I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now–cloud computing for individuals, that is. Cloud computing has been a hot buzzword for several years now, and the ideas behind cloud computing have been around for a long time. Here at Spark, though, we’ve been thinking about it anew. Partly, that’s because of the recent launch of Google Chrome OS. It’s also because of the recent denial-of-service attacks that temporarily overwhelmed Visa.com and Mastercard.com with malicious traffic. More concerning was the recent hacking of Gawker, which, unlike the D-o-S attack, actually exposed user data (commenters’ usernames and passwords). That had us thinking about the pluses and minuses of storing your data in the cloud.
So, should you store your data in the cloud? Eyal deLara is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. He does research on mobile computing, and on cloud and web computing. I spoke to him about the benefits and risks of storing your data in the cloud, and I got his take on Google Chrome OS
A shorter version of this interview will air on the 131st episode of Spark, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3.
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This was a great interview.
I'd have to say, while I do like cloud computing, I am not a big fan of "the Cloud," or at least the services which boast to use it. Facebook/Twitter/DeviantArt are network applications that send data to and from "the Cloud," but the manner in which people can format and modify that data is extremely limited upon the user-end application interface. My web host uses cloud computing, yet I don't access "the Cloud" but rather just "a cloud." But at the same time, I have vast ability and freedom to use that cloud for my own ends in any way I deem fit.
Also Nora, your last question to him about different services being able to talk to one another sounds like it relates to Semantic Web. I'm only learning it about it now, but SemWeb does aim to get a "lingua franca" between database services. Sort of.