Archive for: cloud
During our boring time in Vegas attending CES, we came across a bunch of guys that were surrounded by sheep. Now, if it wasn’t for the fact they were also surrounded by gorgeous Apple computers, Mike and I probably would of just walked on by. They asked us their questions on how we back up, if we use Time Machine and so on and so on. After hearing their talk for a few minutes, it clicked. Mixing a “set it and forget it” service like Time Machine with cloud based storage is ingenious. It makes sense.
I’ve been using Dolly Drive for the past couple weeks, and with their presence this week at MacWorld, I wanted to dive into what I think about the cloud guys with the cute little sheep logo.
Hop on in and find out more about Dolly Drive and online Time Machine back-ups…
HTC recently announced a new partnership with popular cloud storage outfit Dropbox. Under said partnership, all users of new (presumably Sense 3.5) HTC Android phones would be gifted 5 GB of free Dropbox storage — up from Dropbox’s normal free starting point of 2 GB. But the love won’t be reserved for only newer HTC device owners any more as a new tweet via HTC’s official Twitter account claims the free cloud storing love is coming to all.
“We’re proud to announce that we’ve partnered with @Dropbox, bringing 5GB of storage to all of our #Android phones.”
We’re still waiting for a response as to whether the change will be automatic (when logging in with an Android HTC device) or if some special action/request is needed on the end users’ side. But even if there’s a hoop or two to navigate through, don’t complain. It’s free cloud storage. Grab it and run!
Apple’s iTunes Store just got a more serious contender by way of Rdio. Today the popular music streaming and discovery service announced the availability of both physical and digital gift cards. The former can now be found at a Target shopping center near you in $10 and $25 ammounts while the latter…well…can be found online. Digital gift cards offer a few more options: $10, $25, $50 and $100. Customers can also choose to purchase Rdio gift cards in their own user-selected amount. The best part is that the gift cards can go towards any Rdio service/feature such as music downloads and/or streaming subscription costs.
Digital gift cards can be found at http://www.rdio.com/gift.
What streaming service do you use (if any)?
The advent of cloud computing has made storage and backup much easier for businesses worldwide. The service allows users to increase their data capacity without a major upheaval to their daily operations, such as finding the necessary time and money to adapt to a spike in website traffic. Whether a company is a one-person operation or employs hundreds, cloud computing is a valuable resource.
Given that all businesses from cottage industries to corporations have data storage needs, cloud computing is a welcome addition when it comes to the convenience of office life. Cloud computing applications do not require individual setup – that is, tech support will not need to install a series of apps on every computer in a department. This move towards greater mobility offers users the freedom of not being tethered to one single computer. Projects can be worked on and/or completed from a remote location, as users need only an Internet connection to access their files…
It’s pretty sad when a new, innovative company’s first month in the U.S. is welcomed with large patent infringement lawsuit — Welcome, Spotify!
The company patent troll, PacketVideo, purchased the patent in question a few years ago — 5,636,276 which itself is incredibly general and vague. Hell, even back in 1995 when the patent was originally filed many people considered the content of the patent pretty ridiculous. Nevermind the fact PacketVideo themselves just purchased the patent — not actually using/producing anything with it. Add up all the parts and you’ve got the classic makings of another useless patent troll. PacketVideo is simply looking for an easy, quick buck. Sadly common sense and actual innovation are not properties of modern copyright.
So what’s Spotify think of all of this?
In the worst possible case of bad timing after European based Spotify’s U.S. launch last week, Last.fm is going through a slew of problems today. According to Last.fm’s Colin Strickland, the “Rabd” service that controls most of the Last.fm’s recommendation, scrobbling, and sharing features went down around 04:00 GMT. Currently the team isn’t sure why the Rabd service went down but is (obviously) hard at work restoring things. As for those questioning the lack of any backup service for something as large and popular as Last.fm — there is one but it can’t handle the load.
We just gave Last.fm a shot on our end and were indeed met with sporadic audio and wonky web pages. Hopefully Last.fm can get their ducks re-aligned rather quickly. With a ton of media hype still focused on Spotify after their U.S. Launch last week, the last thing Last.fm needs is to give users a reason to try Spotify, actually like it, and in turn defect.
Last.fm users: How are you coping?
Yes, another Spotify article. But this time it’s actually interesting. Peter Kafka from AllThingsD managed to get his hands on some marketing material that Spotify is using to pitch to various execs and companies for their upcoming U.S. launch said to definitely be coming this month. A small sliver can be seen above with some simple Q&A style verbiage. Though if reading isn’t your thing, the gist is that from the start, Spotify is looking to piggy back on Facebook’s wide 150+ million strong U.S. userbase in helping Spotify proliferate it’s brand image and music around the social network. Their ultimate goal is 50 million new users in their first year — a lofty goal for sure considering their European market is ~ 1 million (7 million claimed active users) after several years on the market.
In short: Spotify is finally ready to rock our socks off. Hop inside for another piece of marketing material with plenty of eye candy…
Music streaming fans can pump their fists high and proud today for European based Spotify has posted a new U.S. holding page with the message above — they’re coming. Soon.
Stretching several years now, Spotify’s quest to dominate the U.S. interwebs has been perilous and wrought with greed, incompetence, and plenty of road blocks. The most recent rumors were far ranging and included everything from Spotify being 1-2 major albels away from release as well as courting Google or Facebook for a possible partnership. On that note, Facebook’s “special announcement” could very well include Spotify streaming in conjunction with the rumored Skype video chat integration.
Partners (labels), pricing and an official release date haven’t been divulged just yet but rest assured that once they are, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, head on over to the Spotify U.S. page and sign up for a handy email letting you know when the service is ready, more details are known, etc. Of course, we’re pretty sure we will tell you such things long before Spotify makes them official.
Stay tuned…
Google has officially made good on their original promise echoed at Google I/O last week in giving conference attendees and Motorola XOOM owners early access to Google Music Beta as made evident by the email above. As it stands now, only XOOM devices purchased through Verizon are being included in the Google Music Beta program. Whether it is an exclusive privilege Verizon paid for or some random technical issue is unknown (we’d side with the former). But let’s all be honest with each other. The Android community will have Google Music Beta app ported to non-supported devices in no time flat. Getting the actual cloud funcitonality to work is another story, unfortunately.
Any XOOM owners receive their GMB invites yet?
