But now that the news is out, has Chrome OS lost its shine? People had high expectations for Google's new operating system but the end result doesn't look like the revolutionary, "change the world" product many had hoped for.

Don't get us wrong - Google's OS is different than whatever Windows, Mac, or Linux build you have running on your computer today. The new OS does away with desktop applications entirely - everything you use on Google Chrome OS runs on the web. Of course, the company hopes you'll use a lot of Google products like Gmail and YouTube, but it doesn't limit you to just Google-branded services. In the built-in applications area, there are also links to other web apps like the online TV streaming service Hulu.com and music sites Lala and Pandora. To be fair, Chrome OS even links to Yahoo and Microsoft's webmail offerings right out of the box.

Google's major goal with Chrome OS is to moving computing off our personal hard drives and into the cloud...the Google cloud. To accomplish such a feat, they've made the web browser the OS. Everything you need (in theory) is accessible through the included Google Chrome browser, the same browser the company currently offers to Windows users with Mac and Linux versions expected by the end of this year.

As exciting as that vision is, we have to wonder if people - especially the mainstream netbook users the OS is aimed at - are ready for this big of a switch. And more importantly, is the technology itself ready to make the change a comfortable and seamless experience?

...but is it Better?

After digesting yesterday's news, some lingering questions remain. Was this the OS everyone was hoping for or has Google let us down?

You Can't Just Install Chrome OS - You Have to Buy a New Netbook

To begin with, one of the more surprising reveals that came out of yesterday's news is that the OS cannot be installed on your own computer. Oh sure, there are downloads available that use Google's open-sourced code to create bootable builds tech-savvy users and developers can play with, but the official word from the search giant is that anyone wanting to use the "real" Google Chrome OS will have to purchase a new netbook to do so. You cannot simply download it from the web and install it on any machine.

Part of the reason for this restriction is driver support. Google is working with carefully selected manufacturers to offer a handful of netbooks running the OS in the coming year. By going this route, they don't have to provide an entire ecosystem of drivers for every piece of hardware out there - they can pick and choose which ones to support. They'll likely limit the number of peripherals supported, too. According to what was said yesterday, the company will support "mass storage devices" (think USB flash drives and digital cameras) but were cagey on how they plan on offering printing support. All they would say is that they're planning on an "innovative approach" when it comes to printing, whatever that means. Hopefully, they're planning to do something more than just integrating with Kinko's and FedEx's online document services, for example. Printing, (sorry Google) is not a web app just yet.

No Other Web Browsers Supported

Another big disappointment is the company's decision to limit all web surfing to the one included browser, Google Chrome. Firefox and Safari users are out of luck - no other browsers will be supported. But before you cry out "antitrust!," be warned - Google has this covered. The code base used to build the OS is open-source - that means anyone take the code and create their own version of Chrome OS. As was carefully - and haltingly - explained by Google's VP of Product Management, Sundar Pichai, other browser makers can take the code and build their own OS if they want to. But let's get real - Firefox Chrome OS? We don't think so. The reality is that fans of other browsers are simply out of luck if they want to use this operating system.

Offline Access is Limited. Your New Netbook is Now a Brick.

One of the questions that got glossed over during the Q&A session at the end of the event is how Google's OS plans to deal with offline access. The world is not blanketed in Wi-Fi yet, so what can this web-based OS do without the web? Surprisingly, the answer given didn't refer to any subsidized deals with cellular providers regarding deals to offer built-in 3G connectivity for the new netbooks. Instead, Pichai explained that the OS was built for use with Wi-Fi.

Of course, a handful of Google products use Google Gears, a technology that makes websites available offline. For example, Gmail uses Gears to create an offline version of your webmail inbox which you can use to read and respond to email until internet connectivity becomes available again. At that point, all the changes are synced back to Google's servers. Although Google didn't specifically refer to Gears when answering the question, there's no reason to doubt that it will work in Chrome OS's web browser the same as it does now in the standard Chrome browser.

However, Pichai did make note of Chrome OS's support for HTML5, an upcoming revision to the core markup language used to build the web. In the new specification, a key feature is offline support for web apps. However, web application developers will have to rebuild their apps in order to use HTML5, so users will be dependent on each individual company to make this change. While it's believed that one day this spec could make the whole web an offline app, the reality is that most developers have yet to implement this technology in their services yet. Even by Chrome OS's launch next year, there's no reason to believe the landscape will have changed significantly by then.

Do You Really Need an OS or Just the Chrome Web Browser?

Finally, the big question regarding Chrome OS is why? What can the OS do that any operating system running the Chrome browser cannot? Based on what was shown yesterday, the answer is very little. Chrome OS's brand-new features consist of two things: application tabs and panels. The panels are persistent windows that pop-up in front of your web browser's main window. For example, Google Chat, the company's IM service, can live in a panel that stays on top no matter what window you're viewing.

Application tabs, meanwhile, are special tabs that give you easy access to your most frequently used web apps from the browser. Any page tab can be made into an application tab with one click and the resulting "tab" is represented with the colorful icon for that site or service. While that's certainly a cool feature, it alone isn't a major selling point for the OS. That would be like saying you have to buy Mac OS X because of the dock or Windows because of the taskbar. You need a million of these little features combined to add up to a compelling reason to buy an OS.

That's not to say that Chrome OS itself doesn't have worthwhile features of its own - like its built-in security mechanisms or its auto-update system, it's just that these aren't the kinds of things that sell it to an end user. The questions consumers want answers to are what does it do that's special? What does it look like? And for now, the answer is "it's basically just a web browser."

Revolution? Maybe Not Just Yet.

At the end of the day, Chrome OS is an exciting, but not fully realized, vision. Although it has potential, the world may not be ready for a web-based netbook right now. Also, the technology needed to make the Wi-Fi only netbook useful without an internet connection isn't up to full speed either. At the end of the day, the netbook will be marginally more useful than an iPod Touch - when connected, it's amazing. Offline, not so much.

While you might not rush right out to buy a Chrome OS netbook when they first launch, there could come a time - sooner than you think - when it becomes a reasonable choice. When the majority of apps work offline and you've fully transitioned away from desktop apps, a web-connected netbook, especially one that's affordable, could easily become your everyday computer. That day hasn't arrived yet. For now, Chrome OS is an exciting glimpse at the future of computing, but not a practical device for the majority of users.

Disclosure: Sarah Perez freelances for Microsoft's Channel 10 blog, but is not a Microsoft employee. Her primary web browser is, in fact, Google Chrome which she uses exclusively.

However, the system still only works with Gmail and the photo-sharing service Picasa. There's no mention of it expanding to encompass other Google services like Google Docs, for example. And there's definitely no mention of the seemingly mythical GDrive, the long-rumored online storage system supposedly under development which would allow for the upload of any file type for safe storage in the cloud. We're beginning to wonder: will Google ever offer us a real cloud storage solution?

Over on The Next Web, blogger Alex Wilhelm thinks the increased storage space hints at Google's future plans with their upcoming netbook operating system, Google Chrome OS. We have to admit, the same thought occurred to us as well. After all, netbooks don't typically have the same hard disk space as their larger, less totable counterparts. However, that's not always the case these days given the new middle-of-the-road offerings like the HP Mini 311, for example, which falls somewhere between an ultra-portable netbook and full-sized notebook with its 350 GB hard drive option.

But Alex has a point: by providing this type of cloud storage solution, netbooks can remain basic machines which are smaller and cost less. That would pave the way for the Google Chrome OS line of netbooks to be even more affordable devices than what's on the market today since they wouldn't need to come equipped with large hard drives.

Obviously, an OS-integrated cloud storage system of this nature would be a natural fit for Google's cloud operating system designed specifically for netbooks. And yet, it still seems to be an incomplete offering at this time.

But Still So Limited!

As much as we want to believe that the new changes are a sign of Google's plans for Chrome OS, it's just as possible that they're nothing more than the great discounts they appear to be. There's nothing all that new being introduced here - just better rates and more available space.

Sadly, the core storage offering itself is unchanged. It's still very limited, only encompassing Gmail and Picasa photos. What about the rest of our files - like the ones stored in Google Docs? What about our music and movie collections? What about the hundred or so of home videos we can't bear to delete from our hard drives? Google has no centralized solution for any of this yet. And many are beginning to wonder if they ever will.

In the tech community, there have been rumors about an all-encompassing online storage service called GDrive for years on end now, and yet, nothing has ever come of it. According to speculation (and wishful thinking), the supposed system would allow for the upload of all types of files and would tie together all of Google's services.

In our imaginations, we envision a dashboard that links us to our online Google Docs, our photos, our Gmail, our Google Sites, and our multimedia content. The GDrive of our dreams would be accessible from any computer, keeping in sync all our user data, preferences, and settings. You can see a hint of how this sync could work with the way the Google Chrome web browser stores your favorites. Your bookmarked sites are now available in the browser no matter what PC you use while a backup copy sits in Google Docs. GDrive should do the same, but not just for web browser favorites - for everything. That would be the final step for making a cloud OS a reality.

It's almost strange at this point that Google hasn't released something of the sort yet. In fact, they've let Microsoft beat them to the punch in this instance courtesy of Microsoft's SkyDrive service which launched back in early 2008. SkyDrive offers a free 25 GB of online storage for your files and also serves as the central repository for Windows Live Photos as well as the documents created via the new Office Web Applications service, Microsoft's challenge to Google Docs. But where's Google's answer to this? When will it come? Will it ever?

Perhaps the company is waiting for the release of Google Chrome OS to dazzle us with some sort of revamped interface for a game-changing cloud computing operating system. Or perhaps the company is just doing what it does best: offering solutions that are simply good enough.

Although still limited to users in the U.S. and Japan, participants in the Technical Preview are able to access the web versions of the Office programs through Windows Live SkyDrive, Microsoft's online cloud storage service and a part of their Windows Live suite of tools and services.

SkyDrive, which provides each user with 25 GB of online storage, is used to host the documents created using the Office Web Applications. For now, the service is entirely free. However, during our earlier interview with Takeshi Numoto, the corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office Product Management Group, we questioned him about future monetization plans for the online suite. He wouldn't confirm any details, only saying that Microsoft was "experimenting" with several options. To date, nothing has changed on that front.

At the moment, the Technical Preview is not offering full access to all the Office programs - only Word, Excel and PowerPoint are currently available. There is a placeholder for OneNote, but it displays a message reading "Still to come..." when clicked. We're told that OneNote support is due later this fall. That should be relatively soon, considering that it's already October.

The web version of Microsoft Word is also incomplete at this time, allowing you to view files but not create or edit them. Only Excel and PowerPoint allow for both read and write access at the moment.

According to Microsoft, the Technical Preview program is designed solely for the purpose of collecting user feedback prior to the broader beta release of the service. No date has been given for the beta launch as of yet but the online suite is due to ship next year alongside Office 2010, the next version of the company's desktop software suite.

How to Join

If you're interested in signing up for the Technical Preview, you'll need to establish a Windows Live ID if you have yet to do so. Hotmail and Windows Live Mail users should already have one - it's your @hotmail.com or @live.com email address. You can then sign up for the Technical Preview program via this link. As noted above, you will need to select either the United States or Japan during signup, as those are the only two countries supported at this time. After completing the sign up process and accepting the license agreement, your Windows Live ID will have access to the Web Applications by way of SkyDrive.

He notes that the service-level agreements (SLAs) for all the hosted applications are the same as those offered in the operation's traditional on-site computing environment - that is, 99.999% uptime. Google only offers 99.9% as does Amazon S3...and yes, those extra digits make a world of difference.

In addition, DISA also uses the same information assurance process (the process of managing information-related risks) for the RACE applications as it does for any apps running on the traditional, on-site computing platform. They've even cut the security accreditation process from 80 days to 40 thanks to built-in information insurance controls in RACE. 

One of the most obvious benefits of a cloud computing infrastructure, though, is the speed of deployment. The cloud platform has cut the acquisition time for a new server from 6 months to 24 hours - a change that means DISA will now be able to rapidly deploy new applications to the military in record time. "That's a must for worldwide missions with ever-changing computing requirements," says Sienkiewicz.

RACE runs using VMware on HP blade servers. Defense Department customers can choose either Microsoft Windows or Red Hat Linux and are able to configure their server with up to 4 CPUs, 8 GBs of memory and up to a terabyte of storage. Test servers are $500 per month and production servers are $1200 per month. Next year, RACE will be deployed on the DoD's classified network (SIPRNet) as well. 

Should Google be worried? Some analysts think so. "This is trouble for Google," said Matthew Cain of Gartner. Google of course, disagrees.

Google, whose online suite of applications is collectively known as Google Apps, has been making steady inroads in the business world with offerings tailored to schools, nonprofits, SMBs, and the enterprise. The company currently touts 15 million Apps users in nearly 2 million companies worldwide. Marketed as a less expensive and easier-to-manage alternative to on-site systems like Microsoft Exchange, the suite has encouraged many companies to switch to their hosted solution, mainly due to ever-decreasing IT budgets which have left penny-pinching companies scrambling to find ways to cut costs.

However, pitting iNotes against Google Apps isn't exactly a fair "apples to apples" comparison. That's because iNotes' focus is just email, calendaring, and contact management. Google Apps, on the other hand, is a more comprehensive suite that includes Google Docs, an online office suite, an intranet-building tool called Google Sites, and much more. Also, iNotes only provides 1 GB of storage for their product - if you want extra, you'll have to pay. Google, however, starts you off with a 25 GB inbox.

Still, since Lotus is the lower-priced solution, that alone may be enough for them to compete. Google Apps currently charges $50 per user per year but iNotes will be only $36. Those cost savings combined with the brand recognition of the IBM name will help iNotes quickly get in the game.

IBM: iNotes Delivers More Than Cost Savings, it Offers Stability

In addition to IBM's primary focus on price, the company is also taking advantage of some very public recent Gmail outages, including one which locked out corporate customers from their email for 2 hours last month, to prop up their solution as the more stable alternative. According to Poulley, IBM has a long-standing record of running "the world's mission-critical systems for banks, telcos, and utilities...We're bringing business class services and support with mission critical reliability at a price lower than the competition."

Google Responds: iNotes is No Google Apps

Google isn't taking all this lying down, though. Dave Girouard, President of Google's Enterprise division, said that Google will learn the business of selling software more quickly than IBM will adapt to cloud computing.

Andrew Kovacs, a Google spokesperson, also noted that IBM's positioning of their iNotes product seemed to be more of a complement to their on-site solutions than it was a replacement for them. With iNotes, it appears that IBM wants to supplement their current install base of Lotus Notes servers to deliver email to both deskless workers and those who didn't have email accounts already. Google Apps, on the other hand, is designed to be a complete "rip and replace" solution allowing businesses to do away with their on-site systems entirely in favor of a fully hosted cloud product.

He also pointed out that IBM's claims of reliability when it came to their iNotes product were unproven at this point. iNotes, which is based on IBM's acquisition of a Hong Kong company called Outblaze, does not appear to offer any service level agreements (SLAs)... at least it doesn't mention any on its website. IBM confirms that's the case, saying the company "has not made any specific promises regarding uptime" but that the company has a solid history of reliability. Still, without an SLA documented in black-and-white, companies, especially those in the enterprise space, are bound to be wary.

Finally, Kovacs spoke of the various ways in which Google products interoperate with other technologies used by large companies. The Google Apps system works with Microsoft Outlook, mobile phones including iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. It even integrates with Blackberry Enterprise Server and directory systems like Microsoft's Active Directory.

In the end, though, Google says they're excited about the iNotes launch as it serves as "further validation that the future of computing is in the cloud." Having a well-respected and trusted organization like IBM offer something like this will bring more visibility to cloud computing and that is something that will be good for everyone.

While the glitch itself was minor and was fixed in a few days, the real concern - at least at Brown - was with how Google handled the situation. Without communicating to the internal IT department, Google shut down the affected accounts, a decision which led to a heated conversation between school officials and the Google account representative.

In the case of the Google Apps glitch, which began on Friday, September 11th, a couple of students notified Brown's Computing and Information Services department (CIS) that they were able to read emails belonging to other students. The CIS department contacted Google on the following day and sent out an email to the 200 students whose mailboxes were in transition, asking them whether or not they were experiencing the same problem. Some were. The affected students could either see entire inboxes belonging to another classmate or, in other cases, saw less than 100 messages that did not belong to them.

In the end, only 22 out of the 200 students were affected, but the fix was not put into place until Tuesday. That means that the students had access to each other's email accounts for three solid days (Saturday, Sunday, Monday) as well as parts of Friday and Tuesday before the accounts were suspended by Google.

Oddly enough, this situation seems to be acceptable, according to Tom, who, reports Brown's daily newspaper, "praised Google for its prompt response." (We don't know about you, but if someone else could read our email for three days, we wouldn't exactly call that "prompt.")

Massive data migrations are no small feat and Google's slip-up in this case is certainly not the first nor the last time that something has gone wrong. Still, Google is notably concerned when problems like this happen. "It was a small hiccup along the way and it's an issue we've taken extremely seriously," said Google's Rajan Sheth.

The Real Problem Wasn't Email, it was Lack of Communication

However, the real issue that concerned the university was the matter of communication between Google and the CIS department. Before fixing the issue on Tuesday, Google suspended the affected accounts, a necessary step that was taken so no more data was improperly shared. What angered the IT director, though, was that the accounts were suspended without first notifying CIS.

"I've spoken very forcefully with the account (executive), my boss, senior administrators at Brown -- including the president. (Google needs) to find a better way to communicate with us," said Tom.

When considering a move to a cloud service, most companies and institutions focus on how the change will affect budgets and the bottom line. They also think about data conversion issues and possible needs for re-training in some cases. However, one of the things that doesn't come up as often is exactly how communication will take place between the business and the company involved. Sure, companies may discuss the procedures (use this form, this phone number) and uptime guarantees, but they can't possibly imagine every scenario and spell out how they want the cloud provider to perform.

No longer can company execs just stroll into the I.T. guy (or gal's) office and cry out "my email is messed up!" Now there are a few more hoops to jump through. And whether it's Google or someone else, the interactions that take place and the way the issues are addressed will be a learning experience on both ends.

According to news from the eyeos team, the new eyeos 2.0 operating system isn't just a revamp of the company's former product, it's something entirely new, built "from scratch," notes a company blog post. With a new UI (pictured below), new applications, and new concept for how the web-based desktop should work, the update is more than a fresh coat of paint.

Upon login, for example, instead of displaying a simulated computer desktop complete with icons and wallpaper, the updated OS features a new dock bar whose menus link you to applications, events, contacts, and more.

The other key part to eyeos 2.0 is the focus on collaboration. As with Google Docs, eyeos provides a web office component that allows you to invite friends to collaborate with you. As multiple users log in to edit the same file, colored lines display to highlight which sections are being edited by your colleagues or friends. You can also add comments and view the changes made by the other collaborators. At the moment, though, this "web office" feature appears to be limited to a word processor and calendar.

Other updates in eyeos 2.0 include real-time notifications via a new instant messaging component, a re-written file system and kernel, a new sync tool for syncing files, contacts, and calendar from your local desktop to the web, and new base applications which function as real apps as opposed to demos of what eyeos can do.

Why No Love for Webtops?

The main difference between what Google plans to offer with Chrome OS and what eyeos and other "webtops" like it is that Chrome OS doesn't live in a web browser, it makes the web browser the operating system. Even though Google's browser will sit on a Linux kernel, this won't be apparent to end users. The browser, for all intents and purposes, is the OS. And unlike eyeos, Google is making deals with netbook manufacturers to come preinstalled on their hardware. Eyeos, on the other hand, is still a destination you reach via URL (Well, for the most part.)

Despite the revamp, new look, and new features of eyeos 2.0, end users probably won't take note of this or any other webtop for that matter. As Ray Valdes, research director at Gartner Research, was quoted as saying a few months ago: "I have not seen growth or traction among the Webtop companies over the past year," Valdes said. "From a long-term perspective, I don't see any change to current market trends, which are that Webtop ventures are not gaining market traction."

But why are users so underwhelmed? For one thing, the web office components of any of these ventures are poor comparisons (if they exist at all) to what Google Docs provides. The poor webtops would be better off partnering with Zoho Docs instead, a feature-rich web office startup that could offer a real alternative to Google's online office. Webtop Ghost tries to make this transition easier by linking to both Google Docs and Zoho as opposed to offering their own applications, but they're more of an exception than a rule.

Additionally, there's more than a bit of hesitation among end users to make a full-on switch from a system they know - be that the OS on their local hard drive or Google's cloud-based programs - to some young startup that may up-and-disappear at any time, like the better known You OS did only last summer.

Finally, there are issues of lag time and speed. Web OS's that try to simulate the local desktop experience simply can't duplicate the feel of native applications. And when they try, they can often end up using a huge chunk of memory in the process.

Eyeos: But Wait, We're Not Just a Webtop, We're Software Too!

Although eyeos has to fight all the same issues facing webtops as described above, they have an identity issue too. It seems eyeos can't decide if they want to be a traditional webtop accessible via the eyeos.info URL or open source software you can install on your own server. This latter solution is designed for users worried about the "privacy and confidentiality problems" that come from hosting your data on a "big company's" server.

While the host-your-own option will appeal to a handful of do-it-yourselfer geeks out there, the majority of mainstream users - and even the majority of early adopters - aren't looking for a web OS you have to install on your own. If folks are that into privacy and open source, they'll just install Linux and manage their own backups instead. Besides, offering the host-your-own solution almost misses the point of being a web OS. The promise of cloud computing is that it's supposed to make our lives easier - our data lives on the web now and not on our fallible hard disks and CDs. We don't have to backup, because Google (or any other cloud vendor) does that for you. We don't have to worry with hard drive space either - we use the cloud, sometimes even for a fee, and we can get to our data from anywhere using any device. And all this is provided to you within your browser. Yes, it does mean that we give up a bit of our privacy in the process, but it's a trade that most are willing to make.

All this being said, the updates to eyeos 2.0 are a nice step forward for the fledging webtop and will appeal to those interested in that sort of thing...but, sadly, we're guessing that most of you aren't.

Practice Fusion currently has "over 18,000 users," which would appear to be a big increase on the 1,300 medical professionals they had one year ago. The product originally launched in November of 2007, so it's nearly two years old now.

Is Cloud Computing Suitable for Healthcare?

A post on the Practice Fusion blog today asks the question: is "cloud computing" right for health IT? We reported earlier this week that cloud computing is infiltrating virtually every corner of technology right now, but it still has dangers. We noted the recent hacking of Google Docs to steal internal Twitter documents, as one recent high profile example (high profile because the stolen documents were subsequently emailed to some news outlets, some of whom published the 'hot' docs).

However despite these risks Practice Fusion claims that the cost benefits of cloud computing in healthcare are significant, particularly in its EMR niche:

"Cost and poor usability have been cited as the biggest obstacles to adoption of health IT - especially Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems - and has resulted in problematically-low EHR adoption rates. Eliminating this cost, and the IT maintenance burdens that are often beyond the reach of small medical practices, clearly removes these significant roadblocks to EHR adoption."

Security and safety is of course the big potentially negative issue with cloud computing. But Practice Fusion points to several use cases where it says that cloud computing has advantages over desktop apps: disaster-recovery, hacks (because "SaaS providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford"), and privacy. All of those points come down to the premise that a cloud computing / SaaS specialist, such as Practice Fusion, has more expertise, more resources, and is generally better able to deliver those safety and security requirements.

That all sounds great in theory, however every case like the Twitter stolen documents one serves to undermine that argument. And there are just too many such cases right now.

Nevertheless, we're sure that over time cloud computing will become ever more secure. It's clear that Practice Fusion is a young company that is growing well. With Salesforce.com on its side too now, the future looks secure for them.

But hacks alone aren't the only dangers to be found when moving to the cloud, as the Black Hat presentations quickly made clear. In reviewing the dangers brought up by the researchers, it was enough to make anyone wonder: is cloud computing putting us and our data at risk?

In Sensepost's presentation about cloud vulnerabilities (available here as a PowerPoint download), they make note of the fact that moving your data to a cloud service is the equivalent of "putting all your eggs in one basket." Not too long ago, we saw a perfect example of the worst-case scenario of doing just that. Earlier this year, social bookmarking site Ma.gnolia experienced a server crash that resulted in massive data loss - enough to shut down the service for good. Users' bookmarks were unrecoverable. Permanently.

While that incident may have had only a minimal impact on the world at large, Sensepost pointed out a few other examples that were much worse including that of online storage service MediaMax (also called The Linkup) which went out of business following a system administration error that deleted active customer data. Then there was the incident where Salesforce.com customers were locked out of their critical business applications during a service outage. And finally, they mentioned Nokia's Ovi crash which resulted in three weeks of lost user data as contacts simply disappeared from people's phones. There were no backups in place, either.

These incidents highlight some of the pitfalls that can come from trusting cloud services, and it's precisely for those reasons that enterprise IT is making the move at a much slower rate than consumers. This is especially true in heavily regulated industries where compliance is an issue. Sensepost's presentation quotes Tim Mather, RSA Security Strategist, on this point: "If it's non-regulated data, go ahead and explore. If it is regulated, hold on. I have not run across anyone comfortable putting sensitive/regulated data in the cloud."

Cloud Danger #2: Too Much Trust?

In another part of the Sensepost presentation, they looked specifically at vulnerabilities of Amazon's Web Services. To start off, they detailed the process involved in setting up a new instance on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). The first step is to create a new Amazon Machine Image (AMI) containing your applications, libraries, data, and other associated configuration settings. However, as an alternative, you could use a pre-configured templated image to get up and running quickly.

There's only one problem with that, though. While Amazon has provided 47 machine images they built themselves, the remaining 2721 images were build by other EC2 users. Can you really believe that all of these images were built securely? Basically, the template directory is just a big archive of user-generated content. And you know what user-gen content is like... risky.

Sensepost asks: Do people really just run machines other people create? Apparently, the answer is yes.

The rest of the presentation went on to demonstrate a hack that allowed them to steal others' machine time by setting up images that included "back doors" in them and tricking other EC2 customers into using those compromised images as their EC2 template.

Cloud Danger #3: Reliance on Passwords

Another issue with cloud computing services is that, despite the numerous protections built into a cloud service itself, any account is only as secure as the password used to access it. A recent example of the consequences of insecure passwords was seen during what has now become known as "Twittergate." The microblogging service Twitter had their online accounts accessed by a hacker and numerous sensitive corporate documents stolen. The documents were housed in Google's online web office service Google Docs. Although Google was not to blame for the break-in, the hack may not have ever occurred in the first place if documents were securely hosted on-site, behind a firewall. Instead, the entire company data was only one password crack away from discovery.

Password cracking is not the only threat from what is seemingly becoming a more and more archaic system for logging into online services. Weak password recovery systems are an issue, too. In a separate presentation at Black Hat, both Amazon and Microsoft's Online Services came under fire for having poor password recovery systems. That's something that should come as no surprise, Andy Cordial, Origin Storage's managing director, was quoted as saying:

"Password resetting and other security mechanisms in the cloud are always going to be a weak link, as long as user-friendliness comes ahead of security in the cloud computing beauty stakes. Expecting regular joes to whip out a two-factor authentication device for use with a cloud-driven service just isn't realistic. It's not going to happen."

But without more secure methods of gaining access to cloud services, users themselves are the weakest link. Of course, this issue is not new. IT administrators have struggled with users' lack of good security practices for years on end. Ever since computers required a password, in fact. However, the difference between a corporate network and an online account is that in a business environment, administrators can create server-enforced password policies that require users to make up passwords with certain minimum levels of complexity. They can also force users to reset their passwords on a regular basis. But in the cloud, a user could set their password to "fluffy" and never change it again.

Some cloud vendors are beginning to offer security policy control for their applications which would allow an IT admin to create and enforce stricter policies (like a secure password policy, for instance). Today, though, this is an area where many cloud applications are still lacking.

Cloud Danger #4: Encrypting Data in the Cloud

Alex Stamos, an iSec Partners researcher present at BlackHat brought up the issue of data encryption. He noted that many cloud providers do not offer encryption for their service. In a presentation done along with Andrew Becherer and Nathan Wilcox, they discussed a little-known flaw in virtual computing - virtual machines don't always have enough access to the random numbers needed to properly encrypt data. The details of this issue are highly technical, but fascinating, and the end result is that the very nature of virtual computing itself makes hacking simpler because it allows attackers to more easily guess the numbers used to generate the encryption keys.

Stamos admits that this problem isn't an immediate threat to cloud computing, but it does require more research. "It's certainly not a slam dunk," he says. "But we do think that you could potentially reduce the complexity enough that the encryption can be broken by a determined hacker."

Side note: Information Week has a good podcast interview with Stamos about this subject, too.

So, Is the Cloud Safe?

Considering the above issues, you may find yourself thinking twice about your reliance on cloud services. And if you listen to security analysts like John Pescatore of Gartner, you may be even more afraid. He was recently quoted in the Financial Times as saying:

"The security of these cloud-based infrastructure services is like Windows in 1999. It's being widely used and nothing tremendously bad has happened yet. But it's just in early stages of getting exposed to the Internet, and you know bad things are coming."

Yikes, right?

But is the cloud really all that bad? Is it any worse of a platform for computing than what we had before? In reality, probably not. Although the cloud will provide a new set of challenges and threats to deal with - and these will be more prevalent in the early stages of the transition - it doesn't necessarily present threats that are that dramatically worse than old-school on-site computing.

In the end, some cloud vendors will step up and make their cloud applications more secure, layering in security policies, encryption and the like while doing their best to mitigate the single-point-of-failure issues. Those vendors will eventually be rewarded for their efforts as more users, and then businesses, adopt their platform. Those that ignore the security issues will soon fall out of favor.

Today's cloud services may not be as secure as they should be, but in time they could easily rival any other computing platform... in fact, they may one day be considered more secure. Until then, though, users, and especially companies, should proceed with caution when moving to the cloud, making sure they're fully aware of not only the capabilities of the online service, but the risks as well.

In September of 2008, Expono went live with its site and made the bold choice to go with 100% cloud computing. Other sites like SmugMug have done this with great success and it feels like a growing trend. The lower cost and ease of scaling made cloud computing a sensible choice for Expono and the company set about building its incredible array of features. Those features, combined with the company's talented and ambitious team based in Oslo, Norway, make Expono a potential contender in an increasingly crowded media sharing marketplace.

You can go here to view a complete list of Expono's features. It's an impressive list, if not a little overwhelming, and you simply need to have a look for yourself. Here are a few of the main features we like:

Custom Location in Maps:

Geotagging has become a pretty popular thing to do with photographs. It's just interesting for us to see on a map where a photo was taken. It gives viewers added perspective, helps the photographer better organize their collections and could even help businesses attract customers. Expono has a feature that lets users drag a pin, place it on a map where the photo was taken and give that place a name for future reference. It's a simply but useful tool and a nice feature.

Language Translation:

Expono has not forgotten our Spanish-speaking friends and allows English-Spanish translations. The company is frantically working on translation to other languages like Danish, Russian, French and Hebrew and is actively searching for help translating other languages.

Full Quality Photo Sharing on Facebook:

Expono allows users to share full quality photos and activities and connect on Facebook. It looks pretty straightforward and easy to do:

"Simply go to Facebook Settings on Edit Services menu, press the "Connect with Facebook" button and follow the instructions. It takes 10-30 seconds!"

"After your accounts have been connected, you will be able to tag your Facebook friends on your photos like any other contacts you already have in your address book. With your Facebook friends now on Expono, you can add them to your contact groups, give them access to the photos you want them to see and tag them on your photos.

Face Tagging and Sharing to FriendFeed and Twitter:

Expono has extended its integration with Friendfeed and Twitter that allows interaction between users of those services:

"Earlier we had automatic photo uploads announcements to Friendfeed and Twitter every time you uploaded new photos to Expono. The functionality allowed our users to inform their followers and subscribers about newly uploaded photos in a innovative way. Now we have extended that to include direct sharing of public album and photos right from the Share menu, giving your subscribers and followers access to view your full quality photos with just 1 click."

Basically, you connect your Expono account with FriendFeed or Twitter, tag your friends' photos, add them to your contact groups and give them access to the photos you want them to see.

See what Expono's small but loyal group of followers are talking about on Twitter and also on FriendFeed.

Oh, did we mention Expono's context aware media RSS that allows users to enter a URL into your Wii Opera browser URL field, run it fullscreen and watch a slideshow on your TV? Don't forget authenticated RSS feeds, GPS support, photo editing, iPhoto photocasting, EXIF and IPTC support and much, much more. We also like that Expono takes your privacy very seriously.

This hungry startup (a core team of six, including Co-Founder and CEO Magnus Jonsson) means business when it says there are other exciting things in the works. Expono team member Daniel Bentes hinted at the company's interest in a developing a mobile site, similar to Flickr's new mobile site, that uses Apple's Core Location service right from Safari. Bentes says, "this kind of location awareness will be the future of not only search and discovery services, but even ad-based and paid content, giving even more value to viewers and readers alike. As of now, Apple's Core Location is the prime example of this ability". He adds that the company "...would like to implement the same kind of functionality on Expono.com for the coming iPhone version. But would REALLY love to implement it on the main web version as well, enabling this functionality to an even broader audience".

Like we said, there are other sites out there that do similar things. But when you combine all these things together and they are done well (in this case they did a great job), you get a very powerful and useful tool that just may be worth forking over your hard-earned money for. If you don't want to take our word for it, check out what our friend @CleverClogs had to say about Expono over on Friendfeed. She is quite knowledgeable and discriminating about such matters. You might want to also go to the Expono Customer Support Community on Get Satisfaction to see what others are saying and to throw in your own two cents.

Be sure to read the Expono blog for even more information and follow the company's Twitter updates @expono. The service is still in Beta, but you should have no problem getting an invite if you sign up at Expono.com.

G.ho.st, which already implements well-known applications such as Google Docs, Meebo, Last.fm, and Pandora, has now announced an open API for developers, allowing them to add any web-based application as an integrated part of the G.ho.st virtual desktop.

The API launches as part of the company's developing GOSPL (G.ho.st web Operating System PLatform) architecture, outlined below:

We should note that for apps not contained in a single, swf file, G.ho.st will not be able to provide hosting. What they do offer is onscreen real estate, user intentification and profile information (based on consent), consent-based access to the user's file system, and communication with the G.ho.st desktop and other third-party apps. In the future, the company also hopes to arrange monetization and billing services for web apps.

AppLogic, as we wrote in 2006, "allows Web companies to manage - and scale - all their applications, servers and storage with just a browser." The AppStore offers software stacks for AppLogic deployments, and its catalog spans all kinds of elements and applications, from networking and server components to storage solutions, as well as management and monitoring tools.

AppStore users will find pre-configured, ready-to-use elements from software vendors, many free or offered as trial versions with other appliances offered on a pay-per-use basis. Data center architects and consultants can package and publish ready-to-run app infrastructures, complete with capabilities such as clustered solutions, high availability, disaster recovery, on-demand scalability, and automated backups and security.

Initial AppStore vendors include CohesiveFT, Layer 7 Technologies, SOASTA, Tap In Systems, and Zeus Technology. 3Tera is also seeking additional infrastructure and software vendors to round out AppStore offerings in time for its beta release in Q3 2009.

"Monitoring cloud assets, scaling capacity automatically, and balancing traffic efficiently have been among the most requested Amazon EC2 features from our customers," said Peter DeSantis, General Manager of Amazon EC2. "Together, these capabilities provide customers more control of their AWS resources and enable them to architect for even better performance, resilience and cost savings."

CloudWatch gives Amazon customers visibility into resource use, operational performance, and overall demand patterns, including metrics such as CPU use, disk reads and writes, and network traffic. Auto Scaling ensures EC2 usage increases during traffic spikes to maintain performance and decreases during lulls to reduce costs, making it particularly appropriate for apps with frequent use fluctuations. Elastic Load Balancing allows for fault tolerance in applications, detects unhealthy instances within a pool, and reroutes traffic to healthy instances until the unhealthy instances have been restored.

Amazon hopes these features will improve application performance, lower costs, and make life easier for developers and entrepreneurs. Amazon CloudWatch and Elastic Load Balancing are available on a pay-as-you-go basis, and Auto Scaling is enabled by Amazon CloudWatch and carries no additional fees. Features are currently available in the U.S. and should be available in the EU shortly.

To us, this looks like a great way to introduce students to cloud computing, and, as far as we are concerned, the more students get access to this technology, the better. We also like Amazon's idea to grant researchers access to its services, as this can mean significant cost reductions for many academic projects, which, given the current economic climate, can only be a good thing as well - and, of course, it will also introduce these researchers to the potential of cloud computing.

It's not only in scientific realms. We're seeing this on the Consumer Web too, as Marshall Kirkpatrick explained this morning in an article about social media monitoring tools. He wrote that data mining tools are being democratized and used more nowadays, similar to how online publishing tools were democratized in Web 2.0. The cloud computing servers that the University of Washington will utilize are relatively cheap and easy to use Web platforms that will enable data mining on a scale not seen before. These projects will access a cloud datacenter established for educational use in 2007, through a partnership between Google, IBM and six academic institutions (including the University of Washington).

Oceans and Galaxies of Data

Bill Howe, a researcher at the UW's eScience Institute, explained the impact of cloud computing on his ocean climate simulation project. Instead of running a simulation to test a single hypothesis, he said, climate scientists are now running long-term simulations and then sifting through tens of thousands of gigabytes of resulting data to discover trends.

Andrew Connolly, a UW associate professor of astronomy, explained that for his project analyzing astronomical images, cloud computing makes it easier to store and process information in the cloud and make the information available over the Web. He said that whereas scientists once competed for time on telescopes, recorded data and then studied the individual images in detail, now "telescopes continuously record high-resolution images that are available to all, providing millions of times more information." So the shift is that the data gathering has been automated and is available on a much larger scale than before for scientists to analyze it.

Data Rich - And Useful

This current era of the Web, which some are calling 'Web 3.0' (but we frankly don't know what it's called yet) is increasingly data rich. The same thing could have been said about the Web 2.0 era, when oceans of 'User Generated Content' were created. However the world of sensors is rapidly pouring even more data onto the Web. Ed Lazowska, a UW professor of computer science and engineering, noted that "the rapid evolution of sensors is transforming all sciences from data-poor to data-rich." He said that "the challenge is to use modern cloud computing resources, such as Amazon Web Services, and modern computer science advances, such as data mining and machine learning, to explore these massive volumes of data." He claimed that this new computational science will be pervasive and will have enormous impact.

We're always pleased when the Web has a meaningful impact on the 'real world' - and particularly on science projects such as this, where the findings could be profound.