cloud computing

At the recent Adobe MAX 2011 conference, Adobe announced a lineup of Touch Apps tailored for Android and iOS-based devices, including a touch-operated tablet version of Photoshop. Touch Apps will be available either as standalone products, or as components of a larger web-based service called Adobe Creative Cloud, which was also unveiled. Read More

Facial recognition software, social networking and cloud computing ... they're all technological advances that alone have thrown up questions regarding privacy. According to a recent Carnegie Mellon University study, however, the three technologies can be combined to learn peoples' identities and other personal information about them, starting with just a photograph of their face. Read More

The U.S. EPA estimated that servers and data centers were responsible for up to 1.5 percent of the total U.S. electricity consumption, or roughly 0.5 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, in 2007. With companies such as Apple and Google strongly pushing the move to cloud computing, that figure is likely to increase significantly in the coming decade. Since a lot of energy is consumed keeping the computer systems cool, colder climates are seen as more favorable sites for data centers. But a new paper from Microsoft Research proposes a different approach that would see servers, dubbed Data Furnaces, distributed to office buildings and homes where they would act as a primary heat source. Read More

With automobiles, we’re currently at a point in history where some of the advantages of electric vehicles are becoming apparent, yet the internal combustion engine still has its merits – as a result, a lot of people are buying gas/electric hybrids. Well, the LaCie CloudBox sort of represents the same thing, except for data storage. It’s a hard drive, which people trust and are used to, yet it automatically backs everything up to the cloud, which seems to be the direction in which things are heading. Just think of it as a Prius for your computer. Read More

Australian manufacturer Kogan says it will ship the world's first notebook running on the open source Chromium OS from June 7. The release date for the 11.6'' Agora Chromium Laptop means that Kogan has pipped Samsung and Acer, whose Google-sanctioned Chromebooks are due out in a week. Read More

Amazon has announced the U.S. launch of new cloud storage and media playback services that allow users to securely store and access files and music from any web-connected PC or Mac, or Android phone or tablet. Amazon customers start with 5GB of free Cloud Drive storage, with the added sweetener of an additional 20GB of space for music files upon the purchase of an MP3 album from the online store. Stored music can be played from a computer's web browser – whether you're at work, at home or visiting friends or family. More online storage is available via purchase plans. Read More

Online gaming service provider Onlive has announced a system that brings its cloud-based, instant-play titles direct to the television. Instead of sitting in front of a console and loading in games via optical disc or waiting for them to download, Onlive has a bunch of dedicated servers for sending the chosen title straight to the TV over a broadband Internet line. Players can even choose whether to use the included wireless game controller or a USB keyboard and mouse to control the onscreen action. Read More

Microsoft has commanded the attention of business folk around the globe by announcing the world-wide release of its new productivity suite, Office 2010. As well as introducing more new features than you can shake a stick at, the company's cloud computing aspirations are given form with the introduction of browser-based versions of the likes of Word and Excel. Read More

If you’ve got nothing to hide there’s no need to read to any further. But if you’re worried about someone digging up something from your past – and we’re talking non-criminal here – which may influence or damage job prospects, relationships, your social or professional life, then good news is at hand. The University of Washington (UW) has developed Vanish – a prototype system that places a time limit on information uploaded to any web service through a web browser. Electronic communication sent using Vanish - such as e-mail, posts on social networking sites and chat messages - would have a brief lifetime and then self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all websites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers. The University says that not even the sender could retrieve them. Read More