Articles about Cloud

It's codename Windows 8 Server no more. Keeping with previous year nomenclature, Microsoft today officially announced Windows Server 2012, during its Management Summit in Las Vegas. Corporate vice president Brad Anderson also confirmed the software would ship later this year, another indicator Windows 8 is on track for autumn launch.

Microsoft tends to be very specific with products that have a year in the name. Windows Server 2008 got its name in Mid-May 2007. The company has some rules about nomenclature, and that one foreshadowed late-year release at best (the software launched in February 2008). The deliberate 2012 nomenclature signals Microsoft's confidence that the new Windows Server will ship this year and likely sooner than later.

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Comodo Group has released new versions of its backup tools for Windows users. COMODO Backup 4.1.2 introduces a number of new features, including an automatic option for creating WinPE-based rescue discs, while Comodo Cloud 2.1.6 is a maintenance release offering a number of minor bug fixes.

COMODO Backup 4.1.2 allows users to back up selected files and entire drive images to just about any location, including external drives, optical discs, network, FTP and, of course, Comodo’s own cloud-storage servers, with 5GB of online storage provided free of charge. Comodo Cloud 2.1.6 is Comodo’s standlone client for exclusively connecting to your Comodo cloud-based backup space via Windows -- a mobile app is also available for iOS and Android users.

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Richard Wang has released Beta 2 of FluffyApp 2.0, his free Windows client for accessing the CloudApp file-sharing service. CloudApp allows Mac users to quickly and easily share files via free and paid-for cloud-based storage, and FluffyApp brings this functionality to Windows users.

Version 2.0’s main improvement is in its user interface, introducing a flyout for displaying drop history as well as providing tabs for uploading files and publishing text and shortened links. Other changes include a consolidated area for options and Hotkeys using the standard Windows mechanism.

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Just as Facebook forces users to adopt a more cluttered, confusing appearance, Google+ simplifies and provides social networkers more control over the layout. Much as I've tried to use Facebook more, because that's where my family hangs out, Google+ is inescapable. It's a gravity well too strong to resist. For 170 million, the number of users Google revealed today, Plus perhaps is irresistible, too. That's a lot of people for a service less than a year old.

Google+ is more than a social network. It is the future of Google. Like it or not, the company has embarked on a strategy around social search, and Plus is a pillar. Competing against Facebook clearly is one of Google's goals. But there also is realistic appraisal that social is the web's future -- and why shouldn't it be with gregarious humans? Additionally, Google+ is the sun around which the company's other products will revolve -- even search -- defining a digital lifestyle empowering connections, communications and commerce.

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Enterprise software company SAP on Tuesday announced it plans to expand its presence in mobile applications by acquiring enterprise app developer Syclo for an undisclosed sum. Syclo provides field service and mobile asset management solutions to industries like utilities, oil & gas, manufacturing and biomedical.

Syclo's SMART family of enterprise mobile applications already integrate with SAP's ERP and CRM products and include a dozen different categories: Work Management, Service Management, Inventory, Auditing, Inspecting, Scheduling, Task Managment, Asset Management, Sales, and so on.

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In a move aimed at unseating Amazon's dominance in the space, HP on Tuesday launched a cloud service known as HP Converged Cloud that allows companies to take advantage of the company's expansive data centers. Converged Cloud is very much like Amazon Web Services, which is by far the largest provider of public cloud access.

HP will offer on-demand instances and virtual machines, and users will pay for the resources they use starting May 10. In addition, two Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings will launch: one a storage service that assists in moving data from one instance to another, and the other a relational database tool for MySQL.

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That's the question I will answer this week, for myself, as I kiss off RSS subscriptions, press releases and the like in favor of social media and honest to goodness live interaction. The moratorium includes Google News, which I rarely look at anyway (although some of my colleagues are obsessed with it). Press releases, blog posts, etc. that I see on social networks (including blog comments), or someone refers me to, are fair game.

The objectives are simple: To see if RSS feeds are antiquated and to increase my social engagement, which too often is limited to coworkers and the stories I manage. Hey, I work at home, where the grind makes dust of real interaction unless it is pursued. Aggressively.

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We have talked a lot about cloud computing recently here on the pages of BetaNews. That's not surprising since it is one of the fastest growing segments of the tech industry today. Missing, however: A more personal story on how we're using the cloud in our day-to-day business.

I run a small freelance writing and media consulting business out of my home, Oz Media Inc. While being my own boss is fun, it also requires me to be owner, CEO, CFO, IT administrator, and employee. It's a company of one. Cloud computing has definitely paid off and made running my business a lot easier, and here's why.

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Citrix is making its mark on open-source cloud computing, following CloudStack software's release to the Apache Foundation. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based technology company acquired the rights to CloudStack with last year's Cloud.com acquisition. Citrix is a significant contributor to another open-source cloud computing platform called OpenStack, and one of the earliest members.

RackSpace and NASA jointly created OpenStack in 2010. Since that time, the project has amassed nearly 150 contributors including Dell, AMD, Intel, HP and AT&T. It aims to be an alternative to Amazon Web Services, which is a popular platform for IT deployments looking to embrace the cloud.

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The Broadband Commission for Digital Development, an initiative set up by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a report on Monday, concluding that Information and Communications Technologies --specifically mobile broadband and cloud computing architectures-- actually help reduce greenhouse gases.

At first blush, it seems obvious: The better connected we are, the less we have to travel to meetings or to send documents, subsequently, less fuel is burned. Likewise, the less physical data and communications equipment we use in the workplace, the less energy we will need.

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Small and medium sized business are quickly moving to the cloud to reduce IT costs, a new study shows. The number of cloud services is expected to double over the next five years, and the number of small business using at least one cloud service will triple during that same period.

Cloud computing offers small business the opportunity to access the computing power of much larger corporations at a fraction of the cost. In fact, the survey shows that half of all SMBs see the cloud as becoming more important to their business.

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Another week --  month, actually --- is behind us and a huge number of software releases to keep track of. If you feel like you may have missed out on some of the biggest releases, this roundup is here to get you back up to speed.

iolo System Mechanic Free 10.8.3.51 is a great free tool for optimizing your system, but if you’re more concerned about protecting your privacy by securely deleting files, take a look at Disk Wipe 1.5. Auslogics Disk Defrag 3.4.1.0 is a free utility to replace Windows’ defragmentation tool which now offers better stability and performance. There’s also a Pro version of the program available –Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro 4.0.1.50. Infamous system cleaner CCleaner 3.17.1689 and CCleaner Portable 3.17.1689 feature improved cookie options, better support for Chrome and a host of other fixes and enhancements.

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For all the talk about the post-PC era and rise of alternate chip architectures, Intel defies gravity's pull. The microprocessing giant's dominance grows stronger, not lesser, which is strange juxtaposition to analyst predictions about media tablets and smartphones running ARM processors ending the PC's decades-long supremacy.

This week, iSuppli reports that Intel's share of the semiconductor market reached its highest level in a decade, 15.6 percent, largely based on its core chip business. "Intel in 2011 saw its revenue jump by 20.6 percent", Dale Ford, head of iSuppli Electronics and Semiconductor Research, says. "This outpaced every other semiconductor supplier in the Top 20 with the exception of Qualcomm Inc. and ON Semiconductor, both of which also saw exceptionally high levels of growth based on a combination of organic expansion and key acquisitions".

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But I'll shed a tear for you and remember the good times we had together.

That's because IDC asserts, despite exciting Windows 8's coming launch, that the PC era will be over by 2016. Gartner uses a different metric to arrive at 2014. But whatever the measure, the Windows era is over, too, as (gulp) Android becomes the most widely shipped operating system on the planet. I guess you were right to obsess about Google after all. Cripes! As long ago as 2003, wasn't it? Who could have imagined that it would really come to this? You weren't being paranoid at all.

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Are you 35 and claiming to be 29? Don't post photos to Facebook. Today Face.com added a new attribute to its facial-detection API: age detection. The startup claims the new attribute will let developers create apps that use three criteria -- minimum, maximum and estimated age -- to determine how old people are in photos.

While the technology surely will appeal to social networkers, the big boon could be marketers looking to maximize exposure to select demographic groups, such as 18-24 year olds. Developers can set the attribute to look for specific age segments, hence the marketing potential. But there are others, such as detecting fake IDs at establishments serving alcoholic beverages. Additionally, Face.com claims to have improved facial recognition by 30 percent in this release of the API.

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