Grazed from HotHardware. Author: Seth Colaner.

You have to love the ideas that spill forth from a good futurist such as Ray Kurzweil, who recently remarked at an event that the cloud is potentially capable of expanding human brain capacity. The “cloud” is a computing revolution (or evolution, or devolution, depending on who you ask) wherein data, programs, and more are decentralized from the machine sitting in front of you to a data farm at some remote location where everything is served up to users and accessed over the Internet. Or put another way, the cloud stores data–all of the data, really–which people can easily access with a computing device and an Internet connection.

Metaphorically, our brainpower has already been immensely expanded by the paradigm of remotely stored data that is easily accessible. Just take the search engine as an example; before the ability to search the Internet and it’s deep wealth of knowledge, the simplest bits of information were frustratingly elusive…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Ryan Kim.

Not every business wants to store their files in the cloud. FileSpirit, a German company, is launching a new service by the same name that lets companies give their mobile workers remote access to company files and databases through a mobile file browser.

While companies are increasingly storing more of their files in the cloud, not every business is ready to go that route. For those customers who just want to provide private mobile file access to their mobile workers, FileSpirit is trying to be that tool…

Klickstein is certainly open to the idea of using the cloud, but so far CHA’s IT investments, though working with management firm Egenera, have been around optimizing the IT infrastructure behind the company’s firewall. The hospital has decreased the number of servers CHA uses through virtualization, and has automated as many processes as possible, including daily backups…

Read more from the source @ http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/101112-healthcare-cloud-263293.html?hpg1=bn

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Dave Einstein.

The upcoming Windows 8 launch will cost a staggering amount. Microsoft, the driving force behind personal computing for 30 years, is betting its future on the cloud and tablet computing. And there are two schools of thought about the sanity of that bet.

The Windows 8 release date is October 26; the tech bellwether whose operating system runs most of the world’s PCs is tying its flag to mobile devices and cloud-based apps. In the process, it may be cutting the apron strings to the traditional PC, the device that Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said he wanted to put on every desktop…

Grazed from The National Journal. Author: Juliana Gruenwald.

After 24 years, the Business Software Alliance is rebranding itself as BSA, the Software Alliance with a renewed focus on combating piracy and promoting cloud computing. The group formally unveiled its new look and focus Thursday. Along with the new name, the group will sharpen its focus on three main areas: combating piracy, opening global markets by fighting trade barriers, and advancing cloud computing.

When the group was first launched more than two decades ago, it was aimed at promoting the interests of the business software market. Since then, the distinctions between business and consumer software have largely disappeared, BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman said in an interview Wednesday…

Grazed from CloudTimes.org. Author: Florence de Borja.

A term most internet enthusiasts are aware of, the cloud provides huge storage capacity hosted remotely in data centers found anywhere in the world and can be accessed through a stable internet connection using different devices such as a laptop or a mobile phone. This relatively new technology has greatly evolved into a public cloud and a private cloud.

Cloud computing services are offered by various providers in various forms. According to technology research company Gartner Inc., cloud computing will grow tremendously and the personal cloud will soon be the focus of each individual who has a cyberlife. Cloud computing provides not only reliability but convenience as well. A person can access personal data anywhere as long as there is stable internet connection. Today, cloud computing also provides an innovative way to backup data without fear of losing data due to hardware failure…

Grazed from Huffington Post. Author: Michael Rundle.

When a company like Microsoft releases a rap video to celebrate its own products, you’re likely not going to enjoy the results. (Remember this?) And when that product is a relatively obscure cloud computing system named Windows Azure, that likelihood is only increased.

Amazingly then, while Microsoft has just done exactly that the results aren’t completely and utterly terrible. Wisely Microsoft opted to have NoClue, who is officially the ‘world’s fastest rapper’, take the mic and not one of its own staffers…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Tom Nolle.

It’s not uncommon for a technology to gain publicity faster than it gains implementation traction among enterprises, and that’s certainly been true for cloud computing. Some enterprises claim two factors are slowing cloud adoption: difficulty in proving cloud’s benefits and an inability to make cloud operations run as efficiently as data center operations. DevOps could offer at least a partial solution to both problems.

DevOps is an attempt to pass along knowledge about an application’s need for resources and connectivity from the developers — who build in those dependencies — to the operations teams. The goal of DevOps is to describe application needs in a way that provisioning tools can read so that deployment becomes automatic. By organizing how applications are deployed, it’s possible to automate the processes that monitor application health and restore functionality if a failure occurs. Central to the DevOps concept is the ability to determine application resource needs. Depending on the specific DevOps tool, this is determined by a feature called a "template," "model," "container" or even "charm. "…

Grazed from TheStreet.com. Author: Chris Ciaccia.

Cloud computing company Workday is seeing such strong demand for its initial public offering that the offering price of its shares has been raises, according to a company filing.

The Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP) and Salesforce.com (CRM) competitor raised the offering price from $24 a share to $26 a share, up from $21 to $24 a share earlier this month. The company intends to sell 22.75 million Class A shares in the offering, raising as much as $591.5 million. The IPO will price Thursday after the close of trading, and shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange Friday under the ticker "WDAY."…