----- Original Message ----- From: "Trevor Cunningham" <trevor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 11:24 AM Subject: Re: the Next Big Thing
My future prediction is that people will run their own servers and VPNs and control their own "cloud". Computers used to be exclusive to research facilities and major companies until personal computing came along. It's only a matter of time before the Internet infrastructure becomes more individualized as well. Schools, small businesses, and, already, many individuals do just this.
I'm not so sure.. Apple has been pushing for 'cloud' computing, google has grown huge offering free software (or applications as they're calling them now) which uses cloud computing.. of course this is largely driven by the rejection of the Microsoft model where you buy software . GoPC is a whole operating system that is free and runs remotely, it's a nice OS too.
Then there's the chance that the EULA's of software won't permit setting stuff up on private networks - many MMORPG's like World of Warcraft depend on people paying their subscription to play online.. private servers are easily set up, but heaven help you if Blizzard Entertainment find out you've got one! I imagine other client software will simply be a client, so setting it up locally can't be done.
One very nice piece of software I use for clients from time to time is the online version of Housecall. that's a java aplet that calls the net and runs in RAM.. nothing exists locally on the hard drive. It should be pretty easy to cripple people's ability to use software on private servers by including elements of java in future software if te manufacturer wants to force users to rely on them.
What is on offer with these things is access anywhere, permanent storage and low cost - but I'm guessing a lot is traded for this freedom. No responsibility in the event of data loss. Some facilities demand surrendering your exclusive ownership (hidden in the fine print) .. lord knows what else. Facebook has a very strange vision of the future where it seems privacy doesn't exist, yahoo keeps resetting user default options to yahoo's advantage whenever they make changes - that's the one where you agree that yahoo can track your internet usage even when you're not using yahoo ..
k
