Archive for the ‘Cloud computing’ Category
The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete
Scientists are trained to recognize that correlation is not causation, that no conclusions should be drawn simply on the basis of correlation between X and Y (it could just be a coincidence). Instead, you must understand the underlying mechanisms that connect the two. Once you have a model, you can connect the data sets with confidence. Data without a model is just noise.
But faced with massive data, this approach to science — hypothesize, model, test — is becoming obsolete. Consider physics: Newtonian models were crude approximations of the truth (wrong at the atomic level, but still useful). A hundred years ago, statistically based quantum mechanics offered a better picture — but quantum mechanics is yet another model, and as such it, too, is flawed, no doubt a caricature of a more complex underlying reality. The reason physics has drifted into theoretical speculation about n-dimensional grand unified models over the past few decades (the “beautiful story” phase of a discipline starved of data) is that we don’t know how to run the experiments that would falsify the hypotheses — the energies are too high, the accelerators too expensive, and so on.
Office 365 – Online Software Hosted in the Cloud
It’s familiar Microsoft Office collaboration and productivity tools delivered through the cloud. Everyone can work together easily with anywhere access to email, web conferencing, documents, and calendars. It includes business-class security and is backed by Microsoft. Whether you are a small business or multinational enterprise, Office 365 offers plans designed to fit your organization’s unique needs. Learn more today.
Chromebook From Samsung Has Its Head in the Cloud
You can say all kinds of nice things about Google’s Chromebook laptop concept. You can say it’s ahead of its time. Or that it’s thinking way, way outside the box. Or that, as failures go, at least this one swung for the fences.
Google Cloud Connect
Google Cloud Connect is a plug-in for Microsoft Office® 2003, 2007, and 2010 that lets you share and edit Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents simultaneously with other people in your organization. You get the collaboration benefits of Google Docs, while still using Microsoft Office.
Evolving the eLearning Experience for the 21st Century
A greater number of people, worldwide are using SaaS then ever before, mobile products, tablets – especially the iPad – is growing at a feverish pace, people are using online storage, beyond just placing photos and media, and open source is continuing expansion. Each one of these features could be implemented into systems in six months or less. Each one is available today on the Internet for free and these types of products are gaining mass in the global market. Your end users make up that mass, and a statement I hear often is that people aren’t staying in the systems to fully benefit from it. These features can change that.
Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper
“Cloud computing is a new way of delivering computing resources, not a new technology.” The Australian Government Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper describes the whole of government policy position on cloud computing. The strategy states that: agencies can choose cloud-based services if demonstrating value for money, fitness for purpose and are adequately secure; provides guidance for agencies on what cloud computing is; and some of the issues and benefits of cloud computing that agencies need to be aware of.
The paper recognises that the public cloud is still evolving, particularly in areas such as security and privacy. These issues need to be adequately resolved before critical government services can be transitioned to the cloud. As a result, the paper outlines three streams of work:
• Stream One – provides agencies with guidance and documentation.
• Stream Two – encourages agencies to adopt public cloud services for public facing “unclassified” government services and to undertake proof of concept studies to fully understand the risks of the cloud environment.
• Stream Three – encourages a strategic approach to cloud. This work is dependent upon greater clarity around projects commissioned under the Data Centre Strategy.
How new Internet standards will deliver a mobile revolution
As the Web experience evolves, smartphones may soon live up to their name, and every business’s mobile strategy will grow in importance.
An arcane-sounding change with potentially significant implications for consumers and businesses is under way on the Web: the shift to a new generation of HTML, the programming standard that underpins the Internet. Senior executives, regardless of industry, should take note; like the exponential growth of device-specific applications, this evolution of HTML will further boost the power of mobile devices, accelerating changes in the way people consume content and the potential use of smartphones and tablets as both a marketing platform and a productivity tool.
Dropbox – sharing files online from anywhere
Today, cloud-sharing and storage startup Dropbox announced that it’s rocketed to 25 million registered users globally, a massive 525% increase since January 2010, when the San Francisco-based company recorded 4 million users. Even more impressive? Users on the site are saving more than 200 million files per day on the free service, which allows consumers to share files online from anywhere with an Internet connection–computers, tablets, smartphones, and so on.
