Category: News

In early 2009 I wrote an article called "I’ve seen the future of computing: It’s a screen." It was a an almost Sci-Fi sort of peice, projecting what I thought the personal computing experience might resemble ten years into the future, in 2019, based on the latest industry trends at the time. It was the second of such pieces, the first of which I wrote in 2008. 

In May of 2011 I also wrote another speculative piece about what I thought personal computers would be like in the year 2019.   Late last year, I imagined another speculative and futuristic scene, portraying the shift towards ecommerce and the fall of brick and mortar retail shopping. 

Futurist thought exercises such as these are always fun, but inevitably, with any sort of long-range predictions of the future, there are things which are very easy to miss and get so wrong that you fall flat on your face. Futurism never gets everything right, but sometimes it can also be dead-on and flat out uncanny in its accuracy…

According to Claranet Product Director Martin Saunders, cloud computing is not a cheaper alternative to on-premise server. However, cloud computing services do make up for that disadvantage. According to Saunders, cloud computing isn’t about purchasing hardware and infrastructure only. Usually, companies and individuals only compare the cost of on-premise server to the cost of cloud server. In the minds of these entities, an on-premise server will depreciate itself in 3 years while the cloud computing server will be treated as a continuous expenditure. The costs of electricity, labor, and staff training as well as personnel requirement are often left out of the picture.

According to Microsoft Chief Technology Officer for Cloud Services Ron Fraser, oftentimes the cloud is marketed as a cost-saving device and that the Chief Information Officer is tasked to map out a cloud computing strategy. However, cloud services providers are now talking to Chief Financial Officers and Chief Marketing Officers…

The official launch of Windows 8 is only a week away, but Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff won’t be making the upgrade, and he doesn’t think most enterprise CIOs will, either.

"Windows is irrelevant," Benioff said, speaking at a press Q&A session at Salesforce’s Cloudforce event in New York on Friday.

Ever since Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) introduced Google Apps, the company has made increasing inroads at changing how businesses, governments and individuals work. Where the classic software model, most completely embodied by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), has persisted for decades, cloud computing is gaining acceptance rapidly. Given the clear dichotomy between these two models, we now have a framework by which to consider how the next advances in computing will take place.

Not only is this inquiry an interesting intellectual exercise, recent and pending events are likely to see these approaches do battle. By examining the central questions now, we will be better equipped to profit from both the success of the ultimate winner and the path that leads us there. Representing the cloud is the recently announced Chromebook from Samsung, and representing the device is the Microsoft Surface, set to be released on October 26…

Many companies and groups are working to address security challenges in various ways. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), founded in 2009, is one of the most important of such initiatives because it’s arguably the organisation taking the broadest view of the problem. It’s a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within cloud computing, and to provide education on the uses of cloud computing to help secure additional forms of computing.

Red Hat has been participating in the CSA community for nearly two years, and has been working to bring awareness and utilisation to the tools built by the CSA to provide security to physical, virtual and hybrid cloud environments. Now, as an official corporate member of CSA, Red Hat will continue to drive a focus around open standards and security to protect enterprise workloads in the cloud…

Cloud computing has been a major topic for tech startups over the past few years. What has been done and what more opportunities are there in the cloud?  Cloud computing has evolved over the years and has become the backbone of a new breed of startups. From email backup solution service Dropymyemail to cross-platform syncing and sharing service Kleii to mobile apps like Instagram. In an earlier study, cloud computing is predicted to generate US$1.1 trillion in annual business revenues and nearly 14 million jobs worldwide by 2015.

A comprehensive infographic on Visual.ly on cloud computing through the years indicated that ads for full-time IT jobs focused on cloud computing grew almost three and a half times between 2009 and 2010, showing the demand for cloud computing professionals. Key features that attracted companies to cloud computing back in 2008 were efficiency, reducing capital costs and easing staffing…

Washington, DC – The United States and Japan held the fourth Director General-level meeting of the U.S.-Japan Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy in Washington, D.C.

The dialogue highlighted common positions on the following important Internet and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) topics:

(1) Internet Policy Issues

Participants recognized the importance of international coordination on Internet policy issues, such as preserving the successful multi-stakeholder system of Internet governance, protecting personal data online, and assuring the free flow of information for the further development of the Internet Economy. In order to preserve the open Internet and protect Internet freedom, participants reaffirmed the importance of the three activities identified in the thirdDirector General-level meeting:…

Google unveiled a new Samsung Chromebook on Thursday, available for pre-order at US$249. The new model is more streamlined and far cheaper than its predecessors.

It costs $200 less than the Samsung Chrome 550, which was released earlier this year, and $100 less than the Series 5 model, which debuted last year.

The sleek new form factor is compelling, said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS iSuppli.

"To have a successful product in mobile, it has to be very thin, very light," he told TechNewsWorld. "That is enough to draw attention from other products that are out there."…