Articles about Cloud

Plex brought media server and end-client apps to the masses, making the process easy for even the average computer user. Install the server app on a computer, walk through the simple setup process and then enjoy your music and videos from other computers, mobile devices, consoles and set-top boxes.

Now the company has unveiled its latest improvement to this system -- Cloud Sync. Plex Sync was unveiled last November, and the company claims it has been a major success, stating that "users have synced hundreds of terabytes of media to their iOS and Android devices, and we’ve heard stories from people using it to make their plane trips less boring, vacations more fun, and long commutes more palatable".

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Organizations face a constant challenge to balance keeping their systems secure against the time taken to maintain that protection. Security specialist Sophos has announced an answer to this problem in the form of a product that can be managed from the cloud, providing a simplified approach combined with protection from the latest threats.

Sophos Cloud provides endpoint protection for all sizes of enterprise but because it's cloud-managed it can protect users regardless of physical location. This makes it attractive for companies that have multiple sites or a home-based workforce.

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CAPTCHA are a thorn in the side of web users. Those almost indecipherable string of letters and numbers that are meant to help websites determine that you are a human rather than a spambot often cause more frustration for users than anything else, and they have now been cracked.

Vicarious, a California-based AI team, reveals that it has been able to develop algorithms that can successfully solve CAPTCHAs from the likes of Google, Yahoo and PayPal.

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Google Docs and Google Drive were all I knew when it came to personal cloud document storage until this summer. I never got on the Dropbox bandwagon, and was so entrenched in the Google ecosystem that SkyDrive didn't interest me at first when it came out. While I have nothing personally against Google Drive, as it has served my company and myself quite well, I had to take a deep dive into SkyDrive territory to prepare for an Office 2013 class I taught this past summer. I was pleasantly surprised with the service, so much so that I began using it side by side next to Google Drive for my personal needs.

Fast forward to when Windows 8.1 went RTM, and I subsequently moved my primary Thinkpad X230 Tablet over to the new OS. One of the least publicized aspects of 8.1 has to be hands-down the tight integration between the OS and SkyDrive, meaning you didn't need a standalone app anymore to save/open files on the service. Some have called it Microsoft going too far, but I completely disagree. The service is 100 percent optional (you can still save locally as you would expect) and if you are using a local account instead of a MS account for your computer login on 8.1, the service is a moot point at best.

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The latest web service to fall victim to a hack attack is Buffer, the social sharing tool that can be used to schedule posts to multiple social networks. Although it looks as though customers' passwords and billing details are safe, the problem was noticed late Saturday morning when spam type posts started to appear on users' Facebook and Twitter accounts. The Buffer team has been quick to take action and notified users via Facebook.

Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich posted saying "hey everyone! We greatly apologize for this big mess we've created. Buffer has been hacked." Shortly after this Facebook postings were disabled in a bid to stop the spread of spam and Buffer assured users that "We're continuing to work on this and trying to investigate and fix".

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It is now four months since Google Reader shut up shop. At the time, Google cited a declining interest in the product and many people were quick to suggest that RSS was a technology past its sell-by date used by very few. But this seems to be contradicted by the staggering number of Google Reader alternatives that popped up to cater for the large numbers of RSS fans who bemoaned the loss of Google's tool.

One tool that quickly gained a large following is Feedly. In fact, so many people switched to Feedly that servers were unable to cope, and the service briefly collapsed under the weight of its own popularity. This was a temporary blip and things were soon back up and running. I was one of thousands of people who made the jump -- in fact I had a period of crossover using Feedly and Google Reader simultaneously to help ease the transition -- and things went fairly well.

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We've seen a raft of tools in recent months that seek to combine business intelligence with elements of social networking. Bloomfire's USP in this field is that it seeks to capture the knowledge that already exists within an enterprise and use it to deliver improved employee engagement and ultimately better customer service.

Bloomfire has a clean interface reminiscent of Google+ and it works by dividing content into "feeds". These are designed to deliver content that’s relevant to the individual whilst filtering out noise so that people can find the information they need to do their jobs. Notifications can also be customized so that relevant notifications and tags aren't missed. The result is more time spent on the actual task and less managing the system. In any case it's designed to be used by business people rather than technicians.

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Migrating existing applications to the cloud can be a major headache for companies. Extensive testing is needed to ensure everything works as it should and without it the process becomes something of a leap in the dark. In a bid to help with this Boston based Cloud Technology Partners has produced its PaaSLane product, released today as a free public beta.

The idea behind PaaSLane is a simple one, automatically analyzing the code of an application before migration in order to cut down the amount of manual effort required. Out of the box the software is tuned generically to work with all cloud platforms, so it's compatible with Azure, Google and Amazon Web Services. However, users can define their own rule sets to take account of special requirements or non-public clouds.

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In a bid to foil plans to create a backup of the site, isoHunt closes its doors ahead of its planned shutdown. On 16 October, isoHunt founder Gary Fung struck a deal with the MPAA, bringing to an end a series of court battles that have waged for several years.

Fung agreed to pay damages of $110 million and to shut down isoHunt -- along with TorrentBox, www.podtropolis.com and www.ed2k-it.com -- within seven days.

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Comodo has launched a revamped version of its cloud-backup and sync service with the release of cCloud 3.0 and Comodo Backup 4.3. Part of the service’s unique offering is support for a generous 10GB free storage space, with the ability to potentially double that based on user referrals, with 200MB additional space being granted per successful signup.

The update is accompanied by a complete revamp of the cCloud website as well as support for free home and business user accounts with different feature sets.

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Microsoft's big release of the day may be Windows 8.1, but it doesn't end there. The desktop operating system may have stolen the headlines today, but Microsoft also recognizes the importance of mobile devices. The company is not only concerned with its own devices, realizing that Apple and Android still dominate the mobile arena. But this does not mean that mobile users do not need access to Windows PCs -- hence the release of Microsoft Remote Desktop for iOS and Android.

The prospect of running Windows on an Android or iOS device may be a little way off yet, but it can be achieved via remote access -- which has the handy side effects of making it possible to access files, apps and anything else that might be needed whilst away from your computer. There is no shortage of remote desktop apps in the App Store, but Microsoft's offering aims to keep things simple. As you would expect, this is an app -- free of course -- that can be used to control a Windows PC from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Android device.

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Business automation specialist Automation Anywhere has launched a new application aimed at helping businesses identify tasks and prioritize them based on the crowd-sourced wisdom of their user community.

Called Cumulus (could this possibly be using the cloud?) the application is launching via the Yammer enterprise social network. It will be available as a featured application via Yammer's app directory. Using Cumulus, anyone in an organization will be able to suggest a task to be automated, vote on the tasks that seem most valuable, contribute suggestions to existing initiatives, and track any active automation projects.

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We've looked at Huddle's drive to create a connected desktop environment allowing people to collaborate via the cloud before, but now the company is aiming to take things a step beyond. Announcing a collaboration with TIBCO Software's enterprise social network tibbr it aims to further streamline the sharing process.

This will allow users to socialize, share and manage content in the cloud in a seamless way. From within the tibbr environment, users will be able to quickly and easily attach Huddle files to their updates for information and feedback. The files remain stored within Huddle's secure cloud and retain all of their security, permissions, and versions. The end result is a unified work environment bringing together people and information in real time.

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My friend Nikola Bozinovic (say that three times fast) is a very sharp software developer originally from Serbia who has, over the years, worked for most of the usual suspect American software companies. He is also the guy who restored from a grotty old VHS tape my film Steve Jobs — The Lost Interview. And as of this week he’s the CEO of Mainframe2, an exciting startup strutting its stuff at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara.

Mainframe2 claims it can put almost any Windows application into the cloud, making apps usable from any device that can run a web browser supporting html5. We’re talking Photoshop and AutoCAD on your iPad. This is a big deal.

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Online storage services are a great way to make your most important files available everywhere, but they can be expensive. Those monthly fees soon mount up, particularly if you need a high capacity account.

If you’re looking for low prices, though, hubiC will appeal right away. You get 25GB for free; 100GB is around $18 a year, 500GB is about $82, and 1TB is an annual $136 (all prices plus tax). You can even expand this to 100TB, if you really must. Not bad at all.

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