« Jaws on the beach | Main | Monopoly cashes out »

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Personal infoclouds

Source: Technology Review

Wade Roush writes about new services like Sharpcast and MediaMax that create personal infoclouds that don't just store your data online - they keep it synchronized across all your devices. Example: edit a photo or a document and save it on your work PC and the system will automatically update an online copy and then do the same for the copies on your home PC or even your cell phone. That saves a lot of human bandwidth - remembering where everything is - but a few factors will limit the adoption of these services: sufficient bandwidth and connectivity for all devices, and - no surprise - security. If we all have infoclouds, who makes sure they're secure?

These services give some people the shakes. Google has been rumored to be building one like it called GoogleDrive and this ominous movie predicted some possible dire consequences of such a thing.