Speculation is rife amongst the web geek fraternity that Google is about to
launch free online “cloud” storage. Already
dubbed the G drive this will let everyone store anything and everything they want, photos,
music, files, etc online.
With the most common applications already running in the
cloud (Google Docs, Zoho, even Microsoft Office is getting in on the game) and
internet connectivity becoming ubiquitous
this would appear be another nail in the coffin for the PC as we know it
today. And while gamers, video editors, graphics designers and 3D modellers will
disagree – the internet isn't fast enough yet for these CPU intensive activities
to go cloud, for the average user it might be enough to make a harddisc free cheap netbook all they'll ever need.
The benefits are great; all your
files always available everywhere you are (internet
permitting, plus you expect they'll do a better job backing up that most users do! But on the other hand the risks are that users give over all their files to one big organsation, which I'm sure this is only going to tempt hackers as well as make it easier for governments organisations to snoop. Google may announce some in-built encryption, but more savy users will likely want to provide their own for really personal documents.
The signs are strong it's going to happen, (Picasa for Mac included a link to move pictures to a Google Web Drive for example). It will be interesting to see how people use it, will they literally use it to replace their hard drive, or will they be more cautious and use it more for archiving and backups.
See also Cloud Computing.