Articles about Cloud

HP Discover is the company's yearly opportunity to showcase its product lineup for enterprise customers. This year's event takes on a different tone, as some people are concerned about the company's future direction and whether or not HP's best days are behind it.

HP CEO Meg Whitman took over the company last September, following mixed messages on the fate of its consumer-facing businesses and a failed mobile operating system strategy in WebOS.

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The stage is set at the Nokia theater. The large screen in the middle of the stage flickers with the logo of Nintendo before the familiar face of Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Mario and Zelda, shows up with his pixie-like smile and innocent glee. Nintendo's opening act for today's E3 Expo press conference -- the Wii U update of the Gamecube classic Pikmin in Pikmin 3, setting the tone for the entire presentation.

This conference is about the games first, hardware accessories are a far second thought. The features of the Wii U hardware are only mentioned by Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, by saying "The Wii U will have YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Video, but you can find out more about the console later, let's do a rundown of the new GamePad and get back to what's important, the games!"

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Netflix is building its own content delivery network, a sign that the company wants to be able to deliver its content on its own terms. The move signals trouble for current content delivery partners, many of which get a large portion of their revenues through contracts with Netflix.

The company is not immediately tearing up these contracts: rather Netflix will continue to use these commercial networks for the "next few years". Eventually, however, most Netflix content will be delivered through its own pipes, called the "Open Connect Network".

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Google issued a succinct announcement on Tuesday, stating it had acquired cross-platform mobile productivity app makers Quickoffice, and that Quickoffice will soon be integrated into the Google Apps product suite.

"When we embarked on our mission to become the world leader in office productivity, we knew we were taking on a huge challenge. We worked very hard to build Quickoffice as a user friendly, seamless and yet powerful way to view, edit, sync and share documents anywhere, anytime. It's been a very humbling experience to see this vision embraced by our users," said Allen Masarek, Co-founder and CEO of Quickoffice in a statement on Tuesday. "Now, we are ushering in a new chapter with Google. By combining the magic of Google's intuitive solutions with Quickoffice's powerful products, our shared vision for anytime, anywhere productivity can only grow."

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Ahead of the E3 Expo's first full day, Microsoft unveiled "Xbox SmartGlass", which is an app not a piece of glass. The agnostic application runs on Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Windows 8 -- and its synergy with the latter matters most to Microsoft.

In a platform that I can only say out-Wii's the Wii, SmartGlass will bring a large dynamic to games and to media playback. Some of the features look similar to Apple's Airplay by allowing users to send video and audio to the TV with a flick of a finger. But there's more -- particularly the content synchronization and integration SmartGlass brings among devices.

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Rarely does a ChangeWave consumer buying survey offer so many intriguing topic possibilities. Interest in Kindle Fire has collapsed, only 7 percent of respondents plan to purchase a new tablet within 90 days, those buying overwhelmingly choose iPad, but interest in a smaller Apple tablet is fairly modest.

Buying intention surveys are often misleading. What people would like to do often isn't what they will when time comes to pay up. With that caveat, the survey -- 2,893 consumers last month -- bodes ill for Kindle Fire or prospective iPad mini. In November, 22 percent of respondents said they would buy Kindle Fire, but only 8 percent in May. Meanwhile a mere 3 percent of respondents would very likely buy iPad mini.

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Do you use Meebo? Will you switch to Google+? Think hard before you answer, because Google is buying Meebo, the companies disclosed late today. The Meebo team, and presumably technology, will move to Google+, just as the social network's year anniversary approaches. (Whoa, has it been that long already?)

I remember Meebo, which launched in 2005, for its socially-oriented messaging client, which didn't stick to my online habits. More recently the company is better known for the Meebo Bar, which adorns tens of thousands of websites. I signed up two years ago and quickly gave it up. Meebo isn't alone producing this kind of website shtick, and I can only hope Google doesn't make Plus negative by adopting any similar menu bar motif.

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Nintendo filled the lull of the Sunday before E3 -- typically slow with rehashed quick posts of news for most video game journalism. Rather than wait until its Tuesday keynote, Nintendo decided to jump the gun last minute, with details about new Wii U console, including several finalized product specs of the Wii U controllers. The news beat Microsoft and Sony as the first to wow with their console news, coming today.

Now simply called the "Wii U Gamepad", it has been polished down and made thinner, placing joy pads and buttons inward in off-set locations as to help with the ergonomics, adding handgrips on the bottom, making it slightly wider. But all these also make it similar to that of a traditional modern game controller / joy pad. The thumbsliders similar to what was on the Sony PlayStation Portable have been switched for analog thumbsticks, providing support L3 and R3 button presses as well, similar to Playstation and Xbox 360 joypad sticks. There has also been an update with more sensitive motion and gyroscope sensors rounding out the typical video game controller specs.

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Computex is underway in Taipei, and Asus has a slew of mobile announcements we'll get to in other posts today. I'm scratching my head trying to grok the computer maker's cloud strategy, which looks good in this video but far removed from the reality I live in, or you. It's an idealized future of everywhere sync and help holograms that's more Star Trek than today's tech.

But the concept has meaning, and so there's no misunderstanding: Windows 8 plays an important role in Asus' cloud strategy. Microsoft issued Windows 8 Release Preview on May 31 and anticipates new PCs shipping with gold code for the holidays.

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Ahead of its official release, Mozilla has uploaded Firefox 13 FINAL to its servers, the latest version of its open-source, cross-platform web browser. Version 13 will be officially unveiled on June 5, when it should also become available as an update to existing Firefox users.

Version 13 is a landmark release, containing a number of major new features: redesigned home and new tab pages, support for “tabs on demand” loading of pages on restoring the previous browsing session to speed up startup, and a new Reset Firefox feature for attempting to fix major problems with a single click.

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Save your greenbacks now. During these thirty days you'll hear about lots of innovative and imitative products coming for the holidays. There's no coal in Santa's stocking this year, just too much tech to fit your gift list.

Not since the late 1990s, when seemingly every day some vendor announced a new PC that was ever-so-better than the one you bought the week before, is there so much new tech coming so close together. The cloud connected-device era ushers in a storm of tech. Save up now so you don't break the bank account or exceed credit card limits later.

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By far the biggest releases of the past week come from Microsoft. The up-coming Windows 8 is now really not too far away and you can check to see whether your computer is going to be able to run it by downloading yourself a copy of Microsoft Windows 8 Release Preview Setup. This simple little tool can also be used to obtain a product key that can be used to install Microsoft Windows 8 Release Preview (32-bit) or Microsoft Windows 8 Release Preview (64-bit).

Whether you are using the very latest version of Windows or a slightly older one, security is of the utmost importance, and ZoneAlarm Free 10.2.47.0 is a free firewall that helps to protect your internet connection, while IObit Advanced SystemCare 5.3.0.246 is a complete security suite with added optimization options. From the same stables, there is also IObit Advanced SystemCare with Antivirus 2012 (v5.5.2) Beta 2 add virus protection in this preview release.

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Follow me, Patrick Roanhouse, as I cover major press news from the E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the the biggest video game trade show in the United States. Developed and birthed when the video game industry outgrew the once gigantic consumer electronics tradeshow Comdex, E3 expo first pressed the start button in 1995. 

Historically Los Angeles based, E3 Expo marks the start-off point for the titans of the video game industry to sell their newest wares to retail corperate buyers for the Latin, American, and European markets in Las Vegas-level neon showcases. An industry, journalism, and buyer only tradeshow, attending E3 Expo typically is the the dream for most video game nerds eager to see the next big thing.

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The battle of the browsers reached new territory in May, as IE and Chrome directly engaged for the first time. Firefox is collateral damage -- destined to fall to No. 3, whether by Net Applications' or StatCounter's reckoning. Mozilla's open-source champion that took back the web from Microsoft, falls before Chrome's advances. The browser wars are back with a vengeance and the heretofore top two are in retreat. Well, depending on whose counting you believe.

While the top browser, as measured by usage share, may be disputed, Firefox's decline is not. StatCounter put Chrome ahead of Firefox last summer. NetApps has the Mozilla browser and Chrome in a May photo finish -- 19.71 percent and 19.58 percent share, respectively. Given the downward and upward trajectories of both, Google's browser is all but certain to claim second place during June. Firefox's decline is all but inevitable -- that despite Mozilla adopting similar fast-track development that sets both browsers' apart from slow-updating Internet Explorer and Safari.

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On June 1, Net Applications and StatCounter will release browser usage share for May. But why wait? Ten days ago I asked which is your preferred primary browser. You answered, and Chrome takes the crown, followed by Firefox and Internet Explorer. The days of IE dominance are over. No wonder the European Union is crawling down Google's throat over search.

The poll results are fairly consistent with those from one conducted last year, even though the sample size is smaller, 1,160 as I write. I asked: "Which is your preferred primary web browser, meaning when you can choose it? (For personal computer, not phone or other device.)" The idea is to gauge browser usage based on what people would choose, pushing aside what they might be compelled to use at work. A stunning 46.72 percent of respondents choose Chrome, 25 percent Firefox and 20.4 percent Internet Explorer.

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