Cable & Wireless, the recently demerged telecoms company, has announced that it is beginning an early adopters programme (EAP) for cloud computing. The EAP will begin in July and is aimed at promoting and testing the new cloud computing product from Cable & Wireless.

The EAP will help give companies a clear set of instructions on how to implement the cloud technologies, migration strategies and also how to make cloud computing meet the needs of their business. At the minute Cable & Wireless has 15 companies in the EAP but it is still looking for a couple more to get accurate feedback on any issues before the release of the product.

The UK is under orders to improve the powers of the Information Commissioners Office. The European Commission has ordered the UK government to improve these powers a few times over the years since 2004 because of the Data Protection Directive.

The European Commission wants the Information Commissioners Office to be granted powers to randomly check companies. This is to ensure that companies are in compliance with data storage and data protection laws. The Commission has said that it will take legal action against the government if they fail to do this and force them to grant the powers.

Verizon Business, a telecoms company, has announced a new set of services, designed to enhance its portfolio and get in on the cloud computing boom before it takes off. Verizon Business will now be offering cloud data storage, data retention consulting and hosted storage management services.

Verizon Business will launch the services on July 1^st as pay-as-you-go services – which should be popular seeing as most companies are once again tightening their belts in the tough economic climate. As well as offering data storage and cloud computing services, Verizon Business will help companies access and manage their service.

According to a new survey by IT security company AVG, many people across the UK are using data storage with no backup – in other words, they’re storing valuable data on their PCs with no security and no backup.

About 31% of people in the AVG poll had lost information they couldn’t replace that was stored on their PCs. The main causes of losing data were;
-PC malfunction

-Virus

-Human error

-Computer damage

-Power cut

Looking after your computer, getting the experts in should it malfunction and using antivirus software are all measures that may just save your data.

The next-generation search infrastructure called ‘Caffeine’ is ready to roll according to its creator Google. Caffeine is an indexing system overhaul that Google has designed to make the search results fresher than they were with the old system.

After testing the Caffeine system in a single data storage centre, Google is now to roll the search infrastructure out over all of its data centres worldwide – so Caffeine is now powering all of Google search.

Rather than splitting the index into layers, as Google previously did, Caffeine instead continuously updates the whole index.

The New Zealand Privacy Commission has handed over the Google-mess to its police force, leaving them to decide whether or not internet giant Google committed a crime when it mistakenly collected private data.

On May 14^th Google admitted that its controversial Street View cars had, by mistake, collected private data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Not just in New Zealand, but around the world.

While New Zealand’s police force decides whether or not to criminally charge Google, authorities in Germany, Spain, Australia and Italy to name a few, are investigating just how Google could have ignored security so completely.

VMware Inc. Chief Executive Paul Maritz has said that investment into cloud computing is once again up, after a massive drop due to the recession.

As well as the economic downturn, cloud computing is a technology that has only recently been given attention. Because of this fact and a few early bug bears, there has been a lot of hesitancy in the uptake of cloud computing data storage solutions. Now though, this has passed and with the massive cost savings to be made, more and more companies are turning to cloud computing as a preferred solution.

VMware is the current market leader in virtualisation technologies which helps servers function as a single computer, effectively creating a cloud.

Microsoft, the unified communications and software company, has established a research centre in Taiwan, it announced at the Computex Taipei, Asia’s largest IT trade fair.

The new research centre will be cashing in on and – well, researching cloud computing. Cloud computing is basically data storage that is hosted online by tech firms. There has been a lot of hesitancy over the uptake of cloud computing with many people doubting the security of it. However, with more and more companies turning to cloud computing, the negative views have turned positive. Now Microsoft will spend a considerable portion of its $9.5 billion research budget on cloud computing this year.

A United States federal judge has ordered internet giant Google to turn over the data it pilfered during its Street View mapping drive.

Google accidentally collected the data over wireless internet networks and was caught out when it asked how to safely dispose of the data. Now, a U.S. federal judge has decreed that the encrypted data be kept as a backup in case it’s ruled as admissible in court.

Apparently, Google is facing many court cases over the stolen data, with several U.S. states demanding millions in damages – although, the people whose data was stolen haven’t asked for millions, have they?

Unimaginatively named ‘Norton Everywhere,’ Symantec has released new software solutions that will take it beyond the PC security market. The new beta solutions were announced in New York at an investors meeting.

According to Symantec, the new solutions will focus on mobile phone security, offering security for the Android platform and Apple’s iPhones. Data storage access software will be available and the Norton Smartphone Security for Android even offers remote locking or wiping of a handset via text message – perfect for stolen business mobiles.

In an age where the smartphone is replacing the PC as the telecoms tool of choice, mobile security is an absolute must.