PSA: The end of MobileMe is nigh, time to move on or move out

PSA The end of MobileMe is nigh

The death knell for MobileMe has been ringing for some time, but if you've had your hands on your ears, hoping it'd go away, sadly this isn't the case. Tomorrow sees the service hang up its storage-boots for the last time, before being brutally put down released to pasture. If the 20GB olive branch Apple offered wasn't enough to turn you onto iCloud, then this is your last call to pack up your virtual things, and make sure the door doesn't hit you on the way out. And while breaking up is never easy to do, there are plenty more fish in the sea.

PSA: The end of MobileMe is nigh, time to move on or move out originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceMobileMe  | Email this | Comments

Google Compute Engine brings Linux virtual machines ‘at Google scale’

As anticipated, Google has just launched its cloud service for businesses at Google I/O 2012, called Google Compute Engine. Starting today Urs Holzle announced "anyone with large-scale computing needs" can access the infrastructure and efficiency of Google's datacenters. The company is promising both performance and stability -- Amazon EC2 they're coming for you -- claiming "this is how infrastructure as a service is supposed to work". It's also promising "50 percent more computes per dollar" than competitors. Beta testers will be on hand at later meetings to give impressions of the service, if you want to know how running your apps on 700,000 (and counting) cores feels. During the presentation we got a demo of a genome app and we're sure if we understood what was going on, it would have been impressive. Hit the source links below for more details on "computing without limits" or to sign up for a test yourself.

Check the live blog for more details as they're revealed.

Check out our full coverage of Google I/O 2012's developer conference at our event hub!

Google Compute Engine brings Linux virtual machines 'at Google scale' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceGoogle Developers Blog, Google Compute Engine  | Email this | Comments

Apple pitches data center near Reno, gambles iCloud will pay off among other puns

Apple pitches data center near Reno, gambles iCloud will pay off

Apple data centers are popping up like spring flowers: following its North Carolina, Oregon and California plans, it's now pitching a fourth data center in Sparks, Nevada, just outside of Reno. The enigmatically named Project Jonathan hub is expected to light up before the end of the year if it's given the green light. Not surprisingly, Apple is promising jobs for the area, although the company is choosing the location for a reason: it's hoping for tax breaks on top of the advantages that previously led it to funnel some of its money through Nevada. We'll have a better idea as to the fate of the data center when Apple argues for the project on June 27th, but it's reasonable to think Apple is eager to make the Sparks location a reality. The more capacity and reliability it can build into iCloud and iTunes, the better.

[Image credit: Amy Meredith, Flickr]

Apple pitches data center near Reno, gambles iCloud will pay off among other puns originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink GigaOM  |  sourceReno Gazette-Journal  | Email this | Comments

PSA: Dropbox scraps Public folders July 31st, your sharing stays intact

Dropbox for Android

Would-be Dropbox users who want to lean on the cloud storage service's Public folder, heads-up: when July comes to a close, new accounts won't get that common storage pool. That's not to say it's the end of sharing, however. The company's recent sharing link support is still very much in effect to let groups share files or whole folders between each other. Some will point out that it's still not a direct substitute, which is true; if you're not already packing your virtual bags for a trip to Google Drive for that reason, just remember that grandfathered Public folders will carry on for the foreseeable future.

PSA: Dropbox scraps Public folders July 31st, your sharing stays intact originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jun 2012 18:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear  |  sourceDropbox  | Email this | Comments

Amazon reportedly adding music rights to Cloud Player, could close gap with iCloud

Amazon reportedly adding music rights to Cloud Player, could close gap with iCloud

Amazon's Cloud Player app just made its way to the iPhone and iPod touch, but the company's web-based music service still lacks the license deals that make Apple's iCloud a more seamless experience. While iCloud scans a user's hard drive to match songs and stream them from iTunes, Cloud Player requires listeners to manually upload copies of their music to the cloud. According to CNET's "industry sources," Amazon is looking to close that gap by inking agreements with major labels and has already made deals with EMI and Universal Music Group. This story is still very much in the rumor phase, but obtaining those licenses certainly sounds like a logical step for a service meant to make enjoying files across several devices easier.

Amazon reportedly adding music rights to Cloud Player, could close gap with iCloud originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceCNET  | Email this | Comments

ASUS Computex keynote now on YouTube: relive the excitement, the yelling

ASUS Computex keynote now on YouTube relive the excitement, the yelling

You think it's easy up there on stage? Then just try shouting "ubiquitous cloud computing era" at the top of your lungs without sounding silly. It's virtually impossible, as ASUS chairman Jonney Shih discovered 45 seconds into the video after the break. Fortunately, he quickly moved onto his company's rather stellar array of Computex reveals, including the dual-booting Transformer AiO (which doubles up as the "world's biggest tablet"), a couple of Windows 8 hybrids and the Taichi swiveller -- not to mention some live performance art ten minutes before the end. If you're the "Home C.I.O." in your family, then it could be professionally negligent to miss this.

Continue reading ASUS Computex keynote now on YouTube: relive the excitement, the yelling

ASUS Computex keynote now on YouTube: relive the excitement, the yelling originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 07:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology and GeForce GRID gaming platform

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology

We're here at NVIDIA's GPU technology conference here in San Jose, California and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang just let loose that his company plans to put Kepler in the cloud. To make it happen, the company has created a virtualized Kepler GPU tech, called VGX, so that no physical connections are needed to render and stream graphics to remote locations. So, as Citrix brought CPU virtualization to put your work desktop on the device of your choosing, NVIDIA has put the power of Kepler into everything from iPads to netbooks and mobile phones.

While the virtualized GPU has application in an enterprise setting, it also, naturally, can put some serious gaming power in the cloud, too. Fear not, for Jen-Hsun's crew has created GeForce GRID technology that leverages Kepler's cloud capabilities to augment online gaming services like Gaikai by greatly reducing input latency by up to 30ms. Naturally, NVIDIA's not spilling the secret sauce that makes it happen, but you can read all about the new technology at the PR and source below.

Sean Buckley contributed to this post.

Continue reading NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology and GeForce GRID gaming platform

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology and GeForce GRID gaming platform originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNVIDIA  | Email this | Comments

Meg Whitman: HP’s engineering is very much still alive, aims to be cloud computing leader

Image

HP sure knows how to wrap up a party -- by letting its CEO make a surprise appearance right at the end of the show. Joining Todd Bradley on the stage, Meg Whitman reassured the audience with her company's "commitment to fantastic products," and that "engineering is very much still alive from HP." In regards to the recent merger of HP's Imaging and Printing Group with Personal Systems Group (which changed this week's show entirely), Meg -- who's a big believer in focusing tasks -- is confident that Todd's new team will deliver a united brand and a unified design language, thus making the PC business stronger with the best customer experience and customer support.

Additionally, Meg seems to be getting along just fine with the board, saying that they are deeply engaged to plot a brighter future for HP. Under Meg's supervision, HP is doubling down on R&D and incubation, as well as aiming to be a leader in cloud computing (she claims that HP is already the largest provider of private cloud services) and security by bringing a full host of benefits that the competitors lack. When asked about HP's mobile and tablet strategy, Todd skirted around by emphasizing the happy partnership between HP and Microsoft on tablets, but he also said that markets evolve and change all the time, and that his company's well aware of the differences between the needs of enterprises or small businesses and the needs of consumers. So in other words, stay tuned.

Meg Whitman: HP's engineering is very much still alive, aims to be cloud computing leader originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 May 2012 05:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Huawei throws R&D dollars at gesture control, cloud storage, being more ‘disruptive’

Huawei throws R&D dollars at gesture control, cloud storage, being more 'disruptive'

Undeterred by the fact that even humans struggle to interpret certain gestures, Huawei says it's allocating a chunk of its growing R&D budget to new motion-sensing technology for smartphones and tablets. The company's North American research chief, John Roese, told Computerworld that he wants to allow "three-dimensional interaction" with devices using stereo front-facing cameras and a powerful GPU to make sense of the dual video feed. Separately, the Chinese telecoms company is also putting development cash into a cloud computing project that promises to "change the economics of storage by an order of magnitude." Roese provided scant few details on this particular ambition, but did mention that Huawei has teamed up with CERN to conduct research and has somehow accumulated over 15 petabytes of experimental physics data in the process. Whatever it's up to, Huawei had better get a move on -- others are snapping up gesture recognition and cloud patents faster than you can say fa te ne una bicicletta with your hands.

Huawei throws R&D dollars at gesture control, cloud storage, being more 'disruptive' originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear  |  sourceComputerworld  | Email this | Comments

Google bringing extra bytes to Hawkeye State with $300 million data center

Google bringing extra bytes to Buckeye State with $300 million data center

You're a multinational search company that has just rolled out a new cloud storage offering. You've also just given your millions and millions of email users an extra 2.5GB of storage, free of charge. What do you do next? Build another data center. The big G has announced its intentions to raise a $300 million information barn in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Construction on a 1,000 acre plot will begin immediately and, for its efforts, the Search Sultan will be gifted with a handful of tax incentives totaling over $9 million. Google is no stranger to the mean streets (we're not sure if they're actually mean) of Council Bluffs, though, as the company already operates a $600 million data facility within that city's limits. For those of you keeping track at home, that's a $900 million stimulus for the Hawkeye State.

Continue reading Google bringing extra bytes to Hawkeye State with $300 million data center

Google bringing extra bytes to Hawkeye State with $300 million data center originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAP  | Email this | Comments