Living with our heads in the Cloud

Hadeel Al-Alosi

Technology has led to rapid advancements in our society.  While reading this, many of us will probably be scrolling through a Facebook page or flicking through an iPhone.  Much of the data we are accessing may well be stored in the Cloud.

At its broadest level, cloud computing is the provision of computing resources as a service over a network, usually, the Internet. Cloud computing services have been made available for a number of years, including by well-known organisations such as Google, Microsoft and Hotmail.  These services allow consumers to access data and applications without having to install or store these on their personal computers.

The personal cloud promises many benefits. It allows you to manage all of your PC and mobile devices, and to have every piece of data you need at your fingertips, so that you can share your information with friends, family and colleagues in an instant.

But before becoming over-excited by all the benefits that cloud computing promises to deliver, there are important issues to consider.

Theft and loss of data: should cloud service providers be bound by some minimum security standards that ensure personal information is not lost or stolen? Should service providers be able to limit their liability contractually for lost or stolen data? What if the service provider is forced to close down due to financial or legal problems, which causes customers to lose their data? Who should be responsible in having back-up and recovery processes in place?

Data location: the fact that data is stored by a cloud provider, which may be located overseas, means that individuals and businesses have less control over their data. Users should be questioning who is actually holding their data and where it is being located. With the growth in reliance by Australians on cloud computing services, it may be worth choosing a provider based in Australia. This would reduce risks in storing data with overseas providers, which may be in countries that have inadequate privacy laws or are prone to natural disasters.

Privacy issues: there are endless privacy issues raised by cloud computing, such as who will have access to your data and whether (and which) privacy laws will apply. Are there circumstances that justify the disclosure of data (for example, to aid law enforcement)? Also, what happens to data once a contract with a cloud service provider is terminated? For example, Google Docs states that it “permanently deletes” data from its system. However, it also warns that “residual copies of your files and other information may remain in our services for three weeks”.

Most individuals and some businesses overlook these important issues. As is often the case with e-commerce transactions, many people blindly click on the “I agree” button when signing up for services without reading the terms and conditions provided. We tend to think more about these issues when something goes wrong. For example, when someone's Facebook account has been hacked into by a revengeful ex-partner, or when precious data has been lost.

As to the future of cloud computing services, I think it is timely that we generate some solutions to these problems. Perhaps, somewhere over the rainbow, we can find solutions that allow us to reap the benefits of the cloud, while ensuring we are protected from all external threats.

So, what do you think? – is cloud computing a threat or an opportunity?

Recycled music in the digital era

Adrian McGruther

I remember spending countless hours after school, rummaging painstakingly through the ‘new arrivals’ bin of my local second-hand CD store. My meagre income as a suburban paperboy meant the new release section at Brashs Music was well out of my reach (unless I was content settling for a Jason Donovan single in the bargain bin). Having whittled a crate's worth of CDs down to a shortlist of five or six, I was left with the painful decision of which two or three were truly worth shelling out for. Upon arriving home, broke but beaming, I’d invariably discover that one of my new treasures had a deep, long scratch across its surface, right in the middle of a blistering Kirk Hammett guitar solo. Bummer. But, you get what you pay for, I’d remind myself.

Had I gone to school during the digital age, I might’ve turned to a new US-based service, ReDigi, which offers ‘second-hand’ mp3s for sale online.

What is ReDigi?

ReDigi describes its offering as ‘recycled digital media’, but with the benefit that, unlike physical media, its products never scratch or wear out. Users who wish to sell digital music files that they no longer want can ‘upload’ the tracks to ReDigi’s server for other users to purchase and download. ReDigi claims to have what it calls ‘verification’ and ‘hand off’ technology, which ensures that the digital music file is from a legitimate source and that any additional copies of a sold file are also deleted from the user’s computer.

If a copy of a file that has already been sold reappears on a seller’s computer or synced device, and the seller does not delete it after receiving notice from ReDigi, the seller’s account with ReDigi may be suspended or terminated. ReDigi also pays a percentage of sales to the relevant artists and labels. ReDigi is different from file-sharing sites in that each track offered for sale is a unique, identifiable file, and has not been cloned from a master file.

Is it legally legit?

That’s the big question at the moment. Many record labels and industry bodies are casting a raised eyebrow in ReDigi’s direction because the service treads upon a legal grey patch. The way digital music sales normally operate is that when a customer purchases a song, a reproduction of the ‘master’ file is made, which requires a licence from the label or artist.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and international record label EMI Music have objected to the legality of the service on the basis that ReDigi is infringing copyright when a 'copy' of the track is made as it is uploaded to ReDigi’s servers. They claim that this copying has not been done with a licence, irrespective of the fact that the original file is removed from the user’s computer once it has been uploaded to ReDigi.

Google has also weighed in on the legal debate by suggesting that a finding against ReDigi could potentially place the legality of cloud computing under…well, a grey cloud.

But in the midst of the current legal stoush, the short-sighted labels appear to be missing the elephant in the room: consumers are willing to pay for music. In an era when music piracy is rampant and labels desperately scramble to give users a commercial incentive to pay for music, the success of a service like ReDigi should be seen as a silver lining.

What does this mean for music lovers and music labels?

Legal hurdles aside, services like ReDigi provide a compromise between the mainstream digital music stores and the illegal (and unreliable) file sharing sites. As songs on digital music stores in Australia now nudge upwards of $2 each, it is unsurprising that consumers are turning to alternative sources.

Though ReDigi shows promising early signs, it is still difficult to assess its potential popularity with music fans. On one hand, the lower price point may be enough to persuade the teetering, borderline 'pirates' to start paying for music. But, humans are creatures of habit, and convincing someone who perceives little value in digital music that they should all-of-a-sudden pay for music, might require some pretty strong arm-twisting. Nevertheless, the concept of second-hand digital music might serve as an acceptable entry-point for those who don’t currently take part in the legitimate music market.

On the other hand, retail consumers rely on trust and seek consistency. One-stop-shops, like iTunes or Amazon (which never 'run out of stock') offer the reliability and consistency that consumers will want. The seamless shopping experience and interactivity offered by the major players is unlikely to be replicated by ReDigi. But ultimately, that is something that will depend on how widely ReDigi is adopted, and the depth of its repertoire.

Would I use it?

Maybe. If I’m confident that I’m not breaking the law, that the file will be compatible with my devices, and if it’s well-priced, then I don’t see why not. But a lot will come down to the user experience. If I have to spend hours on end refreshing the site, trawling for that one pesky Jason Donovan track, then I’m better off trudging down to my local second-hand CD store and putting up with those darn scratches.

Memories of Car and Phone, prosthetics of the cyborg citizen (Part II)

Kieran Tranter

This post continues Dr Kieran Tranter's series on 'Memories of Car and Phone', the first instalment of which can be accessed here.

The demographics of the car, of the makes and models of drivers and vehicles, over the past 15-20 years in the West make an interesting study. There are more cars per head of population, women are now almost equal owners of the Western fleet, and by percentage there are less "male hero" and "man of the family" vehicles than in the past. The "average" Western car can probably be described as a Toyota Corolla, front wheel drive, 4 cylinders, practical, functional, user-friendly, economical, safe, and it is owned and driven by men and women alike. It will be owned/leased for three years and then traded in for a newer…Toyota Corolla. Its bonnet will probably never be lifted by the owner. In short it is the internal combustion engine version of an iPhone on a 24 month contract. I think this challenge to the traditional automobility of combustion masculinity is interesting.

Foremost, it represents a souring of the mythos of the car in the West. The symbolism of freedom mass-produced in chrome and steel had to reach the end of road when the common experience was gridlock and repetitious commutes. Combustion masculinity’s linking of car to hetero-normative sex was also doomed to a cul-de-sac when it became increasingly clear that burnouts in a “fully sick” car only appealed to other young men. The green movement’s chipping away at the car’s fender slowly rendered the car and car usage problematic, and the roadside memorials have come to haunt our travelling dreams. The car has made a life that is not sustainable in environmental and social terms, and the changes in car demographics mark an interesting evolution in automobility away from the hydrocarbon and testosterone fuelled combustion masculinity to a less identity focused use of cars. As I anticipate my plug-in electric car recharged by a photovoltaic array on the carport roof, this is to the good, even if it will be the car equivalent of the mobile phone, used, abused, and then replaced with same.

But I worry about the types of memories that we’ll take from this future. Sure there might be thousands upon thousands of images of our life and loved ones stored in our portion of the cloud accessible at will through whatever access device is de jure, and available on a 24 month contract, but will we have memories? The car’s physicality, its imposing on life, makes memories. The sunlight machines might access images of the past, but they do not seem to be mnemonic aids in themselves.

What I am concerned about is life. Martin Heidegger’s account of human living was as an entity in time and aware of time; an entity whose memory of past grounds certainty of future. Time passed,and memory was the storehouse, and safeguard, of that life that was. Through memory future becomes possible. Pre-modern Western time could be seen as different. The life of the seasonal cycles and ecclesiastical calendar was a life of repetition, of the same over and over again. Modernity was ultimately a revolution in time; the past became history that could be known, remembered, studied; and from this, the possibility of future, a future different to the past, could be aspired towards.

While Heidegger was famously concerned about the impact of modern technology on human experience, the car has been a memory aid for the cyborg citizens of the West for probably over half a century. With the fading of the car to white(good), to another sunshine machine, the hard materiality of the fabric of memory is potentially reduced. An important way that life has been marked and remembered in the modern West declines. The endless cycle of another featureless, while feature-full consumer good, almost returns us to pre-modern time of endless present. It raises the possibility that our future memory of past will be of a past as same giving rise to an anticipation of a future that is same. In the sunshine our chronological horizons collapse.

So possibly we need the car to be human. But perhaps, as I get ready to ride my bike home, what is also possible is that out of the near limitless data of our contemporary lives we learn to piece some solidity from the zeros and ones. Maybe without the imposed cultural meanings of our car prosthetic, there is a possibility to freely create more complex and empowered life narratives, through the sunshine, from the cloud.

Memories of Car and Phone, prosthetics of the cyborg citizen (Part I)

Kieran Tranter

Can you remember the make and model of your past mobile phones? I sort of can. I’ve had a succession of Nokias over the past 10 years culminating with an iPhone. But model number or features are a bit of a blur. Yet I had it on me and used it every day. It was a phone, it was useful, and it only made it presence felt when it was not useful: the times that it went through the washing machine (twice), dropped in the ocean (once), and shattered into several pieces having fallen from a height (twice).

Now – can you remember the make and model of your past cars? I can. In my 20 years of car ownership I have survived a 1981 silver four wheel drive Suzuki Sierra with a 1.0 litre engine and unassisted drum brakes; a 1973 baby-poo orange Renault 12 Sedan, a 1975 blue and white two-tone Renault 12 wagon; a 2002 XC Holden Barina (known in Europe as an Opel Corsa, my one experiment with a new car); a metallic green-gold 1985 Volvo 240GL sedan; and a 1997 TARDIS blue V70 Volvo station wagon (yes it is a blue box and it is bigger on the inside)...

What can be made of this distinction (aside from character judgements relating to mobile phone abuse and ownership of embarrassing cars)? Car and phone are the two prominent prosthetics of the cyborg citizens of the West; yet their memories seem to generate different degrees of affect. I remember affectionately my little Suzuki and the Renaults. I regret selling the Barina and I still miss the fear and wide berth that the 240GL Volvo was given by other road users. Car and life can be mapped coexistent; phone and life not so much. I cannot recall which phone it was that I rang my family with to tell them that my daughter had been born; but I can very much remember the drive to hospital in the Barina, with the morning sun reflecting off the silver bonnet.

There are some obvious explanations. The purchase and running cost of a car imposes itself. We remember the car because we are continually paying for it. But phones impose themselves as well; the slight trepidation when approaching the monthly bill witnesses this. However, this does not explain the level of affect. There is the coming-of-age ritual of passing the licence test that marks freedom and adulthood that could be seen as making the memory of cars more endearing. But I am sure for the next generation that similar symbolism will be associated with their first mobile phone. And it is not time spent with the thing – given I often ride a bicycle to work, I spend significantly more time with my phone than my car.

There probably is something about gender at play. As Sarah Redshaw observes in her cultural account of Australian automobilities, In the Company of Cars (2008), there is a form of maleness that is particularly entwined with the motor vehicle. Her term “combustion masculinity” is fabulously suggestive. The metallic technicality, the symbolic economy of men speaking through cars and not words, the speed, freedom, risk, and triumph of the car resonated, and still does resonate, with men the world over. Indeed, BBC’s Top Gear has become an institution and global marketing phenomena, as a celebration, and perhaps a slight parody, of this auto-mentality. The phone is a phone. It might now access the net/cloud, take photos, allow the sci-fi dream of videophone, play music and games, show TV and movies, and chirp reminders cross-linked to a diary; but even an iPhone does not have the cultural meaning of a 1967 Citroën DS 21 or 1957 Chevy BelAir Hardtop. I am pretty certain that there will not be clubs and enthusiasts in 50 years engaged in global discussions of how to source parts and repair old mobile phones as there probably will still be for the “Goddess” and ’57 Chevys.

The phone integrates to life. As Donna Haraway wrote in her iconic “Cyborg Manifesto” in 1985, “‘[o]ur best machines are made of sunshine”, anticipating our wireless reality of connectivity, and not the clunky, modernist, greenhouse-causing dinosaur of the car. The car makes life. Our cities, our lives, the way we feed ourselves, educate our children, and know space from place – the geographies of Western habitus – have been made because of the automobile. We remember the car because the car has impacted on us; even if we are fortunate never to have been involved in an accident. We don’t remember phones because they are sunshine; pleasant when there, soon taken for granted, only missed when connection to the cloud is unavailable. The car represents a certain form of cybernetic citizenship of machines and meat that has to be earned and paid for with resources, time, and sometimes blood. It has configured certain desires and modes of living that have been considered mainstream in the West since WWII. In this our past cars are remembered. There might be risks from phones – the research is on-going on the mobile phone-radiation-cancer link – and there is all that communication, data, and virtuality.  However, pocketing a Samsung Galaxy is not the same as tinkling a set of keys.

Holding a portal to the Cloud

Lester Miller

I've just received my shiny, new, brushed steel and polished glass smartphone. I'll admit now: I'm in love with it. Before this day came, I'd talked frequently about how amazing life would be after it arrived and, now that it's here, I spend a lot of my spare time bathing in its visual modern beauty and trying to fully realise what I'm convinced are life-enriching possibilities.

One of the important features of this smartphone is the loudly-touted easy access to a cloud on which data can be stored and complex calculations can be made.

In 1950, Herb Grosch, a Canadian-born astrophysicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, envisioned a future where the whole world would run using a cloud system of computing, operated by individual local terminals but served by only 15 data centres.

Today, there are about 50,000 data centres just in Australia – certainly more than 15 worldwide – but they are getting larger in size and smaller in number.

Arguably the largest data centre in the world, the Lakeside Technology Center, is 10 hectares (24 acres) in size. It's the nerve centre for Chicago's commodity markets and requires about 100MW of power to operate.

The architecture of computers means they can't presently solve certain kinds of equations, but what they can do is break a model down into millions of tiny parts and approximate the solution to governing algorithms by iterative methods. The smaller the parts the problem is broken into, the greater the precision and accuracy of the solution, but the more calculations required.

My final year project for my Engineering degree, an aeon (or ten years) ago, was to design an efficient shape for a solar-powered car, hypothetically to be built and raced in the World Solar Challenge. It involved modelling the movement of air across the surface of the car, a problem governed by partial differential equations, unsolvable directly but susceptible to a good approximation. My team would go into the computer rooms on campus, enter the surface geometry of a car we thought would slip through the air cleanly, and then leave the post-processor to think about the problem, which would take about a day. The graphic visualisation part of the problem would also take hours. We would return, review the results, think about how shape could be improved and do it again.

How much quicker would the process have been an aeon later? With the accessibility of clouds now, computational fluid dynamics packages and so many other data analysis packages for professionals from structure designers and advertisers to baseball scouts can be operated remotely, by our smartphones or tablets, which need only have the power to display the interface between the calculator and the user: a "dumb" terminal.

Computing is rapidly becoming a service business. Want to store your precious data? Don't keep it where moth and rust destroy.  Leave it all with us for a monthly fee, or for free if you promise to notice our constant but subtly-placed advertising banners.

Need a complex problem solved? It was not unusual, until recently, for a seat with a data consultant to be up to tens of thousands of dollars. The barriers to entry are now lower for modelling and data manipulation consultants, such that all it takes is a short lease contract for software and the computer power on which to run it (and soon, your sexy smartphone).

The challenge for data centres is business continuity delivered in an efficient way. The global ICT industry was estimated in 2007 to be producing 2% of the world's carbon emissions and data centres 14% of that, the latter of which appears to be growing. Google keeps the server hallways in its centre at 27 degrees celsius to reduce airconditioning loads. Other centres are being built near proposed tidal power generation sites, such as one near the Pentland Firth in Scotland.

The technology can be used across the entire spectrum from trivial to world-changing problems. There are, for example, teams of people involved in the search for intelligent life beyond Earth. The SETI@home project used hundreds of thousands of idle home computers to review reams of data from a radio telescope array for faraway signals that couldn't be dismissed as noise. Last year, Amazon donated a part of their cloud so that SETI could continue their efforts with even greater power for the next six years.

It's frustrating but also amazing that the problems we want to solve seem to become more complex the more we learn. The cloud will no doubt become the way that we will relate to and get closer to solutions to the most tricky and long-standing unknowns.

Image by Karin Dalziel, made available by Creative Commons licence via Flickr.