Cloud Computer Wars

What’s the Latest Development?

Apple’s new O.S. X Lion and the up and coming Windows 8 offer glances into the future of computing, which is shaping up to be all about the cloud. Whether we’re talking phones, tablets or e-readers, connections without cords, built on shared interfaces, will likely introduce the post-P.C. age as proximity-based communication, storage, syncing and computing infrastructure are increasingly shifted to the cloud. Wired’s Tim Carmody says Google+ is another example of a strong move into the post-P.C. age. Only now, rather than impersonal information, identities are being shifted into the cloud. 

What’s the Big Idea?

As information is increasingly stored and shared in the cloud, how will we see computing and social media change? Information is likely to become even more available across different social network platforms. “We’ve long passed the Friendster moment of making and browsing stand-alone databases of profile pages,” says Carmody. “Social networks don’t work that way anymore, just as P.C.s aren’t stuck with sorting and saving local files in folders.” No longer required to store large amounts of data, hardware will become leaner and more transportable.