Got you’re head in the computing clouds? Good for you – you’re in the hottest place on the Web.
It’s so hard to keep up with technology these days. Things are changing so quickly that gadgets and computers are almost obsolete before they’re released on the market. While the mega-geeks might seem to have a handle on it all, for those of us who just like to play Solitare or type the odd letter on our computers it can be a completely different story.
At the Web 2.0 Summit held in San Francisco recently the boffins gathered to work themselves into a lather about the next big things coming to a modem or router near you. One of the hottest topics of conversations was “cloud computing”.
Basically, cloud computing uses the Internet and the World Wide Web and super computing power (which can process tens of trillions of instructions per second) to deliver software applications and services online and on demand.
In other words the software you use and the services you access with your computer will be ‘out there’ on the Web rather than sitting on a shelf in your computer room and you’ll connect to them and use them only when you need them.
If you’re thoroughly confused by that definition here’s a small but useful example of cloud computing.
Google Docs is a free service which enables people to log on to any computer, create and edit documents, presentations, spreadsheets and forms in real time and share them with friends and colleagues over the Internet.
Before cloud computing became cool, if we wanted to share a document with colleagues we’d have to go to the computer shop and buy the software, install it on our computer, create the document, save it on our computer’s hard drive, open our email program, find the right email addresses, attach the document to an email and send it to other computers.
If you’re a regular Google Docs user the only software you’ll need on your computer to create and share documents is a Web browser like Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox or Google Chrome. You’ll be able to create, edit share and store information entirely online using the cloud computing concept.
Technology companies and researchers are only just beginning to tap into the potential of cloud computing and it’s just one of the things that’s tipped to re-shape the Web and what we can do with it in the future.
And if you’re not spun out enough by the idea of cloud computing, knock yourself out completely with the latest news about telepresence technology and visual networking.
Beam me up Scotty!
Seen a cool blog, gadget or technology trend and want to give your fellow Web2Goers the heads up? Leave us a message below or send Jenny an email at mailbag@handykapp.com.
Jenny Kapp
