Re: Seagate shifts B40bn project to Malaysia

Here a link about a prediction I've read that the Hard-Disk will be obsolete
in home computers in the near future.
A short MTBF of Hard-Disk's, huge amount of data to be back-up, and other
items such as "pay-per-use (legal software) are the cause to let the storage
of your valuable data to Companies whi are specialised in that.
Your PC will only hold an SMD card with your acces and login data, and a
little amount of actual data and programs.

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Monday, July 24, 2006

The Internet Is Your Next Hard Drive
New Web-based services don't just store your data online -- they keep
it synchronized across your laptop, desktop, and mobile phone.

By Wade Roush

The forecast for the future of the PC: partly cloudy.


Online storage systems that can automatically synchronize the data on
all of your computing devices, including the PCs you use at home and at work
and your smart phone, are finally a reality. One industry watcher, Thomas
Vander Wal, calls them "personal infoclouds": technologies that scatter your
data across the Internet and reassemble them on your preferred devices.


If you edit a photo or a document and save it on your work PC, for
example, these new services will automatically update the online copy, then
do the same for the copies on your work PC or even your cell phone. This
month, Sharpcast introduced a service that synchronizes digital photographs,
and companies such as Streamload are rolling out systems this summer that
keep other types of files in sync, including commercially purchased
downloads such as iTunes songs and videos.


With these new offerings -- and assuming that broadband Internet
connections keep getting faster and more ubiquitous -- it might become
unnecessary to store local copies at all, meaning your hard drive could be
entirely replaced by remote Internet servers. Although that isn't likely to
happen soon, the looming "data cloud" is already beginning to obscure the
once-paramount PC. "The more devices we have that can access such services,
and use them to share and synchronize information, the less we need
computers," says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, research director at the Institute
for the Future in Palo Alto, CA.


Streamload's synchronization feature, added to its existing MediaMax
service a few weeks ago, is typical of the genre. Users can set the MediaMax
client software to keep either the entire contents or selected files from
their hard drives synchronized across devices. "Once I associate MediaMax
with a folder on my machine, then those files will stay in sync,
automatically, behind the scenes," says Michael Corrales, Streamload's
director of marketing. "And I have the option to invite others to
synchronize with my folder. So every time I upload a new movie, my mother
will receive a notification that it's there, and the option to download,
view, or delete it -- and if she's running the client application, too, it
will automatically download to her computer."


Streamload gives away the first 25 gigabytes of storage and 1 gigabyte
of downloaded data; heavier users pay $4.95 per month for 100 gigabytes of
storage and 10 gigabytes of downloads.


Similar services are available from Israeli software outfit BeInSync
and a Microsoft-owned company, FolderShare, whose synchronization system is
being folded into the parent company's Windows Live Web services platform.


Sharpcast's service is even simpler. Once the company's client
software is installed on the user's PCs and mobile phones, any change made
to any photograph on one device is automatically replicated on all of the
other devices and on Sharpcast's own servers. If the user takes a photograph
using his phone, for example, a copy is sent immediately to his Sharpcast
website and home or office PCs. If the user doesn't happen to be online when
taking or editing photos, the system queues updates for later delivery.
"It's syncing without thinking," says Sharpcast CEO Gibu Thomas. "You don't
even have to push a button. The whole process of manual uploads and
downloads goes away." Later this year, Sharpcast intends to let users
synchronize other data, such as calendar appointments and contacts.




http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17195&ch=infotech



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