Hasta La Gadget!

What was once a private beta meant only for developers is now trickling out into the public. For those who signed up to be invited to the public beta of iWork for iCloud should be getting them now. Apple originally unveiled the new cloud-based office suite at WWDC last month, and now the software is ready for a public chewing as the company looks to get feedback before an official launch.

As expected, iWork for iCloud is Apple’s version of Google Drive and Microsoft Office 365. The software offers users cloud-based versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, which provide a word processor, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint-like presentations, respectively. Users will be able to access the software via the web browser of their choice (as long as it’s either Safari, Chrome, or IE).

If you received an invite, all you have to do is sign in to iCloud on any computer and then click on either Pages, Numbers, or Keynote to get started drafting up your first iWork for iCloud document. From there you can save a document and it’ll automatically be saved to the cloud where you can access it on another computer. iWork for iCloud can be accessed on either a Mac or Windows PC (no word on Linux, specifically, but we’re guessing that works too). Mobile devices will have support as well.

Essentially, it works just like the traditional version of iWork, where you have access to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, only this time it’s available in cloud. However, it comes with a bit of caveats. For starters, collaboration is pretty much out of the question. Unlike Google Drive, users won’t be able to share documents with other iCloud users.

Apple still has a lot of work to do to make iWork for iCloud a true competitor, but the company knows that. They’re working on adding several more features in the future, including the ability to print documents. As for collaborative editing, Apple hasn’t mentioned such a thing yet, but it’s certainly a feature that iWork for iCloud will need if it wants to compete with Google Drive and Office 365.

iWork iCloud public beta rolling out today: here’s what you’ll get is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The 300,000-server-strong Xbox LIVE cloud for the new Xbox One will share processing duties with the console, Microsoft has detailed, responsible for “latency-insensitive computation” like filling in background detail or figuring out complex lighting effects. The split crunching had been broadly outlined before, but Microsoft shared some specifics with Ars Technica, including how the system would amount to roughly three virtual Xbox One consoles per the one in your living room, and what visual impact it would have for gamers without a persistent internet connection.

According to Microsoft’s Matt Booty, General Manager of Redmond Game Studios and Platforms, the remote processing works because not every element of gameplay is “latency-sensitive” and so doesn’t need to be handled by the local console. While elements like collisions and attacks might need to happen instantly, others – such as cloth motion for characters’ clothes, fluid dynamics, and physics modeling – are no less compute-intensive but don’t have the same urgency.

“Let’s say you’re looking at a forest scene and you need to calculate the light coming through the trees, or you’re going through a battlefield and have very dense volumetric fog that’s hugging the terrain. Those things often involve some complicated up-front calculations when you enter that world, but they don’t necessarily have to be updated every frame. Those are perfect candidates for the console to offload that to the cloud—the cloud can do the heavy lifting, because you’ve got the ability to throw multiple devices at the problem in the cloud” Matt Booty, Microsoft

That sort of work can be handed over to the cloud, Microsoft has decided, though there’ll be a balancing of local and remote handiwork depending on when the results are needed. For instance, the Xbox One will likely do the initial processing when the scene changes, Booty explains, before the cloud takes over and begins feeding data over the internet connection.

For those without a persistent connection – or with an unstable one – it will likely mean a reduction in some of the visual gloss, or at the very least the Xbox One’s 8-core processor working harder to catch up. Booty wouldn’t be drawn on what Microsoft’s exact policy is in that case – saying only that “the game is going to have to intelligently handle that” – but presumably there will be a minimum level of detail that gamers can expect.

Microsoft’s approach to the cloud is markedly different to that of Sony and the PS4. There, the new PlayStation will use cloud processing to enable backward-compatibility with PS3 games, since – like the Xbox One – the next-gen console introduces a change of core architecture and so won’t work directly with old discs.

Sony will use its Gaikai acquisition to do that, with the cloud in effect creating a virtual PS3 and then communicating the gameplay over the PS4 owner’s internet connection. The Xbox One, meanwhile, will not place such a priority on backward compatibility, with Microsoft recently arguing that only around 5-percent of gamers play last-gen games on their new console.

Instead, there’ll be lingering support – and new games – for the Xbox 360, with a fresh batch of titles promised for E3 2013 alongside more details of the line-up for the new Xbox One. Microsoft is yet to detail the Xbox One release date, or indeed to confirm what will happen to the Xbox 360 when the new console hits store shelves.

Xbox One gets trio of ‘cloud consoles’ for extra crunching Microsoft explains is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

As Adobe announces that they’ll no longer be selling software in physical boxes, they continue their physical presence in this world with two bits of hardware: Project Napoleon and Project Mighty. With Project Mighty, the company is showing a cloud-connected stylus made specifically for apps and interfaces inside the Adobe Creative Cloud, Photoshop CC included. Adobe Project Napoleon is a candy bar-sized accessory that will allow users to keep digital lines straight – or curved, if they like.

Project Mighty

With Adobe’s push for the cloud in a big way this week with a convergence of Creative Cloud apps like Photoshop CC, so too did they decide to remind the world that their creative software environment is made to work hand-in-hand with the hardware you’ll be using on a daily basis. Project Mighty is an embodiment of that initiative, being displayed this week as a bit of an experiment – it’s not yet clear whether or not Adobe will be releasing this stylus as an actual for-sale item in stores.

This experiment does exist in some physical sense, however, as the company shows it to be working with Bluetooth LE for wireless connectivity, on-board memory, and pressure sensitivity for advanced illustration. With “your creative cloud” inside this device, you’ll be connecting to not just the machine you’re directly interfacing with, but your online presence as well.

This stylus device works with a rechargeable battery inside and a Pen Tip charger up on its nose. The build shown this week is a triangular shape that curves in an ever-so-slight spiral from the tip up to the bunt of the device.

Project Napoleon

The device known as Project Napoleon is, at the moment, a rather new concept in the world of wireless connectivity for illustration. This is Adobe’s “Digital Ruler”. You’ll be tapping one of six different modes of execution in this machine, this then wirelessly indicating on the machine you’re working with – be it your tablet, your touchscreen monitor, or your Project Mighty pen – that you want to create in one of several ways.

Tapping the circle option allows you to create a smooth circle shape. Tapping the straight line allows you to draw smoothly in a straight line. It’s not clear at the moment how this device will be interacting with devices across the board, but we can assume it’ll be in collaboration with Adobe CC applications exclusively.

Both of these devices have been shown in extreme brief this week and we can expect additional information in the near future from Adobe on their availability. As Adobe leaves physical stores behind with boxed software, so too does it stay!

[via Adobe]

Adobe Project Mighty and Napoleon mark group’s first hardware releases is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This morning the teams at Dell and Enstratius (also known as enStretus pre-name-change) have announced that the former has acquired the latter in a bid to increase the power of the company’s Cloud Computing sector. Enstratius is a company known as an “early cloud pioneer”, working with cloud management for enterprise groups and delivering services for both single and multi-cloud setups for businesses. This company has made it clear that their “cloud agnostic” abilities make them unique – though how they’ll be working inside Dell’s fold is not yet crystal.

Dell’s acquisition of Enstratius is said to be made to compliment the company’s purchase of Gale Technologies. That particular exchange was made back in November of 2012, Gale Technologies having been folded into Dell’s Active System Manager and added to Dell’s Enterprise Systems and Services group therein.

Enstratius will help provide multi-cloud management from the get-go, adding application configuration capabilities to Dell’s services as well as management tools for multi-component applications across multi-cloud setups. Tom Kendra, vice president and general manager, systems management, Dell Software, spoke up on the acquisition earlier today.

“Dell, together with Enstratius, is uniquely positioned to deliver differentiated, complete cloud-management solutions to enterprise customers, large and small, empowering them with the efficiency and flexibility in the allocation and use of resources.” – Tom Kendra for Dell

This acquisition is one of several in the works with Dell, the most recent being an axed situation in which Blackstone stepped away from a deal back on the 19th of April. In that case it was a possible purchase of Dell, not a Dell purchase. It was also tipped then that Michael Dell wanted his job guaranteed if a Blackstone buyout were to be considered.

[via Dell]

Dell acquires Entratius for multi-cloud computing is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Amazon powers a variety of websites on the internet, including several popular services like Netflix and Instagram. However, it looks like Amazon is digging deeper into partnerships, as it’s rumored that the e-tailer giant and the Central Intelligence Agency have made a deal for Amazon to provide cloud services to the government organization.

According to FCW, Amazon won a cloud-computing contract with the CIA that’s worth up to $600 million over a 10-year period. According to the report, the new cloud service will help the CIA “keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner not possible under the CIA’s previous cloud efforts.”

However, it’s not exactly clear what the CIA has planned for the new cloud system, but it seems that the CIA is mostly focused on becoming more efficient with newer technologies, and it seems like the new service will work just like most other cloud service, except it’ll be on heavy lockdown by the CIA, allowing only authorized users to access confidential files from any device.

While there’s no concrete confirmations on the deal between the two organizations, it wouldn’t be too surprising if the CIA ended up moving into the 21st century with a better cloud storage implementation, especially with Amazon behind the wheel. Neither Amazon or the CIA were willing to comment on the situation.

[via Gizmodo]

Amazon rumored to be building private cloud service for CIA is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.