Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Everybody else is doing it.  Microsoft is going to give a shot at it too.

In an effort to keep programmers loyal and customers happy, Microsoft has recognized the need to match their competitors’ moves toward cloud computing with Azure.  Gadgetell has a more in depth look on cloud computing here.  Making operating systems and programs remotely accessible means real changes for us.

Keep reading to see what some of them are.

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Sections: Computers, Desktops, Mobile Computers, Hardware, Laptops, Networking, Security, Wireless, Peripherals, Storage, Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites

A New York District judge has dismissed EMI’s copyright infringement lawsuit against MP3Tunes CEO Michael Robertson.  In November, 2007 14 record labels affiliated with the EMI filed the suit, claiming MP3Tunes’s internet locker service encourages copyright infringement.  The service, which has 150,000 customers, provides personal, password protected accounts known as lockers that allow all music stored in them to be shared between PCs, game consoles, DVRs and cell phones.
The judge has allowed the suit against the company itself to proceed.  It will eventually determine if it is permissible for music to be stored in cloud services the way documents and photos are.  Interestingly enough, EMI has not sued the similar services offered by Microsoft, AOL or BT.  Robertson believes that the reason behind that is that EMI decided it would be easier to make an example out of his small company.

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Sections: Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Websites, Online Music/Video

Developer: Sharpcast
Price: $2.49 per month to $24.99 per month for 10GB to 250GB of storage
Availability: Out now
Pros: All your info, everywhere you need it.
Cons: I’ll be dragged kicking and screaming to pay for it; coming to terms with your online security fears
Overall: This service is good.  The system is dialed, works flawlessly.  Makes working on a desktop, laptop and mobile device a heck of a lot easier.

Right on the edge. The edge of being overwhelmingly excited and scared of how far reaching this change can be for me, personally.  SugarSync is making this leap possible.  What leap is that?  Why, its the one that means I don’t need to lug around my 30lbs laptop to customer visits.  And for me, that is huge.

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With more and more applications being developed that will allow us to work in the “cloud” and leave our desktop storage behind, its strange that we are not seeing more PC’s designed with cloud computing in mind.

A newly formed company, CherryPal, has just announced their first offering, appropriately named the CherryPal PC and is trying to take advantage of the buzz. The first thing that comes to mind, is that while they have not announced any pricing, I can only hope this is as low-priced as it is low-powered.

The CherryPal PC will feature a 400MHz Freescale mobileGT MPC5121e processor, 256MB or RAM and 4GB of flash-based storage. As for ports and connectivity, the CherryPal will have Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, an Ethernet port, two USB ports, a 3.5mm audio jack and a VGA output.

The little computer, which is just 1.3 x 5.8 x 4.2-inches and weighs in at 10.5-ounces will be running a version of Debian Linux. The CherryPal PC is expected to be available in early August.
 
Via [SlashGear]

• Microsoft Azure cloud computing creeps on stage
• Valve’s new Steam Cloud service is go
• Gadgetell Guide: Cloud Computing Office Suites

HP has been a little up and down with their recently announced Upline service. After being announced on April 7, the service seemed promising, but was quickly taken off-line on April 18 with little explanation as to why it was going down or even for how long it would be gone.

The good news is that the Upline service is now back online. According to HP the service will pretty much pick up where it left off and everything will restart automatically. Meaning any backups that you had setup will begin to run at their scheduled time, as well as any files that you have backed up or stored in your account will be just where you left them.

All things considered its hard too complain that much, after all they are giving new users the option to get a basic 1-user Home plan for free for the first year, but at the same time it is a little worry some that it could disappear again.

Keep reading for the full email from HP regarding the return of the Upline service…

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Sections: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Web Apps, Websites

HP has taken their recently announced Upline service offline. An email from HP revealed the bad news that they have “suspended operation” and unfortunately gave no details as to when the service will return, other than a mention that they anticipate the downtime to be “temporary and short in duration” with a promise of email notification when it does return.

An attempt to login simply offers a message stating:

“The HP Upline Service is temporarily unavailable.“

To take the outage a little further it seems the service was initially intended for users in the US only, however the online signup initially allowed anyone to register. Sadly it looks like those located outside the US will not be regaining their access, at least not anytime soon.

After hearing about the Upline service I was initially excited and signed up almost immediately, in part because the service was free to try and use for a year, but also because I thought it would be a reliable service considering it was from a big name company. Sadly this just goes to show that you can never be too careful with your data, thankfully I have not uploaded any items that I cannot live without. Keep reading for the full bad news email from HP…

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Sections: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Web Apps, Websites

With the numerous social networks and online storage options so widely available storing gigabytes of files on the internet is no longer a challenge. I for one, use social networks to upload my photos and videos to save computer space, after all, I could retrieve them in the future. That is, if those websites don’t shut down and delete my files.

Recently, another start-up website was launched that is meant for accessing and sharing music, photos, and videos on your Windows Mobile based phone. Cloudtrade’s mission is to build a consumer community for free. Simply install the software on the mobile phone, and you’re off, CloudTrade offers 1GB of free uploading to your “Cloud” as personal profiles are called. Users can upload and download files both from their mobile phone or home computer.

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Sections: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Websites