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More than 2 billion Internet users are available on online social media networks for brands to target. However, in the absence of right intelligence...

Since the debut of the calculator watch in 1975, wearable devices have come to represent the future of technology. No longer are these gadgets...

Google Inc. has ramped up its commitment to cloud computing with the announcement that it is working on a new range of Chrome books - which will use the firm's cloud-based Chrome OS.The personal computer will run on Google's Chrome operating system, which is cloud-enabled. The news source reports that the system will allow users to access popular virtual applications, including Google Docs and Google Business Apps.

Recently, Amazon’s cloud computing services suffered serious disruptions. Large websites such as Foursquare and Reddit became unavailable due to the disruption of Amazon Web Services.Amazon released their official response in “message 65648“. It seems that the root cause of the outage was failure of some Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes within a single Availability Zone in their US East Region. Last week Amazon notified, by email, all affected customers and indicated a 10 day credit equal to 100% of the usage of EBS Volumes, EC2 and RDS instances within the affected Availability Zone.

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the world's largest professional association advancing technology for humanity, has announced the launch of its new Cloud Computing Initiative. Designed to serve as the catalyst for innovation in the cloud computing arena, it is the first broad-scope, forward-looking cloud computing initiative to be put forth by a global standards development organization (SDO).

Computer networking equipment giant Cisco Systems Inc. announced its intention to buy privately-held software company newScale Inc., a provider of self-service management software for enterprise IT and cloud computing. This move will help Cisco to expand its offerings in cloud computing.Based in San Mateo in the U.S. state of California, newScale provides software that delivers a service catalog and self-service portal for information technology (IT) organizations to select and quickly deploy cloud services within their businesses.

The battle between two IT giants seems to have entered into the cloud computing space as well. Last week, Google launched Cloud Connect and hit Microsoft right where it hurts – its Office portfolio. With the Cloud Connect plug-in, users can now go on the cloud with their Office files, without having to fire up SharePoint, another Microsoft product. With this single product, Office users get access to simultaneous collaboration, revision history, cloud sync, unique URLs and simple sharing of Office files ( Word, Excel and PowerPoint).

Small and medium sized businesses are getting attracted to cloud computing and are considering adopting cloud computing in some form. A survey by researchers at MarketBridge reveals that 44% of respondents had already deployed at least one cloud-based application. In addition, more than 70% of those surveyed planned to move at least one new application to the cloud within six months. This survey was done among 1,000 small to midsized businesses.

IBM, the world’s largest computer-services provider, said it won a contract to help China build Asia’s largest cloud- computing center by 2016.The 620,000 square meter facility, which is to be owned by Range Technology, is expected to be completed in 2016, the companies announced on Tuesday. The data center aims to mainly serve government departments from China's capital and across the country, but will also be open to banks and private enterprises.

A new research from IT Governance Institute (ITGI) has revealed that the companies are holding back their investments on cloud computing over fears for the security of their data. Half of the 834 executives from 21 countries polled said they are delaying cloud implementation in light of security concerns, and over a third are waiting until they get the full value from installed systems.

The New Zealand Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has made it mandatory for businesses operating in the country, which uses Cloud Computing services hosted overseas, to ensure that business records are available locally. New Zealand Tax Law requires that any person or business with assessable income from the country has to keep sufficient records in-country, and in English, to enable the IRD Commissioner to ascertain information about tax affairs.

DICOM Grid, a healthcare IT leader, has recently launched DICOM Grid ImageCare, the first secure, scalable cloud computing platform that makes searching, sharing and exchanging medical images easier. The DICOM Grid ImageCare is a web-based solution that enables medical imaging data to be managed securely, easily and cost-effectively along the entire chain of patient care. Authorized physicians, hospitals and imaging facilities can now collaborate and act on medical imaging data in real time or whenever it's convenient from any location.

A lot has been talked about Cloud Computing and the IT industry is buzzing around with the new technology. But is India ready to adopt it ? According to Gartner analysts, India is still 5 to 10 years away from adopting Cloud Computing. Gartner’s research Vice President Rakesh Kumar points out “Indian CIOs are reluctant to embrace Cloud and say they don’t believe in it”.

Forrester analyst James Staten made 10 predictions for cloud computing in 2011 which build on the gains made over the past year. He said the stage is set for cloud computing to develop into a “vibrant, steady market” rather than a field where just a handful of players like Amazon.com, have made inroads. “Not all moves that show promise today will result in a sustainable harvest come 12 months, but a few trends are likely to play out,” he stated.

Microsoft has claimed that the use of cloud computing technology can reduce the carbon emissions by 30 per cent. According to a recent study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by solution provider Accenture and WSP Environment and Energy, businesses that run applications in the cloud can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by about 30 percent or more compared to running those same applications on their own on-premise infrastructure.