign up for the service will be provided with 5 gigabytes of storage and, like other Google services, it will be available free of charge.

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Amozon's Cloud Uses 1% Of The Internet

An Amazon data center in Sterling, Virginia. Photo: Eric Hunsaker/Flickr

Amazon’s Secretive Cloud Carries 1 Percent Of The Internet -- Wired Enterprise

Amazon’s cloud computing infrastructure is growing so fast that it’s silently becoming a core piece of the internet.

That’s according to an analysis done by DeepField Networks, a start-up that number-crunched several weeks’ worth of anonymous network traffic provided by internet service providers, mainly in North America.

They found that one-third of the several million users in the study visited a website that uses Amazon’s infrastructure each day.

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How Green Is Your Cloud?

Greenpeace Gives Apple, Amazon Low Marks for 'Dirty' Clouds -- PC Magazine

A Tuesday Greenpeace report that studied the environmental impact of the cloud criticized firms like Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, and Amazon for lagging behind their Web counterparts.

The firms, however, took issue with that characterization.

Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft "are all rapidly expanding without adequate regard to source of electricity, and rely heavily on dirty energy to power their clouds," Greenpeace said in its report, dubbed "How Clean Is Your Cloud?"

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Update: Apple defends green credentials of cloud computing services -- The Guardian

My Comment: Alternative energies have a long way to go before they are sustainable energy suppliers .... for the moment "dirty energy" is the only reliable source of electricity, an indispensable fact if you are running a 'cloud environment'.

Google Drive Tipped Off By Lucidchart Slipup

(Credit: Google)

Oops! Impending Google Drive Tipped Off By Lucidchart Slipup -- CNET

Google Drive hasn't even been announced yet, but all signs point to the cloud-based storage service from the search giant getting that name.

Google is widely believed to be nearing the launch of a cloud-based storage service, and another leak seems to point to the company calling it Google Drive.

Venturebeat reporter Sean Ludwig yesterday came across a posting in Lucidchart, a service that lets people create free diagrams, pointing to Google Drive integration.

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A Cloud Operating System Takes Shape

Image: Data united: If everyone's mobile and desktop apps use the same cloud data store, collaboration and managing personal data becomes easier, says cloud startup Box.

A Cloud Operating System Takes Shape -- Technology Review

Cloud storage company Box says it can offer a universal data store to unite data spread across different mobile apps.

As the rise of mobile computing has made the dominance of Microsoft's Windows look shaky, some people wonder which alternative operating system will take its place.

A new service launched today by cloud storage startup Box (previously known as Box.net) is intended to prove that it doesn't really matter. Box founder and CEO Aaron Levie claims that the next decade of computing won't be defined by one platform, but by the cloud service that can successfully link apps, users, and devices strung out across competing mobile and desktop operating systems.

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Infinite Storage In The Cloud

Infinite Storage In The Cloud -- Kurzweil

Bitcasa has created a new cloud service that promises “infinite storage” in the cloud for Windows and Mac.

Once you install Bitcasa it prompts you to choose which of your folders to “cloudify.” Cloudified folders are uploaded to Bitcasa’s cloud right away and get a Bitcasa logo added to the system tray or Finder.

Any time you save, copy, or paste new files into a cloudified folder they also uploaded. You’ll also be able to access your files from any device, wherever you are, the company says.

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iCloud.com Goes Live (But Only For Developers)

iCloud is Apple's new "sync" service. The website is only available to developers right now

iCloud.com Goes Live, Prices Revealed -- CNN

(WIRED) -- Apple's iCloud.com website has gone live, allowing developers to test out the online version of MobileMe's replacement.
At the same time, beta versions of the iWork suite for iOS and iPhoto have also been made available. And inevitably, many details have already leaked to the web.
iCloud is Apple's new "sync" service. When you create or edit a photo or document on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Windows PC, it is automatically pushed to any other device you have chosen.

Thus, you can snap photos on your iPhone and have them ready to edit on your iPad in seconds, along with a safe backup on your home Mac.

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Cryptographers Voice Their Concerns On The Security Of Cloud Computing

Cryptographers Warn About Security Dangers in the Cloud at RSA -- Redmond Magazine (Microsoft IT Community News)

Researcher says read the fine print before connecting to the cloud.

Government intervention in cloud computing is "the big elephant in the room that no one will talk about," said Adi Shamir, professor of mathematics and computer science at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, who spoke at the recent RSA Conference as part of the event's annual Cryptographers' Panel.

Shamir added that once most people move their IT operations into the cloud, "it's going to be the wet dream of government."

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My Comment: If you are concerned about cyberwar, cyber security, and cyber attacks .... this article will increase your concerns exponentially.

Security In The Ether

Cloud crowd: Some 4,000 servers hum at IBM’s cloud computing center in San Jose, CA.
Credit: Jason Madara

From Technology Review:

Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud--and prove we can trust it.

In 2006, when Amazon introduced the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), it was a watershed event in the quest to transform computing into a ubiquitous utility, like electricity. Suddenly, anyone could scroll through an online menu, whip out a credit card, and hire as much computational horsepower as necessary, paying for it at a fixed rate: initially, 10 cents per hour to use Linux (and, starting in 2008, 12.5 cents per hour to use Windows). Those systems would run on "virtual machines" that could be created and configured in an instant, disappearing just as fast when no longer needed. As their needs grew, clients could simply put more quarters into the meters. Amazon would take care of hassles like maintaining the data center and network. The virtual machines would, of course, run inside real ones: the thousands of humming, blinking servers clustered in Amazon's data centers around the world. The cloud computing service was efficient, cheap, and equally accessible to individuals, companies, research labs, and government agencies.

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Stormy Times For Cloud Computing?

From Times Online:

Concern over data loss and legal uncertainty may delay the development of cloud computing, experts warned on Monday.

Cloud computing involves the storage of data online, rather than on locally networked servers or machines. The best known services are provided by Google and Microsoft.

Last weekend, Microsoft in the United States was forced to admit that it had irretrievably lost all online data belonging to owners of the T-Mobile Sidekick, a smartphone that backs up its data online, in the cloud.

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Cloud Computing: Just Another Online Fad--or the Biggest Revolution Since the Internet?

Credit: James Gulliver Hancock

From Technology Review:

According to its advocates, cloud computing is poised to succeed where so many other attempts to deliver on-demand computing to anyone with a network connection have failed. Some skepticism is warranted. The history of the computer industry is littered with the remains of previous aspirants to this holy grail, from the time-sharing utilities envisioned in the 1960s and 1970s to the network computers of the 1990s (simple computers acting as graphical clients for software running on central servers) to the commercial grid systems of more recent years (aimed at turning clusters of servers into high-­performance computers). But cloud computing draws strength from forces that could propel it beyond the ranks of the also-rans.

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