Cloud Computing News And Reviews
Web hosting, software as a service (SAS), data storage and even cloud gaming; why bother with big iron, expensive equipment when someone else's infrastructure can do it for you? Cloud infrastructure can be hugely efficient and cost-effective. Buy only what you need and scale up as you grow. Cloud services are elastic, flexible and on-demand.
Updated: 6/4/2018 @ 9:22am Microsoft has confirmed its acquisition of GitHub in a company blog post, and the deal is valued at $7.5 billion. “Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.” Original Story Over the weekend, rumors turned up that claimed software giant Microsoft was set to purchase source code version control and...
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Each year on April 1 we are a bit skeptical about some of the stuff we read because some of it isn’t real. Cloudflare, the same company that uses a wall of lava lamps to generate encryption keys, swears that its new 1.1.1.1 consumer DNS service is the real deal. The promise is that the new DNS service is the fastest on the web and is designed with privacy-first in mind. If you aren’t sure what DNS is, Cloudflare describes it this way, "DNS is the directory of the Internet. Whenever you click on a link, send an email, open a mobile app, often one of the first things that has to happen is your device needs to look up the address of a domain. There are two sides of the DNS network: Authoritative...
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Security and related IT topics can be a little dry and tasteless at times, not to mention overly complex. There’s no question that, especially with the alarming rise of data breaches, advancing security innovation is vital to the future of technology, the enterprise and the Internet. But let’s face it, the rocket science behind security just isn’t that sexy—at least it wasn’t until we spoke to the team at ProtectWise. The company’s CEO, Scott Chasin, and CTO, Gene Stevens, both have roots going back to McAfee (sans bath salts), pre-Intel acquisition, with Chasin serving as CTO of McAfee up until the sale. The Denver Colorado security startup has raised $37 million in total VC from partners like...
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NVIDIA has been a champion of game streaming for a number of years now. Whether it be from a GeForce GTX-equipped PC to one of its SHIELD devices or from its cloud-based GRID beta service to a SHIELD, NVIDIA has been at the forefront of game streaming for a quite a while. Today though, NVIDIA is kicking its game streaming business up a few notches by launching a new service dubbed GeForce NOW. The NVIDIA GeForce NOW service streams PC games from the cloud to SHIELD devices at up to Full HD 1080p resolutions at 60 fps. It may be tempting to call GeForce NOW an official re-branding of its GRID game streaming beta, which has been available for free on SHIELD devices up to this point, but we’re...
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In November, Amazon announced the latest addition to its hardware line-up, the Amazon Echo. The Echo smart speaker doubles as a digital assistant and home entertainment device. It’s an always-connected, always-available Siri or Cortana-like device designed for your home that can provide answers to common questions, play music, provide traffic updates, control your lights, read audiobooks, and much more. Because it’s tied to your Amazon account, the Echo can also be used to reorder products you’ve previously purchased from Amazon. Although the Echo was announced in November, it was available for purchase on an invite-only basis from Amazon. Seven months after it was announced, Amazon made its...
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Microsoft is done being undercut by Google and its low-priced, cloud-driven Chromebooks. During its Worldwide Partner Conference, Redmond revealed its own inexpensive alternative, the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook. The $169 Windows 10 notebook will hit stores in August. Acer's Aspire One Cloudbook will sport an 11.6-inch screen and ship with Microsoft's upcoming Windows 10, and another model will be available with a 14-inch display. We know little else about the Cloudbook, but at $169 the price alone is an aggressive statement. Chromebooks are far from capturing a majority slice of the market, but they're catching on. A recent forecast by Gartner predicts that the Google OS laptops will...
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Anyone who follows the NAS game will likely recognize the name Synology, but we’d wager most home users aren't quite as familiar with them. That’s simply because Synology storage devices have typically targeted a more advanced crowd, such as readers of this website. If you had ever met someone who was running a Synology NAS at home, you knew right away they were an enthusiast, advanced user, neckbeard, etc. Newbies use more mainstream products, but hardcore guys and gals use Synology--or something like that. Well, times are changing, and Synology is trying to get in on the “cloud storage” game with NAS drives that are pre-configured, plug-and-play, and accessible from any internet connection,...
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The WD My Cloud EX2100 is a new prosumer-oriented NAS drive from WD that continues the company's adventures in the realm of "personal cloud" storage. These drives are aimed directly at people who use Cloud storage such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.com, and others. The marketing speak from WD is that those services require a monthly payment for a small amount of storage, and you have to store your data on someone else's cloud. For example Dropbox charges $10 a month for 1TB of storage, and Google charges the same. WD's pitch is you can get multiple terabytes of storage with one of its drives, and use it as your own personal cloud storage, with the files accessible from any location with an internet...
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If there's one thing that's beaten into the head of every computer user, it's to implement a data backup scheme. Like, right now. It's sound advice, but depending on how and where you backup your data, you could be exposing more about yourself than you care to share. Just think for a moment about the contents of your hard drive (or solid state drive) and how comfortable you would be with strangers sorting through your digital bits. A typical storage drive might contain everything from family photos and work documents, to annual tax returns containing personal information and perhaps even naughty home videos inspired by 50 Shades of Grey. We create backups of these things because, in one way or...
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Ever since Microsoft announced that its Xbox One would have some sort of unspecified cloud streaming capability that would allow it to offload game processing into the cloud, speculation has run rampant over precisely what that capability would look like, or what form it would take. The announcement of yet another cloud streaming project at the company has partially answered the question: Microsoft still isn't sure. According to a new job posting, Microsoft is looking for a "self-motivated, driven, collaborative, and flexible" candidate to seek "the simplest and most elegant" solutions to difficult problems while working on what the company acknowledges is a "v1" product. In Microsoft parlance,...
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Adding to the pile of awesome already heaped onto Amazon Prime memberships, the e-tailer this week introduced Prime Photos, which is yet another tantalizing benefit for Prime subscribers. In this case, Prime Photos provides free unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive, so the only restrictions you have to worry about are those imposed by your ISP. "This time of year in particular, families are capturing thousands of photos of holiday parties, family gatherings and opening presents," said Greg Greeley, Vice President Amazon Prime. "With free unlimited photo storage, we’re providing one more reason for members to use Prime every day. Prime has always allowed members to conveniently...
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It might not be its main business, but cloud storage is something Microsoft takes very seriously, and lately, it seems like the company takes great pleasure in getting under the skin of its competitors. This past summer, the company followed-up Google's decision to offer 1TB for 10 bucks a month with the same kind of plan, and afterwards, many questioned what Dropbox's next move would be. Well, it took just two months to find out - Dropbox would also be offering a 1TB plan for $10 a month. I'd like to think at that point, Google and Dropbox hoped Microsoft would chill for a while, but Redmond was having none of it. Just last Monday, the company announced that it'd be offering unlimited storage...
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In case you haven't noticed, companies small and large seem to believe that health -- and in particular, connected health -- is the next major cash cow. As fitness slots into the mainstream attention, it's an ideal time for the likes of Apple, Google, LG, Samsung, Fitbit, and now Microsoft to make a splash in both health and wearables. Microsoft is joining the war this week with a new platform called Microsoft Health. According to the company, it sees an opportunity to bring devices and services together to allow end users to "combine the information they collect and use the power of the cloud to turn that data in to something more valuable." The Microsoft Health platform includes a cloud service...
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Despite the many doom and gloom predictions in the PC market, worldwide system shipments during the third quarter didn't fall as much as expected (only minus 1.7 percent, according to IDC). Partially as a result, hard drive maker Seagate Technology performed better than expected during the company's first quarter of its fiscal year 2015 ended October 3, 2014. How well? Seagate reported a profit of $381 million, or $1.13 per share, on revenue of $3.8 billion for the quarter. On average, analysts weren't expecting Seagate's profit to be quite as high, though they probably didn't take into account that the PC market is doing better than expected, along with continued upgrades since Microsoft yanked...
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