In foreseeable future you won’t necessarily need any applications installed on your computer anymore, as long as you have a web browser and access to the Internet.

Thanks to cloud computing it will possible to do all your daily tasks, like listening to music (Grooveshark/Spotify), writing documents (Zoho/Google Docs) organizing events appointments (Facebook, Google Calendar), and editing pictures (Picnik) etc. online.

But what is meant by cloud computing?

If you have a Gmail, Hotmail, etc. address, than you are already a user of this technique. In short, cloud computing describes they way that certain services only work on or are heavily supported by the Internet and replace in some parts existing desktop applications. Take for example Google documents. Before it was introduced, people used normal word processors like “Microsoft Word” or “OpenOffice” to write documents.

Nowadays, almost all the functions of these applications are also accessible online. And there is a similar development for other daily used services like the ones mentioned in the beginning. Soon, almost all the functions that desktop applications provide at the moment will have their counterpart online.  

Summarized, with cloud computing it is possible to outsource data and calculations to powerful servers on the Internet.

But what are the advantages for an average user?

• Data, which is saved in the “cloud” is normally stored on multiple servers instead on just one hard drive in a laptop or computer
• It is possible to access the data from every computer worldwide, as long as it is connected to the internet
• There is no need to install or update any of the programs
• It is very easy to share files with other people, or let them edit the files directly
• Large amounts of data can be stored on powerful servers (it would for example not be possible to use Google Maps on your local computer, just because you don’t have enough space to store all the data)

Although the advantages seem quite convincing, there is one big downside of cloud computing. The fact, that you loose control over your data. Let me illustrate this with an example.

Amazon offers an eBook reader, called “Kindle” with whom you can download eBooks directly to the device from the Kindle store. Last year in July, Amazon decided to remotely delete purchased copies of certain books from all kindle devices. Although every buyer got a refund, it still caused a big uproar in the kindle community. Can you imagine going to a bookstore, buying a book and the next morning you find a note (plus the refund) of the owner on your kitchen table, stating that he does not want to sell the book anymore. Funny enough, the deleted books were George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm”.

And the Kindle is by far not the online device, which has a so-called “kill switch” (which means that there is the possibility for certain companies to remotely access and manipulate data).  Also the iPhone, certainly the iPad and other mobile devices have similar functions.  

Although this example already seems very sinister, think about a government that forces a service provider to hand-over all the data (emails, documents, pictures etc.) of a suspect.

So everyone who uses online services should be aware of the possible consequences. But, nevertheless I think the current trend to outsource not only manpower but also “computerpower” will continue and influence the future use of computers and the Internet tremendously. For example, already this year Google will release “Chrome OS”, which is a full operation system like Windows or Mac OS, but relies completely on cloud computing services (the only application running on the computer itself will be the browser).

What I am interested in: Do you use for instance Google Docs, Spotify, Facebook or any other cloud computing service and what do you think about the possible misuse of your data?