schrockmedia

The term “cloud computing” has gotten a lot of shine lately. Forbes blows the security issue out of proportion; the majority of files stored on services such as Amazon S3 are not critical. Documents are passed every day over email, the most popular and among the most insecure of all applications on the web, which also uses a client-server model. It’s also hardly a new idea - distributed computing, where multiple machines share resources, has been around since the 60s. Sharing resources of a central mainframe computer from a remote terminal used to be the ubiquitous interface. This is an issue that has always been present in computing models, if not always visible to consumers on the web. In the short term I can see cloud computer and related client-server relationships taking the strain off of devices that cannot handle full-fledged versions due to hardware restrictions (interface, processor speed, memory). This may very well spur a new wave of innovation in hand-held devices. At the same time, there’s a lessening of perceived ownership. This may play well with younger, tech-savvy generations who are used to software and media being free, but may also lead to a nervousness over if their data are "safe" if they don't know exactly where and how it is being stored. It also bears mentioning that the infrastructure of the Internet is also simply not up to the demands of mass scale use of ideas such as cloud computing and streaming of HD quality video to the home. What might be the solution is higher-bandwidth, commons-based wireless networking - still several years away at least for the United States.

Labels: cloud computing distributed computing forbes