The “cloud” has come to mean the storing and accessing of data (including programs) over the internet rather than on on our device (computer, phone or otherwise). The official definition of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

The origins of the term is discussed here: Where did ‘cloud’ come from?

Whatever its origins, the irony is that the cloud has true to its name added a lot of cloudiness to communications, particularly when it comes to privacy 😉

jon

Famously this photo was taken from Apollo 8 in 1968. It’s been called “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.” For our purposes it may be seen as reflecting the illusion of a smaller world that the evolution of communications technologies has delivered to us.

jon