Google received a firestorm of criticism when it first released Buzz for violating Gmail users’ privacy. Google added users’ Gmail contacts to their Buzz lists without first asking their permission, say privacy groups and some lawmakers.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/90701-google-plans-to-add-buzz-to-its-enterprise-version-of-gmail

“We got a bit of a ding by the press,” he said. “Fortunately we were able to correct it and in four days changed the policies.”

You can’t fail to have noticed the emergence of cloud computing as a tech buzzword. It’s all over the press and market analysts can’t stop talking about it.

With regard to shared services, a recent report from consultancy Deloitte went as far as to suggest that, at a local governmental level: “Given the threat to existing levels of public funding there is now a strong case for making the adoption of shared services for certain back-office functions mandatory.”

http://www.silicon.com/management/public-sector/2010/02/12/g-cloud-what-are-the-legal-risks-of-whitehalls-cost-cutting-plan-39745450/

Cloud computing and shared services produce all sorts of complications

Welcome to “What the hell is?” where we at Pocket-lint simply and briefly dejargonise technology talk into what people would normally say if they weren’t trying to sound clever. Now naturally, most of you out there are going to know some of these terms as if they were the backs of your hands, but rest assured that there’s one or two reading now that aren’t exactly certain what everyone’s been banging on about. So, let us enlighten you as to what the hell is cloud computing? Minus the uninteresting parts that you don’t need to know.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/31275/what-the-hell-is-cloud-computing

So, now that you’re fully up to speed, please feel free to chat like a pro to tech pals and impress others at cocktail parties but, whatever you do, make sure you take some time to investigate what it’s all about for yourself and enjoy your time up in “The Cloud”.

The unveiling of Apple’s iPad was hailed by many as a revolution in computing, the latest in a line of glossy devices that would change the way we live and work.

John Suffolk, the Government’s chief information officer, wants to give the public sector a sprinkling of that Silicon Valley dust — a flavour of the ground-breaking technology of Google, Facebook and Apple.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article7023927.ece

Mr Suffolk also believes civil servants and public sector workers should be more active on social networking sites. He runs a blog, although it hasn’t been updated for almost a month.

If you’re a fan of Google-is-getting-too-powerful-for-its-own-good conspiracies, this piece by independent security specialist Sherri Davidoff on her Philosecurity blog is a must read.

Davidoff explores how Google is gradually gaining greater access to government data by landing municipal contracts from the city of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and others who have “Gone Google.”

Going Google of course refers to companies, or government agencies, as it were, who opt to use Google Apps, the suite of collaboration applications that includes Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Talk and other apps that the search engine hosts on its own servers.

For example, Google in October won a $7.25 million contract with Los Angeles to power Google Apps for 34,000 municipal employees.

http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_apps/google_all_your_government_data_are_belong_to_us.html

If you’re a fan of Google-is-getting-too-powerful-for-its-own-good conspiracies, this piece by independent security specialist Sherri Davidoff on her Philosecurity blog is a must read.

A big win for Google’s cloud-based communication and collaboration suite: the company has announced that the City of Los Angeles has equipped 34,000 employees with Google Apps.

According to Google’s blog post, the city ¿ which is replacing its Novell GroupWise system ¿ had evaluated 14 e-mail technology providers for a revamp of the city government’s communication and collaboration platform, and ended up picking Google Apps.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/14/AR2009121400990.html

Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the United States, is far from the first government to go with Google Apps to bring their e-mail, calendaring, document sharing and chat applications to the cloud.

Los Angeles officials wanted what most agencies want when they choose cloud computing: a way to get access to the latest technology with minimal in-house effort and maybe even save some money.

http://fcw.com/articles/2009/12/07/drafting-good-slas.aspx

However, the city wasn’t interested in signing a boilerplate contract for the Google applications it plans to run under a cloud model.

Cloud computing is an infrastructure paradigm that moves computation to the Web in the form of a Web-based service. The idea is simplicity itself — institutions contract with Internet vendors for computational resources instead of providing those resources themselves through the purchase and maintenance of computational clusters and supercomputer hardware. As expected with any computational platform — especially one utilized for high performance and scientific computing — performance limitations within the platform define which computational problems will run well on that platform. So, the question becomes, “Is cloud computing a useful computational platform for the computational problems you and your institution need to address?”

It is important to note that cloud computing is considered distinct from grid or utility computing. With cloud computing, the user effectively rents time on virtual machines to run their own applications — they do not own any computing resources and may not use any service provider applications. Through the use of pre-configured virtual machines, scientists avoid any of the technical issues associated with getting an application to run — they just use it. This helps to avoid the pointed joke that defines a computer as, “a device that turns excellent scientists into mediocre programmers and systems administrators

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/articles-HPC-Cloud-Computing-Pie-in-the-sky-120109.aspx

Infrastructure offers potentially big changes

Now that you’re finally backing up your computer to protect yourself from data disasters, here’s another doomsday scenario to populate your nightmares.

Let’s imagine you’re using one of any number of popular web-based services for blogging, sharing photos, writing documents or communicating with friends.

Perhaps you store all of your photos at Flickr, labeling them with captions and tags.

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2009/12/even_with_cloud_computing_serv.html

I’m gradually moving toward using “cloud” services for everything from spreadsheets to e-mail. Think of all the things that can go wrong with your own computer. Theft. Fire. Your own stupid mistakes. I tend to think a company like Google might do a better job than I would at keeping my data safe.

Google is seeking acquisitions to help boost its cloud computing strategy. The search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, revealed that he is looking to snap up firms capable of helping Google exit the personal computer era and enter the age of cloud-based apps.

The term cloud computing has become something of a buzzword. It refers to the practice of storing information – such as emails, photos and documents – on web apps that can be connected to at any time, rather than on localised operating systems like Microsoft Windows.

http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/News/MostRead/970605/Download-Smart-guide-to-Cloud-computing/

It is likely to be a few years before cloud computing becomes a mass consumer proposition, but smart brands are already exploring it.