The sky’s the limit for cloud computing

Cloud computing, in case you hadn’t realised, is very much here to stay. The technology has been here for a while now, but it’s only just starting to make waves.

Be it via software or hardware, cloud computing has been rumbling along quietly for some time now.

But in the same way as MP3 players or augmented reality, it took a while for people to actually sit up and take notice of it.

I should start by quickly explaining what on Earth cloud computing is, in case this technology of the future has passed you by.

Cloud computing is basically a hard drive in the sky – a place on the internet to store things safely and securely as if they were on your computer.

The simplest analogy is with email. If you have lots of emails containing big files, it doesn’t take up any space on your hard drive until you download the files to your computer. Cloud computing is the same principle, but on a larger scale.

The benefits to the technology are obvious: there’s no need for huge hard drives that will eventually fill up no matter how big they are.

We’re still in the early stages of the potential of cloud computing. In years to come we won’t just store files in the cloud, but whole programmes.

So rather than being full of games and various programmes, your laptop will be a portal to the cloud – making everything much simpler and, more importantly, faster.

Google has just got in on the cloud scene, with the launch of Google Drive. Going into competition with Microsoft’s Sky Drive and the hugely popular Dropbox, Google certainly has its work cut out.

With the world’s biggest tech companies working on the service, and trying to outdo each other in the process, the sky is the limit for cloud computing.