Web-based programs like Google’s Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner.
The concept of using web-based programs like Google’s Gmail is “worse than stupidity”, according to a leading advocate of free software.

Cloud computing – where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net.

But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

“It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign,” he told The Guardian.

“Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it’s very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.”

The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.

His comments echo those made last week by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who criticised the rash of cloud computing announcements as “fashion-driven” and “complete gibberish”.

“The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do,” he said. “The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?”

The growing number of people storing information on internet-accessible servers rather than on their own machines, has become a core part of the rise of Web 2.0 applications. Millions of people now upload personal data such as emails, photographs and, increasingly, their work, to sites owned by companies such as Google.

Computer manufacturer Dell recently even tried to trademark the term “cloud computing”, although its application was refused.

But there has been growing concern that mainstream adoption of cloud computing could present a mixture of privacy and ownership issues, with users potentially being locked out of their own files.

By Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent

Stallman, who is a staunch privacy advocate, advised users to stay local and stick with their own computers.

“One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control,” he said. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.”

No matter how often we hear about the developed world becoming more like Big Brother every day, it’s not until you see images that these from NASA that you get creeped out. How much are we being watched, traced, listened to, recorded? Anyone who has ever read George Orwell’s novel, 1984, might have seen it coming.

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Okay, we
’ll admit it. We have an unnatural love for gadgets and all things computer-related. If this makes us geeks, than so be it! Of course, for better or for worse, there are some of use who like to wear their pride on their sleeve (literally) and proudly display their inner geek for all to see.

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Some think that sentience could emerge from any sufficiently complicated system. By the way, you’re reading this on a massively-crosslinked network built from millions of routers, allowing any of a billion individual units to access, modify and reply to the others. Interested?

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At the height of their notorious downtime woes many people were predicting the end of microblogging site Twitter. Users were understandably frustrated, and early adopters started looking for a replacement. FriendFeed was better. Plurk was better. Identi.ca was better. So said the pundits.

But with Twitter appearing to have solved most of their downtime issues, publicly available traffic stats suggest that the site is putting the kibosh on the competition as well.

According to Pingdom, Twitter’s uptime the past couple of months has been stellar. The site went from down 11.5 hours in July to down just 54 minutes last month. And has been down just 9 minutes so far in September. It even survived huge spikes in usage during Sen. Barack Obama’s and Gov. Sarah Palin’s speeches at their respective US political conventions a few weeks ago.

Blogger Louis Gray today compared Twitter to competitors using traffic data from Compete. What he found was that since Twitter has solved their uptime issues, the site has seen a spike in traffic growth. Meanwhile, competing services FriendFeed, Plurk, and Identi.ca have all seen their traffic fall from June or July highs or plateau.

It’s hard to argue that the downturn in traffic at Twitter’s competitors is seasonal or unrelated since Twitter has experienced such dramatic growth the last couple of months. And it all coincides with their drastically improved uptime.

It’s hard to bet against Twitter. They have 5 times more traffic than FriendFeed (according to Compete), and FriendFeed is generally viewed as their nearest competitor. In April, Mike Arrington said that downtime didn’t matter for Twitter because he needs Twitter more than Twitter needs him. This is the network effect at work. Twitter wins because everyone is already on Twitter, and now that their downtime isn’t an issue (knock on wood), nothing stands in their way. Except maybe Facebook, that is…

By Josh Catone

By Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service

Fast cellular modems for laptops are flying out the door as business users hit the road and tire of looking for Wi-Fi hotspots, an ABI Research analyst said Friday.

“Growth has been phenomenal,” Shey said in an interview. Falling prices for devices and services is one factor, he noted. The hottest type of laptop modem for 3G (third-generation) and 3.5G connectivity is the USB (Universal Serial Bus) dongle, Shey said. Internal Mini-PCI modems as well as cards that slide into PC Card slots are also available.

There is still pent-up demand for such modems, largely for the convenience of being able to use them across a broad coverage area, Shey said. The availability of fast cellular networks has been steadily growing, and in many cases they can deliver multimegabit speeds that are comparable to home broadband. But it is still primarily business users who snap them up, because of the cost of data plans that go with them, he said. For example, in the U.S., Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility each offer monthly plans costing $59.99 per month for 5GB of data usage.

However, prices for laptop modems have gone down: Verizon offers a USB dongle for $29.99 with a two-year contract. The major PC makers also sell laptops with 3G modems built in. Some carriers, such as Vodafone in Europe, are also planning to resell 3G-equipped laptops themselves.

Eventually, the growing availability of fast cellular networks and modems will eat into the popularity of Wi-Fi hotspots, Shey predicted. Mobile network consolidator iPass already offers access to Sprint’s 3G data network along with admission to many Wi-Fi hotspots.

Some carriers are exploring the alternative of 3G phones “tethered” to laptops via USB or Bluetooth. For example, Sprint recently cut its rates for tethered access. But that approach will only go so far, Shey believes. Tethering drains the handset’s battery and may cause customers to use phone-based services less often, which lowers the carrier’s incentive to push that approach, he said.

One downside to a PC-based modem is the concern of getting locked in to a certain carrier for the life of the laptop. But that worry is reduced now, according to Shey. Multiple-mode radios, namely the Qualcomm Gobi chipset now beginning to appear in notebooks from Hewlett-Packard and others, give users the freedom to switch from one carrier’s network to another. In addition to investment protection, the flexibility allows users to get connected in other countries with different types of networks, such as when U.S.-based CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) users travel to GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) markets in Europe or Asia.

This story is excerpted from Computerworld. For more Mac coverage, visit Computerworld’s Macintosh Knowledge Center.

As consumers flock to the cloud computing world to store photos online, back up hard drives or use Web-based e-mail, many harbor worries about the security of that personal data, according to a study released late last week from the Pew Internet & American Life project.

The study found that 69 percent of online users use Web e-mail services, store data online or use Web-based applications like Google Documents.

Breaking cloud computer use down further, the survey found that:

56 percent of online users use Web e-mail services like Hot Mail or Gmail;
34 percent store photos online;
29 percent use online applications like Google Doc or Adobe Photoshop Express;
7 percent store personal videos online;
5 percent store computer files online; and
5 percent back up hard drives online.
More than half (51 percent) of the active cloud computing users say they turned to the technology because it is easy and convenient, while 41 percent said they like having the ability to access their data from multiple computers.

Despite those advantages, the survey found that:

90 percent of cloud application users fear the sale of their personal data;
80 percent are concerned that their photos or other data may be used in marketing campaigns; and
68 percent do not want companies to display specific ads based on an analysis of their online actions.
“Even as large numbers of users turn to ‘cloud computing’ applications, many may lack a full understanding of possible consequences of storing personal data online,” said John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project and author of the report, in a statement. “These findings give consumers, the technology community, and policymakers a chance to discuss the trade offs between convenience and privacy and figure out where there are needs for education to improve public understanding.”

Pew surveyed 2,251 adults in April and May of 2008; of those, 1,553 were Internet users.

Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security says that Google’s new browser Chrome “should not be used for surfing the Internet.” The problem, according to a translation from Blogoscoped, is that joined with email and search, Chrome gives Google too much data about its users. The government also said Chrome should be avoided because its still

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