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Monday, July 24, 2006 The Internet Is Your Next Hard DriveNew Web-based services don't just store your data online -- they keep it synchronized across your laptop, desktop, and mobile phone. By Wade Roush
The forecast for the future of the PC: partly cloudy. Online storage systems that can automatically synchronize the data on all of your computing devices, including the PCs you use at home and at work and your smart phone, are finally a reality. One industry watcher, Thomas Vander Wal, calls them "personal infoclouds": technologies that scatter your data across the Internet and reassemble them on your preferred devices. If you edit a photo or a document and save it on your work PC, for example, these new services will automatically update the online copy, then do the same for the copies on your work PC or even your cell phone. This month, Sharpcast introduced a service that synchronizes digital photographs, and companies such as Streamload are rolling out systems this summer that keep other types of files in sync, including commercially purchased downloads such as iTunes songs and videos. With these new offerings -- and assuming that broadband Internet connections keep getting faster and more ubiquitous -- it might become unnecessary to store local copies at all, meaning your hard drive could be entirely replaced by remote Internet servers. Although that isn't likely to happen soon, the looming "data cloud" is already beginning to obscure the once-paramount PC. "The more devices we have that can access such services, and use them to share and synchronize information, the less we need computers," says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, CA. Streamload's synchronization feature, added to its existing MediaMax service a few weeks ago, is typical of the genre. Users can set the MediaMax client software to keep either the entire contents or selected files from their hard drives synchronized across devices. "Once I associate MediaMax with a folder on my machine, then those files will stay in sync, automatically, behind the scenes," says Michael Corrales, Streamload's director of marketing. "And I have the option to invite others to synchronize with my folder. So every time I upload a new movie, my mother will receive a notification that it's there, and the option to download, view, or delete it -- and if she's running the client application, too, it will automatically download to her computer." Streamload gives away the first 25 gigabytes of storage and 1 gigabyte of downloaded data; heavier users pay $4.95 per month for 100 gigabytes of storage and 10 gigabytes of downloads. Similar services are available from Israeli software outfit BeInSync and a Microsoft-owned company, FolderShare, whose synchronization system is being folded into the parent company's Windows Live Web services platform. Sharpcast's service is even simpler. Once the company's client software is installed on the user's PCs and mobile phones, any change made to any photograph on one device is automatically replicated on all of the other devices and on Sharpcast's own servers. If the user takes a photograph using his phone, for example, a copy is sent immediately to his Sharpcast website and home or office PCs. If the user doesn't happen to be online when taking or editing photos, the system queues updates for later delivery. "It's syncing without thinking," says Sharpcast CEO Gibu Thomas. "You don't even have to push a button. The whole process of manual uploads and downloads goes away." Later this year, Sharpcast intends to let users synchronize other data, such as calendar appointments and contacts.
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Google's Cloud Looms Large
12/03/2007


Comments
Guest (Amulek) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Sean) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (rob) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Backups can be zipped and encrypted to provide privacy and minimal storage need. The backup data should be distributed over multiple servers in different continents to be 99.999% proof. Sort of raid storage provide 100%uptime even if major disasters would crash one server park.
Guest (Gibu Thomas) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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We are expanding the user experienc to other data types as well, so stay tuned.
Cheers,
Gibu Thomas,
CEO, Sharpcast
Guest (Amulek) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Kenneth) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Gibu Thomas) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Cheers,
Gibu Thomas,
CEO, Sharpcast
Guest (xpbuddy) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Tim) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (pete) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Banks are regulated to ensure good financial practice, and there is deposit insurance to cover disasters. The same is not true of data hosting services.
halpad on 01/01/2007 at 8:10 PM
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Guest (too green) on 07/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
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2) You are completely dependent on the integrity of the network. It happens to me several times a week, that Gmail gives me errors and an operation cannot be completed instantly. These errors don't last long, but they illustrate our vulnerability when relying on these systems.
Guest (Chaka Jones) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (El Guapo) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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The information in this article is misleading.
Guest (Mike Corrales) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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MediaMax, which can be found at http://www.mediamax.com, gives users 25 GB of free online storage and 1 GB per month of free downloads for files smaller than 25 MB. Users who pay just $4.95 a month ($3.75 a month when paid annually) get 100 GB of online storage and 10 GB per month of downloads and have no file size restrictions. Upload bandwidth is always unlimited up to your storage limit. There’s no catch.
Sorry if there was any confusion, but our old service at Streamload.com will be going away next month as we transition users of our former service to MediaMax.
Guest (Tom Warrington) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Ann Isawa) on 07/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
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files will be awaiting your use. Of course You must have additional email account for this (there is a lot of free emails eg. gmail with 2Gb). They added encryption so your files are better protected. So you must find an alternative to e.g. streamload or try to life with concern about your privacy.
Guest (Joel Miller) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (David Mossberg) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Anonymous) on 07/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Zaine Ridling) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Dave) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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There are simpler ways to achieve data/desktop mobility which eliminate concerns of privacy, synchronization, and bandwidth. Carry a bootable USB device like this (street price $100):
http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/02/22/2221258.shtml
(The mobile user will always need some kind of "terminal" with an attached keyboard and monitor to access data. Both approaches, USB and network, require borrowing a "terminal," cellphones aside.)
Guest (Wasabi R) on 07/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
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lrainy on 08/16/2006 at 12:48 PM
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Guest (Chris) on 07/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Neville Franks) on 07/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Another great backup method is to use a USB Hard Drive and TrueCrypt. I've written about this on my blog at: http://blog.surfulater.com/2005/06/09/securing-information/
lrainy on 08/16/2006 at 12:49 PM
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Guest (rkt) on 07/26/2006 at 12:00 AM
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The PC file sharing model, such as those provided by Orb,BeinSync and Foldershare or Gdrive are good only for couple of years, the primary disadvantge with this model is the "Always On" requirement.
I think a hybrid model of "self-hosting" soultion as a CPE would be an ideal solution to solve both the problems of "paying for online storage cost" and "always on" requirement.
-rkt
Guest (Mike) on 07/27/2006 at 12:00 AM
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-Mike
Guest (Doubtful) on 07/28/2006 at 12:00 AM
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halpad on 01/01/2007 at 8:15 PM
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Guest (Someguy) on 08/08/2006 at 12:00 AM
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RonFredericks on 09/24/2006 at 2:12 AM
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Handy? See a free lecture on CIFS to learn more: www.embeddedcomponents.com/marketplace/