Playstation 3 fans may soon be able to take advantage of the cloud for saving their game content. It is reported that Sony may be including this new feature, which they’ve dubbed “Online Saving,” in their next major PS3 firmware update, version 3.60.
However, the feature will only be available to gamers that subscribe to PlayStation Plus, which costs extra. And also developers can opt out their titles from the cloud service due to concerns over possible copyright issues.
Besides taking the load off of physical storage, having game content saved on the cloud will also allow gamers to access their game data off of their friend’s consoles because the data will be linked into a Playstation Network account. Exact date for the offering has not yet been announced.
Tying into its cloud computing initiatives from the past couple of years, Microsoft has released a preview version of its Cloud Services SDK for Windows Phone 7 with the goal of enabling devs to tap into online computation, storage, notification, and security capabilities exposed by some of the other cloud projects that Redmond’s already working on. The main thrust of this seems to be Project Hawaii, which is being spearheaded by Microsoft Research to build cool and interesting mobile-focused stuff that rests atop the company’s cloud services. The first two of those services are called Relay and Rendezvous; the former enabled phone-to-phone communication to the cloud without the need for static IP addresses, while the latter is some sort of aliasing system for assigning human-readable names to cloud service clients, which really sounds like a generalized form of Relay. Clearly, it’s going to be a while before commercial products are built on this SDK, but it’s an interesting space to keep an eye on in the meantime.
Now that the kitty’s out of the gemstone bag, we’re slowly starting to connect the dots that obscure the details of Palm’s soon to be announced “Topaz” and “Opal” tablets. First up is information from one of our original trusted sources who claims that the Opal will measure 180 x 144 x 13mm (making it a bit shorter and wider than the 190.1 x 120.5 x 12-mm Galaxy Tab) and feature a 1,024 x 768 pixel TFT LCD display. We’re told that the bigger Topaz tablet will ship about three months before Opal and measures in at 241 x 190 x 13mm (making it nearly identical to the 242.8 x 189.7 x 13.4-mm iPad) with a pixel resolution that could be the same as the Opal (our source wasn’t 100 percent on this). We’re also hearing that the “premium audio” we saw on that leaked marketing slide will indeed be powered by HP’s Beats audio processing, and that the tablets will be provided with “tens of gigabytes” of cloud storage — so much that it dwarfs the local storage on the devices. Good, because you’re going to need it from the looks of some additional information we just received. Click through for the detail.
How far we’ve come. It was only a couple of years ago that Lenovo was closing a deal to sell its mobile phone business, but a quick re-acquisition in late 2009 and some recent heavy flirtation with the tablet form factor have led to the creation of a whole new unit in the company’s hierarchy, one dedicated to the development of smartphones, tablets, TVs, and other internet-connected devices. Headed up by Liu Jun and working out of Beijing, this squad of designers and engineers will focus on harnessing the “tremendous growth potential of the mobile internet.” Cloud computing will be a major feature of Lenovo’s plans moving forward, which places its goals for the future right in line with just about everyone else’s. Still, it’s good to see one of the big desktop computing players diversifying its portfolio with gusto.
Iomega has launched its new Personal Cloud Technology system, complete with online access and of content stored on the company’s network-connected 2011 external drive range. It’s kicking off with the Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition, a pair of drives – one 1TB, one 2TB – which support gigabit ethernet and the contents of which can be quickly shared via the online interface.
The new cloud-edition drives get iTunes server and UPnP DLNA support, along with automatic posting of photos and video to Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. It’s also possible to do device-to-device copying, either locally or remotely, and there are two USB 2.0 ports for adding external drives. If you have a Mozy or Amazon S3 cloud storage account, you can link those in too.
Iomega’s Boxee-based Iomega TV also uses the same system, and can also link in with the Personal Cloud Technology setup. The Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition drives will arrive later in January 2011, priced at $169.99 for the 1TB and $229.99 for the 2TB.
Press Release:
Iomega Announces Exciting New Personal Cloud Technology And New Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition
Iomega Personal Cloud turns your Iomega NAS into a Cloud Server that:
Enables you to backup remotely to your own Personal Cloud
Host your own Cloud to share with friends, family or for business
Free remote access
All this and more with every Iomega NAS Drive in 2011
SAN DIEGO, January 4, 2011 – — Iomega, an EMC company (NYSE: EMC) and a global leader in data protection, today announced the new Iomega® Personal Cloud technology, the ultimate data protection and remote access solution for small businesses and consumers that gives you the control of your own Personal Cloud without complexities and extra costs.
Iomega’s Personal Cloud is a revolutionary web-based computing architecture that connects your Iomega network storage device to other individuals and/or devices via the Internet. Unlike most public and private cloud applications, Iomega’s Personal Cloud technology is completely self-owned – the content and accessibility is always under your control. Best of all, there are never any usage fees or subscription charges; instead, Iomega gives small businesses and consumers a great value for cloud access and protection.
“Iomega’s new Personal Cloud is an innovative technology that separates our network storage products from the competition,” said Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega. “Utilizing the expertise of EMC, the world’s leader in cloud technology, we have transformed our next generation NAS devices into cloud servers that users can access anywhere, anytime. In addition, by buying two or more of our NAS products, you can remotely backup your onsite data to an alternate location – be it your office, home or some other location – giving consumers and small businesses the ideal disaster recovery plan that’s easy to implement and economical, too. You’re not going to find this level of innovation or value from any of our competitors.”
Iomega Personal Cloud will be available worldwide beginning this month with the launch of the new single-drive Iomega® Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition.
Iomega Personal Cloud is also a built-in feature in the new Iomega TV with Boxee, launching in February.
“There are tremendous opportunities in 2011 for NAS device OEMs to refine easy-to-use basic features as well as integrate innovative technologies”, said Benjamin S. Woo, Program Vice President, WW Storage Systems, IDC. “Iomega’s new Personal Cloud technology brings news and innovation to the consumer and small business NAS markets that will differentiate from competing NAS devices. The Personal Cloud functionality will accelerate the adoption and growth of the consumer and small business NAS markets.”
Iomega is unveiling its new Personal Cloud technology for the first time this week, January 6-9, 2011, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Iomega’s tradeshow booth is located in the South Hall 3 (booth # 31553).
How the Iomega Personal Cloud Works
Users of Iomega’s new NAS devices can create their own Personal Cloud in just minutes. The onscreen Personal Cloud setup page asks you to name your Personal Cloud and then confirms creation of your Personal Cloud. You can invite up to 250 members (devices) into your Personal Cloud, giving your business contacts, co-workers or personal friends and family around the globe the ability – determined by you – to copy and share files directly between computers as though they were all together on a local network.
Benefits and Features of the using the Iomega Personal Cloud
Simple. No IT expertise is needed to set up and manage your Personal Cloud. Set up in minutes! When you invite others into your Personal Cloud, they receive an email with a link and an authorization code that automatically installs the Iomega Storage Manager which creates a shared drive letter on their desktop. Simply click on the drive letter for access to the Personal Cloud.
Affordable. For zero additional investment outside purchasing an Iomega StorCenter network storage device, Iomega’s Personal Cloud is the most economical way for a small- to medium-sized business to protect and share their data, and for consumers to share their digital life with family and friends.
Synchronization. Users around the globe can sync files directly between computers as though they were on a local network. Many SMBs still keep key files on local hard drives; Iomega’s Personal Cloud means no more sneaker-net or emailing files around the office.
Collaboration. Business users can view and edit documents (such as spreadsheets, presentations and word processing documents), which helps geographically dispersed workers collaborate in real time. Consumers can immediately share their family photos, videos and other digital files.
Secure transfer of large or confidential files. Large video, audio, and graphic art files can quickly choke a small company’s e-mail system. E-mailing sensitive files can raise security concerns. Iomega Personal Cloud offers drag-and-drop functionality that makes it easy to securely transfer large or confidential files.
Security and a Disaster Recovery Plan. At smaller companies, locally stored files are at risk from theft, fire, software problems, and hardware failure. The Iomega Personal Cloud offers built in redundancy at every level: hard drive, server, and datacenter. Should disaster strike, with two Iomega StorCenter devices and the Personal Cloud backing up your company storage offsite, you have a disaster recovery plan that allows easy copying of files so that you are up and running in no time.
Secure Access. Data is accessible only on the Personal Cloud by those who have the appropriate permissions to access it. Safeguards, such as AES 128-bit encryption, can be enabled to protect your data while in transit on the Internet. Secure logins also protect your data stored in the personal cloud from being accessed by the unintended recipients and hackers while in transit on the Internet.
Low Maintenance. Once the system is set up there is almost no maintenance. You still have to manage user accounts, but jobs like array maintenance and monitoring the health of your data storage are no longer needed.
Archiving. Archiving older files to a remote StorCenter frees up space on your primary StorCenter device for day-to-day business needs. Less capacity required for primary storage saves you money.
New Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition
Launching worldwide this month in 1TB* and 2TB capacities, the new single-drive Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition is the latest generation of the award-winning original that makes it easy for home users and small businesses to share work files, photo slideshows, music libraries and other files with co-workers, friends and families anywhere in the world (with an Internet connection).
With improved performance, easy menus and settings, and lots of new features over the previous generation of the product, the new model is the ideal centerpiece of any home or small office network that also can benefit from having its own economical cloud. Iomega’s new Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition is so simple to use that even those who have never used network storage will find it a breeze to set up and impossible to do without.
Benefits and Features of the new Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition
The new Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition utilizes the acclaimed EMC LifeLine™ software, a fully-developed Linux operating environment and suite of applications designed for seamless cross-platform support with Windows®, Mac® and Linux computers.
Among the many features of the new Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition:
Gigabit Ethernet connecting directly to your router
Remote access from anywhere in the world
Built-in iTunes® server for easy playback
UPnP™ DLNA Certified AV Media Server provides the ability to stream photos, audio content and videos to a variety of media devices, such as game consoles (Microsoft Xbox® 360, Sony PlayStation® 3), audio bridges, iTunes® players, networked TVs and digital picture frames, Iomega® ScreenPlay™ products and more.
Automatically post files to your Facebook®, YouTube® & Flickr® accounts
Device-to-device Copy Jobs for data protection allows you to define a job to copy and/or synchronize files to and from the connected USB drives or any other shared storage on your network.
One-touch copying with the QuikTransfer button on the front panel.
Low power, fan-less design, with drive spin-down feature
Public cloud connections to Mozy and Amazon S3 online storage
Two USB 2.0 ports to add storage capacity connecting external USB drives
Device-to-device replication for data protection allows you to define a job to copy and/or synchronize files to and from the connected USB drives or any other shared storage on your network. Print Serving with intelligent print sharing capability for up to two USB printers.
Time Machine support allows Apple users to easily backup any Mac computers running OS X (10.5 or later) using Time Machine.
Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) provides no touch, automatic transfer of photos from digital cameras via one of the two USB ports.
Availability and Warranty
Iomega Personal Cloud technology will be available worldwide beginning this month with the launch of the Iomega® Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition. Iomega Personal Cloud is also a built-in feature in the new Iomega TV with Boxee, launching in February.
The new Iomega® Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition will be available worldwide later this month in two capacities: a 1TB model for $169.99, and a 2TB model for $229.99. (All pricing is U.S. suggested retail.)
For more information on the new Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition, please go to www.iomega-personal-cloud.com/.
OnLive has successfully patented its cloud gaming technology, IP which the company describes as “fundamental” to its system of wireless video gaming. Patent 7,849,491 – “Apparatus and method for wireless video gaming” – describes the OnLive system of a remote server running the game itself while a low-power MicroConsole is used to interface with the gamer’s TV and the controllers.
“Apparatus for video gaming includes a box having a slot with an interface that connects to a game card providing a platform to run a software video game. The game card outputs video game data through the interface at a data rate of approximately 200 Mbps or greater. A unit processes the video game data for output to a display device. A wireless transceiver is included to receive the software video game via a wireless local area network (WLAN) and to transmit game information to a remote player having access to the WLAN during interactive play of the software video game.” OnLive patent abstract
The newly granted patent joins the company’s existing portfolio – which apparently extends into the hundreds – and was originally filed on December 10 2002 by company founder Stephen Perlman. Core to the experience is the latency involved, which the patent describes as less than 80ms but greater than 5ms, so as to enable a “high twitch-action video game.”
OnLive began broadly shipping MicroConsoles earlier this month; that was followed by an iPad app earlier this month. A version for Android-based tablets is currently in beta.
Press Release:
OnLive Awarded Fundamental Cloud Gaming Patent
Acknowledgement of Over 8 Years of Pioneering Work by OnLive
Palo Alto, Calif., December 14, 2010—OnLive, Inc., the pioneer of on-demand, instant-play video games, today announced the US Patent Office has awarded the company a fundamental cloud gaming patent, US Patent #7,849,491. The patent is a significant addition to OnLive’s worldwide portfolio of patents filed by OnLive and its affiliate entities. OnLive anticipates receiving additional patents worldwide.
Cloud gaming is a breakthrough technology where video games run on remote servers, and users simply connect an Internet-connected device—be it a TV, PC/Mac®, iPad™, Android™ tablet, smartphone—and instantly are able to play the highest performance, new-release games with no discs, no downloads and no upgrades. OnLive’s patented and patent-pending technology makes the games almost instantly responsive, providing a gaming experience comparable to the games being playing locally, even though they may actually be running on servers 1000 miles away.
“OnLive is pleased to be awarded this patent as an acknowledgement of its pioneering inventions in cloud gaming technology,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “Hundreds of people have worked incredibly hard for more than 8 years to bring OnLive technology from the lab to the mass market, not just overcoming technical and business challenges, but overcoming immense skepticism. It is gratifying to not only see people throughout the world enjoying OnLive technology in the wake of so many doubters, but also receive recognition for such a key invention.”
The OnLive Game Service was released to the public in June of 2010 on PC and Mac, and on the TV and iPad in December of 2010. An Android version is currently in beta.
US Patent #7,849,491 issued after almost 8 years of pendency on December 7, 2010.
About OnLive
OnLive is the pioneer of on-demand, instant-play video game services, delivering real-time interactive experiences and rich media through the Internet. With groundbreaking video compression technology, OnLive harnesses cloud computing to provide the power and intelligence needed to instantly deliver the latest, premium game titles to any HDTV via the OnLive Game System or nearly any PC and Mac via a small browser download, and on the iPad and Android via the OnLive Viewer mobile app. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. OnLive investors include Warner Bros., Autodesk, Maverick Capital, AT&T, British Telecommunications (BT) and The Belgacom Group. More information is available atwww.onlive.com.
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Google has accused the US government of unfairly keeping it out of bidding for federal cloud computing contracts, claiming Microsoft has been given preferential treatment in the process. The allegations come as Microsoft clinch a significant contract to shift 120,000 USDA employees onto web-based email and messaging systems, a bid process that Google claims it had no opportunity to take part in.
“We were not given the opportunity to bid for USDA’s business,” a Google spokesman claims, going on to suggest that rather than simply sour grapes being the root of their discontent, the government is actually doing taxpayers a disservice. “When there has been a full and open competition, customers have chosen Google Apps, and taxpayers are saving millions of dollars” the spokesperson insisted.
It’s the latest round in an ongoing battle between Google and the US government, with the search giant suing last month after apparently being blocked from consideration on a $59m Interior Department email contract. They argue that Microsoft has unfairly leveraged its incumbent position as existing supplier of software and services; Microsoft is yet to comment officially.
We’re still not ready to apply the label “Gaming 3.0″ here (or to anything, for that matter), but despite its boasts, GameString’s making a compelling case for cloud-based play time. We’ve already seen the company bring World of Warcraft to Google TV, but now the company’s showcasing its take on a challenge we’ve seen a few times before — streaming a playable version of WoW to a mobile phone. (Gotta get ‘em out of the house somehow.) The trick here is a streamlined UI overlay that makes for a every touch-friendly experience; there’s translucent “thumbstick” spots and larger buttons for spells. The setup in question here is its Adrenalin Host Server from approximately 80 kilometers away (geographically) and an HTC Desire running over a home network that’s 2Mbps down / 2Mbps up. And while there’s some notable lag and parts of the interface that’s still too tiny to really use, it’s still an Alpha build that seems functional for all but the most intense of moments. See it for yourself after the break.
Even if some companies out there believe that unlimited music for a monthly subscription-style fee isn’t the best bet, there’s plenty of other companies out there who would disagree. And plenty of consumers who would, too. If you own a PSP, you’re about to get your own taste of the subscription-based music platform yourself, as the upcoming software update to the PSP, and PlayStation 3, isn’t just about the movies. It’s also bringing Qriocity’s Music Unlimited service to the portable gaming platform.
With the software update, v6.35, coming to the PSP in the near future, the mobile gaming unit will be able to take advantage of “Music Unlimited Powered by Qriocity.” The service is a cloud-based one, and if you’ve got a compatible device, and as long as you’re a subscriber, you’ll be able to listen to your music whenever you want. There’s no word on what, exactly, the monthly cost will be, but hopefully it will be competitive to the other subscription services out there.
Amazon’s Web Services has just got a GPU boost, with the news that the company will be offering high-performance GPU computing as part of the new Amazon Cluster GPU Instances service. Intended for companies, organizations and schools that would like the processing grunt of clustered GPUs, but can’t afford their own dedicated hardware, Amazon EC2 GPU Instances uses the parallel processing skills of NVIDIA’s Tesla M2050 GPUs, the same hardware as found in the world record grabbing Tianhe-1A supercomputer.
Obviously you don’t get quite as many GPUs as Tianhe-1A uses. Instead, Amazon provide 22 GB of memory and 33.5 EC2 Compute Units, and uses the Amazon EC2 Cluster network for low-latency communications. Each GPU Instance has two of the Tesla GPUs, for peak performance of more than one trillion double-precision FLOPS.
As with Amazon’s other web services, pricing is on-demand and so if you don’t use the GPU crunching, you don’t pay for it. Full pricing details are here, and even free AWS users get a bundled allotment of GPU access.
Press Release:
Amazon Web Services Announces Amazon Cluster GPU Instances, a New Amazon EC2 Instance Type Delivering High-Powered Graphics Processing Unit (“GPU”) Computing in the AWS Cloud
GPU processing is now less expensive and more accessible to a wide variety of graphics rendering and High Performance Computing (HPC) workloads
SEATTLE, Nov 15, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
Amazon Web Services LLC, an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced Amazon Cluster GPU Instances, a new instance type designed to deliver the power of GPU processing in the cloud. GPUs are increasingly being used to accelerate the performance of many general purpose computing problems. However, for many organizations, GPU processing has been out of reach due to the unique infrastructural challenges and high cost of the technology. Amazon Cluster GPU Instances remove this barrier by providing developers and businesses immediate access to the highly tuned compute performance of GPUs with no upfront investment or long-term commitment. To get started using Amazon EC2 GPU Instances, visit: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/hpc-applications/.
Amazon Cluster GPU Instances provide 22 GB of memory, 33.5 EC2 Compute Units, and utilize the Amazon EC2 Cluster network, which provides high throughput and low latency for HPC and data intensive applications. Each GPU instance features two NVIDIA Tesla(R) M2050 GPUs, delivering peak performance of more than one trillion double-precision FLOPS. Many workloads can be greatly accelerated by taking advantage of the parallel processing power of hundreds of cores in the new GPU instances. Numerous industries – including oil and gas exploration, graphics rendering and engineering design – are using GPU processors to improve the performance of their critical applications.
Amazon Cluster GPU Instances extend the options for running HPC workloads in the AWS cloud. Cluster Compute Instances, launched earlier this year, provide the ability to create clusters of instances connected by a low latency, high throughput network. Cluster GPU Instances give customers with HPC workloads an additional option to further customize their high performance clusters in the cloud. For those customers who have applications that can benefit from the parallel computing power of GPUs, Amazon Cluster GPU Instances can often lead to even further efficiency gains over what can be achieved with traditional processors. By leveraging both instance types, HPC customers can tailor their compute cluster to best meet the performance needs of their workloads. For more information on HPC capabilities provided by Amazon EC2, visit http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/hpc-applications.
“We were pleased to introduce Cluster Compute Instances earlier this year for our customers who needed additional network and CPU performance for their large and complex HPC workloads,” said Peter De Santis, General Manager of Amazon EC2. “With Amazon Cluster GPU Instances, we are increasing the options available to our HPC customers by allowing them to choose between using high performance clusters with high performance CPUs or taking advantage of the unique processing abilities of GPU processors for applications that can benefit from the massive parallel processing power they provide. We’re looking forward to seeing the innovation this will enable.”
Calgary Scientific provides advanced medical imaging visualization software and application web enablement technology. The company’s technology reduces time to treatment, which can drastically improve an acute care patient’s outcome. “For patients in critical care scenarios, every second cut from diagnosis to treatment can lead to a more positive outcome,” said Pierre Lemire, President and Chief Technology Officer, Calgary Scientific. “Calgary Scientific’s technology instantly connects all of the necessary specialists, images and patient data required when making a treatment decision. Providing this critical timesaving capability across broad geographies requires the power and affordability offered by Amazon Cluster GPU Instances. GPU instances will help Calgary Scientific bring imagery from patients in need to the required medical professional with minimum infrastructure expense to the medical enterprise.”
BrightScope, Inc., a company that provides financial data and analytics, sees tremendous value in the ability to rapidly deploy Amazon Cluster GPU Instances. “Our 401k portfolio simulations and analytics are a great fit for cloud computing and we anticipate significant cost and time savings by using Amazon Cluster GPU Instances in the cloud,” said David Allison, Head of Engineering & Development, BrightScope, Inc. “The ability to leverage GPU computing without a large upfront capital investment is a big win for our organization, and we believe many other companies will see the same benefit.”
mental images is an international provider of rendering and 3D Web services component software for entertainment, computer-aided design, scientific visualization, architecture and other industries that require sophisticated computer-generated images. “For the first time ever, AWS is putting the industry’s most powerful photo-realistic rendering technology within reach of anyone connected to the Internet,” said Rolf Herken, CEO and CTO of mental images. “The availability of NVIDIA Tesla(R) GPUs in the AWS cloud in the form of Amazon Cluster GPU Instances running the RealityServer(R) platform with the iray(R) renderer will provide architects, product designers, engineers, scientists and others with extraordinarily powerful tools that they can remotely access on mobile devices, PCs and other devices. Our tests have shown more than 90 percent scaling efficiency on clusters of up to 128 GPUs each.”
Elemental Technologies is a leading provider of massively parallel video processing solutions for broadcast and online video customers. “Online media companies are challenged by the ever-increasing need to provide adaptive video streams to a growing array of viewing devices beyond the PC platform,” said Sam Blackman, CEO and co-founder of Elemental Technologies. “Harnessing Amazon EC2 allows Elemental customers to realize the full benefits of our soon-to-be released Accelerated Cloud Transcoding family of services. Our video processing software running on Amazon Cluster GPU Instances will help us keep up with demand in the expanding multi-screen video universe.”
Google has 
