Let me first get this out of the way: I know the term “cloud” is overused, and systems like Amazon Web Services are vastly different than so-called “consumer-cloud” services like Gmail and Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

But with all the bad news about recent outages from Amazon, the high-profile consumer data breaches like that from the Sony’s Playstation Network and continuing disruptions to services like  Tumblr, it’s time to ask: Could consumers start to lose confidence in the cloud?

While there’s no real hard data today about whether consumers are losing confidence in the cloud — other than possibly looking at trending of search terms about major outages — I have to wonder if the continuing string of outages, breaches and overall high-profile downtime is starting to tarnish the larger cloud brand. After all, chances are, at some point most consumers have been affected, either by downtime to a favorite service or something more serious like a data loss or (God forbid) their personal data compromised; at some point, those users might start to distrust this fuzzy concept they think of as cloud.

Part of the problem here is one of education. It’s difficult in the consumer world, where many have a nodding acquaintance with technology but no real hard understanding, to explain why the evolution of web architecture is better off with such things as Amazon Web Services. Most don’t have time to really grasp these finer points, nor would the technology world expect them to.

And that’s why the cloud could ultimately experience a branding issue.

Right now, the cloud brand is still probably strong and still, despite the spate of bad news, holds a certain cachet. At the same time, however, the noise around high-profile cloud outages, breaches and failure has been getting steadily louder, reason enough for the industry to collectively take notice and, perhaps, collectively take action before the word “cloud” becomes a dirty one.

So what should it do? First off, I think many of the services that experience problems — the recent Gmail and Netflix outages come to mind — would benefit from faster and more transparent communication of the problem. Often, hours or days go by without any real communication of what is going on, leaving many wondering what exactly the extent of the problem will be. If there’s anything to be learned from politics, it’s to get ahead of the problem by communicating early and often.

But perhaps more important, the industry could collectively communicate how they’ll protect consumers from these types of problems in the future, either through concrete steps they lay out, or issuing a series of best practices that consumer cloud services could follow.

What would this collective look like? Hard to say. Possibly working within existing groups such as the Open Cloud Consortium, who offers reference architectures, but could also incorporate best practices for web-services companies around outward-facing communication. The same companies could also create a consumer-facing group that could explain the benefits of cloud computing vis-a-vis other technologies as well as provide consumer “best practices” (such as back-up).

Clearly, it’s not an easy issue to tackle, but it is one that needs attention. With new services being launched almost daily, it’s time for the industry to act before “cloud” becomes a dirty word in the mind of the consumer.

For more analysis on how recent outages could impact consumer behavior, see my weekly update at GigaOM Pro (sub required).

Image courtesy of flickr user edvvc

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• How Amazon’s Cloud Failure Could Affect Consumer Behavior
• What Amazon and Its Customers Can Learn From Last Week’s Outage
• Putting Big Data to Work: Opportunities for Enterprises

alt='Join Gameloft’s new studio!'
border='0' width='300' height='250'
/>

GigaOM

Why do people like to fool each other — or at least try to — on the first day of April? No one really knows for sure, but it’s one of the most enduring unofficial holidays, celebrated (or in some cases, barely tolerated) in dozens of countries. And for whatever reason, the technology world is even more fond of this holiday than probably any other. In this post, we’ve collected some of our favorite pranks and bogus news stories from today for your amusement — if you come across any that you particularly enjoyed, feel free to add them in the comments.

But before we get started, it’s worth noting that one of the biggest April Fool’s jokes of all time might be the day itself — no one can seem to agree on how or why it became popular. One theory is that it started with the change to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which moved New Year’s Day from the last week of March to January. Those who continued to celebrate in March (a celebration that usually lasted until April 1) were called April Fools. The only problem with that theory is that there are references to the idea of April and fools that pre-date the change to the Gregorian calendar.

Another theory is that it started with the Persian tradition of playing pranks on people on the 15th day of the New Year’s celebration of Norouz, which usually falls on April 1st and is known as Sizdah Bedar. This tradition apparently goes back to 536 B.C. And to make things extra confusing, plenty of countries celebrate something like April Fool’s on other days — like the 28th of December. If you want to see what April Fool was like in 1861 in the United States, check out this fascinating post from the NYT.

And now, on to the monkeyshines, drollery and shenanigans:

• Hulu Time Travel: points for effort goes to Hulu, which set up a complete homepage as the service would have appeared in the 1990s, with links to actual episodes of Newsradio, Kids In The Hall, 21 Jump Street and other shows — and featuring a modem-connecting noise when you click to watch. Well played, Hulu.



• ShopSavvy Becomes GreyScale: poking fun at the recent blockbuster financing — and associated controversy — by the iPhone photo-sharing app Color, this is a nice touch from ShopSavvy: the tagline for the new service GreyScale is “share photos — with no one.” But will Color think it’s funny?
• Flattr Partners With North Korea: for true geek cred, you can’t get any better than a donation service started by one of the founders of The Pirate Bay — “brokep” describes how Flattr is going to be used by North Korea to manage the entire economy. Knowing North Korea, this isn’t really that far-fetched.
• Gmail Motion: the web giant says it is launching a Kinect-style interface to its email service that will let people navigate with physical gestures — the video with this one is worth watching, if only for the guy who gets to illustrate the movements (according to a blog post, Google is also changing all of its sites and services to Comic Sans, the most hated font ever invented).
• The Swiss WikiLeaks Scandal: according to a leaked cable, the Swiss government has been hiding surveillance systems in ceremonial cuckoo clocks that it has been giving to foreign diplomats for the past 30 years.
• The PlayMobil Apple Store: the gadget and gift site ThinkGeek has become a staple of April Fool’s for nerds, in part because its fake products are so perfectly believable — and this year it’s a PlayMobil replica of the Apple Store. Fake items from previous years have become so popular that the site has actually produced them as real products, included the TaunTaun Sleeping Bag and others listed here.



• HuffPo’s Pay Wall — Just For the NYT: Some April Fool’s pranks have a kind of edge to them, and this new pay wall just for New York Times employees has that feel to it: not only is it a poke at the NYT pay plan, but a jab at the paper that has slammed Huffington for aggregating its content (bonus points to Arianna for testing the new feature in Winnipeg). The special terms of the paywall — all links from Facebook are free, provided they lead to stories about animals with extra limbs — are also hilarious.
• Sir Richard Branson Buys Pluto: the founder of Virgin Records, Virgin Airlines and about 300 other things named Virgin likes to do things large, so it’s fitting that he says he is buying Pluto and will have it reinstated as a planet.
• LinkedIn Recommends Robin Hood: the best April Fool’s jokes are ones that play on the core features of a service, and LinkedIn has done a pretty good — and, unlike many other pranks, subtle — job with its “you may know” feature today, which suggests people like Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg (“this may be Werner Heisenberg’s profile”) and Robin Hood (“activist, chief fundraiser at Nottingham”).



(screenshot courtesy of Dan Hocking)

• Seth Godin Introduces Whitespace Ads: points for creativity should go to marketing blogger and author Seth Godin, who announced the launch of a new advertising vehicle that will use the white space in between paragraphs for links that will be highly targeted, location-based and unobtrusive — mostly because they will be invisible.
• Mozilla Launches “Do Not Fool” Standard: this one is so meta that it hurts: Mozilla has a browser header that allows you to automatically inform websites that you do not want to be fooled — a play on the “Do Not Track” header proposal for privacy protection from advertisers. Going to install this one now.

If geekish pranks are your thing, the site Hacker News is collecting them — including a new product that acts like AdBlock in real life: a pair of goggles that remove advertising from whatever you are looking at. And even Wikipedia has gotten into the April Fool’s Day game — but what appear to be fake articles are actually links to factual information that isn’t really what it seems, like the fact that Batman is half female.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Mykl Roventine

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Defining Hadoop: the Players, Technologies and Challenges of 2011
• 4 More Ways Netflix Can Embrace Original Content
• Is AllVid The Lynchpin to Google TV Domination?

GigaOM

The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing Apple’s in-app purchase system because of concerns about children buying virtual goods and currency without realizing the actual cost. On Tuesday, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz responded to a call for action by the FTC from Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who raised the issue after seeing a report in the Washington Post about children racking up charges in iOS apps.

“We fully share your concern that consumers, particularly children, are unlikely to understand the ramifications of these types of purchases,” Leibowitz wrote in a letter to Markey obtained by the Washington Post. “Let me assure you we will look closely at the current industry practice with respect to the marketing and delivery of these types of applications.”

While much of the technology world has been focused on Apple’s in-app purchase rules and how they affect publishers and content owners who offer subscriptions, the company has also had to deal with questions about protections against inadvertent in-app purchases by children. Apple allows users to buy apps or virtual goods with one password key-in, which allows for unlimited successive purchases for 15 minutes. A few reports have bubbled up of children unknowingly using this loophole to charge hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars in purchases.

I wrote last week that Apple is reportedly looking at narrowing or closing the 15-minute window. But officially, the company has pointed to its existing parental controls, which allow parents to prevent all in-app purchases. It’s unclear what the FTC will do, though you can imagine Apple is in not interested in courting more regulatory scrutiny. With the FTC and Department of Justice already looking at the new subscription rules, this would seem like an easy situation to remedy.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

• How To Ride The Freemium App Wave To Success
• What App Distributors Can Learn from the Ringtone Craze
• How Carriers Can Crack the App Discoverability Nut

GigaOMTech

by jmatthew3

Know More About the Latest Gadgets

With technology searing ahead at a rapid face, there are loads of gadgets hitting the markets every single day. From 3D televisions, to sleek mobile phones the latest gadgets look cool, laced with features and are very innovative. No wonder, the geeks and gadget lovers are having a party picking up their favorites and making a style statement with the latest gadgets.

Sidewinder is the first of the latest gadgets we will talk about. This sleek mobile phone is unbelievably small and is designed to be worn on the wrists. It also boasts of many applications and features like GPS, contacts, keypad and maps. The multi touch interface of this wrist phone ensures this gadget can compete with the latest smart phones too.

The new SONY VAIO E Series is another of the latest gadgets hitting the headlines. With a core i3 processor, 4 GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive, this laptop is relatively inexpensive at 0. One can buy it various attractive colors like Caribbean green and Hibiscus pink. The battery life is around 3.5 hours and at 15.5 inches this beautiful laptop has a design that can easily be customized.

Samsung recently launched the B7260 Giorgio Armani SmartPhone. The R tilting touch screen has 3.5 inch AMOLED resistive. A 5 MP camera and 8 GB memory along with a QWERTY keyboard makes it one of the most attractive latest gadgets that work on Windows mobile 6.1 professional. The phone also has Wi-Fi, GPS, FM radio and Bluetooth. The camera has capability for panorama shooting, wide range with image stabilization assisted by an LED flash. A business card scanner, mobile tracker, TV-OUT and a Pocket Office make this smart phone one of the best in terms of utility features. The 11.5 hours talk time battery life is quite impressive too.

The UE46C7000 3D LED television from Samsung is the next big thing among the latest gadgets to hit the technology world. The sleep 46 inches screen with a glossy look and a Full HD 3D logo will take the TV viewing experience to the next level when you view 3D on Blur Ray 3D DVD player or Sky satellite receiver. Content such as BBC iPlayer and LoveFilm are available along with a host of interactive games and Samsung applications. The television also allows Freeview HD for normal broadcasts and support for PVR functionality with USB along with a Freeview HD tuner and HDMI 1.4 version sockets.

On this week’s Web TV, Jon reviews the Gigapan Epic Pro, and Pollyanna checks out the Top 5 Festival Gadgets. For more videos, news and reviews go to fwd.five.tv
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Find More Gadget Articles

Cables to Go 28106 USB A Male to A Male Cable (2 Meter, Black)

• Just plug-and-play for keyboards, mice, modems, printers, and other USB peripherals.
• Supports high speed USB 2.0 devices (480 Mbps) and is backwards compliant with full-speed USB 1.1 (12 Mbps) and low-speed USB 1.0 (1.5 Mbps).
• This cable provides a transfer rate up to 480 Mbps depending upon the peripheral’s USB version, and easily attaches to any USB device
• PC and Mac; compatible

Connect USB devices with an “A Female” port to your computer or other USB device

Rating: (out of 1 reviews)

List Price: $ 8.99

Price: Too low to display

Microsoft Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000 Keyboard and Mouse Set (Black)

• Designed for Comfort – Type more comfortably with low-profile Quiet Touch keys
• Ergonomist-approved Comfort Curve design – Microsoft’s Comfort Curve encourages natural wrist posture and is easy to use.
• Microsoft BlueTrack Technology – World’s most advanced tracking – go more places than optical and laser.
• Reliable wireless with snap-in transceiver – The 2.4 GHz wireless USB Mini-Transceiver
• Windows 7 Taskbar Favorites – Easily access programs in the taskbar with convenient hot keys.

Wireless Comfort Curve Keyboard and Mouse Set with Soft-touch Palm Rest

Rating: (out of 119 reviews)

List Price: $ 79.99

Price: $ 38.00

Related Products

Our Picks for 6/3 – 6/10: Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships, Tyrone …
The Helio Sequence, Empty Space Orchestra thursday 3 Before heading off on a month-long tour of Europe, the Portland power pop duo makes a stop at the Tower for the second installment of the PDXchange Program. If you don’t know The Helio Sequence, you really should because the duo – comprised of Brandon Summer and Benjamin Weikel – has been playing some of the Northwest’s best indie rock for …
Read more on The Source Weekly

ZAGG to Offer Its Premier Mobile Protection Solution at over 1,200 U.S. Staples Stores
ZAGG Inc. (NASDAQ: ZAGG) ( www.ZAGG.com ), a leading producer of electronics accessories for protecting and enhancing the mobile experience, including the popular invisibleSHIELD™, ZAGGbuds™, and ZAGGsparq™ brands, has reached a distribution agreement with Staples Inc., the world’s largest office products company, and will be available in stores beginning in July 2010 …
Read more on SYS-CON Media

Steve Jobs champions Apple and doles out wisdom at D8
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs doled out technology world wisdom that included not being rude to competitors or falling in love with Internet television boxes.
Read more on AFP via Yahoo! UK & Ireland Finance