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Glasgow Teen Held Over 'Riot' Facebook Message

16-year-old was held during an operation in the city's south side at 12:40 on Monday.

It comes after rioting and looting in London at the weekend spread to other English cities.

Police said they were monitoring social networking sites closely and would take "decisive action" to prevent violence.

The Strathclyde force said there was no intelligence "at this time" to suggest that there was any trouble planned.

'Disgraceful scenes'

Assistant Chief Constable Fiona Taylor said: "This detention shows that we are monitoring the situation closely and we will take decisive action to prevent anyone inciting violence of any kind in Glasgow or anywhere else in the force area.

Continue reading the main story

“

Start Quote

The action we took today should act as a strong warning to anyone who is thinking of causing trouble here”

Ass Ch Constable Fiona Taylor

Strathclyde Police

"Communities in London and other cities in England have been outraged at the disgraceful scenes of destruction and looting that they have witnessed and we are sure that communities here would be just as horrified to think that anyone was trying to incite similar acts of mindless criminality.

"Let there be no mistake, we are ready for any eventuality and will take any action necessary to prevent this kind of abhorrent behaviour.

"The action we took today should act as a strong warning to anyone who is thinking of causing trouble here."

Earlier, Assistant Chief Constable Fiona Taylor, of Strathclyde Police operational support, said: "This detention shows that we are monitoring the situation closely and we will take decisive action to prevent anyone inciting violence of any kind in Glasgow or anywhere else in the force area.

"Communities in London and other cities in England have been outraged at the disgraceful scenes of destruction and looting that they have witnessed and we are sure that communities here would be just as horrified to think that anyone was trying to incite similar acts of mindless criminality.

"Let there be no mistake, we are ready for any eventuality and will take any action necessary to prevent this kind of abhorrent behaviour.

"The action we took today should act as a strong warning to anyone who is thinking of causing trouble here."

Social Media Leaders Facebook and Twitter are?

The answer is more nuanced than that question makes it sound. It’s hard to say anything for sure about events in another country an ocean away, but it looks like what’s happening in England right now is a combination of sincere frustration and out-and-out hooliganism.

To start with, the tension has been building in North London, where police and the black community have been at odds for decades. The police have been trying to crack down on gun crime, but the trouble goes back as far as the ‘80s, when the Broadwater Farm riots broke out in response to a death in the black community stemming from a police incident.

Three days of rioting is astonishing, especially when the chaos has roots in a peaceful protest. But not all the rioters are expressing indignation. With the widespread looting of businesses a considerable distance from the epicenter of the initial uprising, you know there are opportunists at work. These are people with no connection to or concern about what happened when police shot and killed Mark Duggan; they’re simply hoods looking to cause trouble for fun and maybe steal some shoes while they’re at it.

The latest reports also say that the rioters have been organizing via Twitter and by using their Blackberry devices. These social technologies seem to be the latest way to help stir up trouble, and unfortunately, the kids using this tech seem to have a better grasp of how it works than the adults that are supposed to be policing them. However, social media has also proven to be an effective way to track down rioters and bring them to justice, as seen following this year's hockey riots in Vancouver.

As for the riots themselves, there may be a point to be made about the actions of the police, but when violence like this erupts, the dialogue gets strained. The best-case scenario is that the government puts time and energy into fixing the situation and the relationship between police and the black community in Tottenham and around London, but you can’t help wishing there was a more positive process to that goal.

As for the shooting of Mark Duggan, there’s still a lot of information left to surface. For now, it seems as if the man was carrying an illegal firearm, but didn’t discharge it. In other words, the police were probably wrong to use lethal force, even though they had targeted a dangerous person.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media have inspired protests in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan and even faraway China.

Social media is unleashing movements for peace, democracy and freedom in a region of the world that essentially seemed like it was content to live without them.

Social media is changing the Middle East – perhaps it will have a similar positive effect on politics in the West – promoting a more vibrant democracy that includes participation of a younger generation – one that does not currently vote enough to sustain a true democracy.

In the end, violence and death are regrettable; we all hope for peace and justice. Whatever the final outcome of the 2011 riots in London, moments like these leave everyone frustrated and saddened. Here’s to a swift restoration of peace on the streets of London.

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New York Twitter

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international affairs and is widely deemed the cultural capital of the world. The city is also referred to as New York City or the City of New York to distinguish it from the state of New York, of which it is a part.

Located on a large natural harbor on the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States, New York City consists of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. With a 2010 United States Census population of 8,175,133 distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km2), New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is the United States' largest, estimated at 18.9 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km2), and is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.2 million people as of 2009 Census estimates.

New York traces its roots to its 1624 founding as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic, and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surrounds came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Many districts and landmarks in New York City have become well known to outsiders. Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads of the World", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. The city hosts many world renowned bridges, skyscrapers, and parks. New York City's financial district, anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, functions as the financial capital of the world and is home to the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization of its listed companies. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most prized and expensive in the world. 

Manhattan's Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Unlike most global rapid transit systems, the New York City Subway is designed to provide 24/7 service. Numerous colleges and universities are located in New York, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, which are ranked among the top 100 in the world.

New York, is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the north and west, and Quebec to the north. New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City.

New York City, with a population of over 8,000,000 people, is the most populous city in the United States. It is known for its status as a financial, cultural, transportation, and manufacturing center, and for its history as a gateway for immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, it is also a destination of choice for many foreign visitors. Both state and city were named for the 17th century Duke of York, James Stuart, future James II and VII of England and Scotland.

New York was inhabited by the Algonquian, Iroquois, and Lenape Native American groups at the time Dutch settlers moved into the region in the early 17th century. In 1609, the region was first claimed by Henry Hudson for the Dutch. Fort Nassau was built near the site of the present-day capital of Albany in 1614. The Dutch soon also settled New Amsterdam and parts of the Hudson River Valley, establishing the colony of New Netherland. The British took over the colony by annexation in 1664.

The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were roughly similar to those of the present-day state. About one third of all the battles of the Revolutionary War took place in New York. New York became an independent state on July 9, 1776, and enacted its constitution in 1777. The state ratified the United States Constitution on July 26, 1788 to become the eleventh member of the United States.

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization. Its website is the most popular American online newspaper website, receiving more than 30 million unique visitors per month.

Although the print version of the paper remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States, as well the third largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, its weekday circulation has fallen since 1990 (not unlike other newspapers) to fewer than one million copies daily, for the first time since the 1980s. Nicknamed "the Gray Lady, and long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record", The New York Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which also publishes 18 other newspapers including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.

The paper's motto, printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, Home, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography.

Access to the newspaper's online content is through a metered paywall. Frequent users (over 20 articles per month) have to purchase digital subscriptions, but access remains free for light users. There are apps to access content for various mobile devices, such as the iPhone and Android devices.

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End times prediction 2011

2011 end times prediction is a prediction made by Christian radio host Harold Camping that the Rapture (in Christian belief, the taking up into heaven of God's elect people) will take place on May 21, 2011 and that the end of the world as we know it will take place five months later on October 21, 2011, These predictions were made by Camping, president of the Family Radio Christian network, who claims the Bible as his source and says May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment "beyond the shadow of a doubt. His followers claim that around 200 million people (approximately 3% of the world's population) will be raptured.

Camping's predictions have not been embraced by most other Christian groups; some have explicitly rejected them. Christianity Today reports that Camping's teachings have "drawn a flurry of attacks, including sermons, a January seminar in New York that drew 70 pastors, and a Web site (www.familyradioiswrong.com).

Criticism

James Kreuger, author of the book Secrets of the Apocalypse - Revealed, has stated that while he believes the rapture is coming, Camping is incorrectly attempting to nail down a date. "For all his learning, Camping makes a classic beginner's mistake when he sets a date for Christ's return," writes Kreuger. " Jesus himself said in Matthew 24:36, 'Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only.

Theology professor Matthew L. Skinner, writing at the Huffington Post, noted the "long history of failed speculation" about the End Times and cautioned that end-of-the-world talk can lead Christians to social passivity instead of "working for the world's redemption.

Controversy

Camping's rapture prediction, along with some of his other teachings and beliefs, have sparked some controversy in the Christian world. His critics often quote Bible verses (such as Matthew 24:36) which they claim imply the date of the end will never be known by anyone. However, Camping and his followers respond that this principle only applied to the "church age" or "pre-tribulation period" and does not apply to the present day, using other verses (such as 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5:5) in their rebuttal.

Camping asserts that before the End comes, believers should "flee the church," resigning from any church they belong to; however, this assertion has been controversial.

In Camping's 1992 self-published book 1994? he proclaimed that the End Times would come on September 4, 1994. When the Rapture failed to occur on the appointed day, Camping said he had made a mathematical error.

Promotion

In 2010, Marie Exley of Colorado Springs made news by purchasing advertising space in her locality, promoting the alleged Rapture date on a number of park benches. Since then, 'Judgment Day' billboards have been erected at locations across the world. Some people have adorned their vehicles with the information.

On October 27, 2010, Family Radio launched "Project Caravan". Five RVs arrayed with reflector lettering that declare that Judgment Day begins on May 21, 2011 were sent out from their headquarters in Oakland, California, to Seattle, Washington. Upon arrival, teams are sent out to distribute tracts. The caravan has made stops in Oregon, California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Utah, Maryland, and other states, as well as Canada.

Reasoning

I know it's absolutely true, because the Bible is always absolutely true.

— Harold Camping, president, Family Radio

The majority of arguments, or biblical "proofs", in favor of the May 21st end time have come from Camping. A civil engineer by training, Camping states he has attempted to work out mathematically-based prophecies in the Bible for decades. In an interview with SFGate he explained "...I was an engineer, I was very interested in the numbers. I'd wonder, 'Why did God put this number in, or that number in?' It was not a question of unbelief, it was a question of, 'There must be a reason for it.

A commonly cited argument in favor of the May 21st date is:

According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".

Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.

If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.

The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.

51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.

(5 x 10 x 17)2 or (atonement x completeness x heaven)2 also equals 722,500.

Thus, Camping concludes that 5 x 10 x 17 is telling us a "story from the time Christ made payment for our sins until we're completely saved.

Publications

Camping's writings that detail the timing of the end include:

Book

1994? (1992 - predicts the End Times for September 4, 1994)

Time Has An End (2005 - discusses Camping's belief that 2011 is in all likelihood the end of the world)

Booklet

We Are Almost There! (2008 - contains all the information on how May 21, 2011 was arrived at)

Tracts

The End of the World is Almost Here! Holy God Will Bring Judgment on May 21, 2011 (2009)

God Gives Another Infallible Proof That Assures the Rapture Will Occur May 21, 2011 (2009)

No Man Knows the Day or the Hour? (2009)

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PlayStation Network Sony say sorry with gifts

PlayStation Yesterday SCEE finally confirmed that PSN services have started coming back online in Europe after over three weeks of online gaming blackout on PS3.

It's been pretty inconvenient for single-system owners; big online games including Portal 2, Brink and Mortal Kombat haven't seen a single online PSN match until now - and Sony's set to say sorry with a number of online gifts and service bonuses.

In case you missed the previous announcement, to get back on PSN you'll need to download a mandatory system update and change your password. This can only be done on the same PS3 on which your account was originally activated.

On the same day Kazuo Hirai, Sony Corporation executive deputy president said that the firm had been working around the clock to get services online and talked up what is apparently one of the most significant changes to Sony's online security - a forced user password change.

Hirai added that Sony, with the help of some third parties, thankfully, had carried out an "an intensive investigation" into the firm's systems and had added encryption, firewalls and an early warning detection system. He added, "Greater protection for information is our top priority."

Here's what you can expect:

Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.

All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus premium service. Current members of

PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.

Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.

Sony has revealed that it will give US PlayStation Network subscribers $1 million-worth of identity insurance when the PSN down time ends - and that it is working hard to bring European customers "something similar.

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PSN Password On PS3 In United States

Sony has announced via the PlayStation Blog that PS3 firmware 3.61 is now available for the PlayStation 3.

Update sees the first step in restoring the PlayStation Network and is a mandatory update for all PlayStation 3. The new firmware requires all PSN users to change their password once PSN comes back online.

Sony Ireland confirmed through its Facebook page that "some PSN services, including online gameplay, will indeed go live later today (Sunday).

PlayStation Network  United States, here are some helpful tips for PS3 gamers in places like the UK, Ireland, India and Canada where PSN isn't back online in full. Changing your PSN password is going to be your first order of business after downloading PS3 firmware 3.61, the latest system update for the console. In fact, it's your only order of business. Sony has made changing your password a requirement as soon as you attempt to log into PSN for the first time.

"To thwart the hackers, all you have to do is follow the on-screen instructions. A notification will pop up that reads "Your password is no longer valid. You must change your password." No please or thank yous, Sony isn't messing around in this very frank message. Pressing the X button will take you past this initial box to the next screen."

Second screen is where you'll enter you new password. You do not need to remember your old password. We know, it's been three long weeks and you may have forgotten what it is. Simply type out your new password (a combination of numbers and letters) in the first dialogue box and re-enter that same password in the second dialogue box. If it meets Sony's security standards, you'll be able to press X and proceed.

If you are done successfully, the third message box will read: "Update complete." This is the message we've all been waiting for during the past 24 days of the online outage. Hitting the X button to get beyond this screen will send you back out the the XMB where you'll still be logged out, but officially signing back to the PSN is a piece of cake. 

Logging into PSN for the first time in 24 days is exactly like you remember it. The familiar sign-in opaque dialogue box appears with your user ID and new password information already saved to the system. Simply hitting the X button brings you and PSN back together for the first time since April 20.

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Structure and Working of Cloud chamber

Simple cloud chamber consists of the parts sealed environment, radioactive source (if you want to), dry ice or a cold plate and some kind of alcohol source (it has to allow easy evaporation)

Lightweight methyl alcohol vapour saturates the chamber. The alcohol falls as it cools down and the cold condenser provides a steep temperature gradient. The result is a supersaturated environment. The alcohol vapour condenses around ion trails left behind by the travelling ionizing particles. The result is cloud formation, seen in the cloud chamber by the presence of droplets falling down to the condenser. As particles pass through the chamber they leave ionization trails and because the alcohol vapour is supersaturated it condenses onto these trails. Since the tracks are emitted radially out from the source, their point of origin can easily be determined.

Just above the cold condenser plate there is an area of the chamber which is sensitive to radioactive tracks. At this height, most of the alcohol has not condensed. This means that the ion trail left by the radioactive particles provides an optimal trigger for condensation and cloud formation. This sensitive area is increased in height by employing a steep temperature gradient, little convection, and very stable conditions. A strong electric field is often used to draw cloud tracks down to the sensitive region of the chamber and increase the sensitivity of the chamber. While tracks from sources can still be seen without a voltage supply, background tracks are very difficult to observe. In addition, the voltage can also serve to prevent large amounts of "rain" from obscuring the sensitive region of the chamber,caused by condensation forming above the sensitive area of the chamber. This means that ion trails left by radioactive particles are obscured by constant precipitation. The black background makes it easier to observe cloud tracks.

Before tracks can be visible, a tangential light source is needed. This illuminates the white droplets against the black background. Drops should be viewed from a horizontal position. If the chamber is working correctly, tiny droplets should be seen condensing. Often this condensation is not apparent until a shallow pool of alcohol is formed at the condenser plate. The tracks become much more obvious once temperatures and conditions have stabilized in the chamber. This requires the elimination of any significant drift currents (poor chamber sealing)

Cloud seeding system

Most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide and dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide). The expansion of liquid propane into a gas has also been used and can produce ice crystals at higher temperatures than silver iodide. The use of hygroscopic materials, such as salt, is increasing in popularity because of some promising research results.

Seeding of clouds requires that they contain supercooled liquid water—that is, liquid water colder than zero degrees Celsius. Introduction of a substance such as silver iodide, which has a crystalline structure similar to that of ice, will induce freezing nucleation. Dry ice or propane expansion cools the air to such an extent that ice crystals can nucleate spontaneously from the vapor phase. Unlike seeding with silver iodide, this spontaneous nucleation does not require any existing droplets or particles because it produces extremely high vapor supersaturations near the seeding substance. However, the existing droplets are needed for the ice crystals to grow into large enough particles to precipitate out.

In mid-latitude clouds, the usual seeding strategy has been predicated upon the fact that the equilibrium vapor pressure is lower over ice than over water. When ice particles form in supercooled clouds, this fact allows the ice particles to grow at the expense of liquid droplets. If there is sufficient growth, the particles become heavy enough to fall as snow (or, if melting occurs, rain) from clouds that otherwise would produce no precipitation. This process is known as "static" seeding.

Seeding of warm-season or tropical cumulonimbus (convective) clouds seeks to exploit the latent heat released by freezing. This strategy of "dynamic" seeding assumes that the additional latent heat adds buoyancy, strengthens updrafts, ensures more low-level convergence, and ultimately causes rapid growth of properly selected clouds.

Cloud seeding chemicals may be dispersed by aircraft (as in the second figure) or by dispersion devices located on the ground (generators, as in first figure, or canisters fired from anti-aircraft guns or rockets). For release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft flies through the inflow of a cloud. When released by devices on the ground, the fine particles are carried downwind and upwards by air currents after release.

An electronic mechanism was tested in 2010, when infrared laser pulses were directed to the air above Berlin by researchers from the University of Geneva. The experimenters posited that the pulses would encourage atmospheric sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to form particles that would then act as seeds.

Basics of Cloud computing

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides a concise and specific definition:

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.

Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, where end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service.

Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on Internet protocols, and it typically involves provisioning of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet. This may take the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if they were programs installed locally on their own computers.

Cloud computing providers deliver applications via the internet, which are accessed from a Web browser, while the business software and data are stored on servers at a remote location. In some cases, legacy applications (line of business applications which until now have been prevalent in thick client Windows computing) are delivered via a screen sharing technology such as Citrix XenApp, while the compute resources are consolidated at a remote data center location; in other cases entire business applications have been coded using web based technologies such as AJAX.

Most cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered through shared data-centers. The Cloud may appear as a single point of access for consumers' computing needs, notable examples include the iTunes Store, and the iPhone App Store. Commercial offerings may be required to meet service level agreements (SLAs), but specific terms are less often negotiated by smaller companies.

Comparisons of Cloud computing

Autonomic computing — "computer systems capable of self-management."

Client–server model – client–server computing refers broadly to any distributed application that distinguishes between service providers (servers) and service requesters (clients).

Grid computing — "a form of distributed computing and parallel computing, whereby a 'super and virtual computer' is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely coupled computers acting in concert to perform very large tasks."

Mainframe computer — powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.

Utility computing — the "packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility, such as electricity.

Peer-to-peer – distributed architecture without the need for central coordination, with participants being at the same time both suppliers and consumers of resources (in contrast to the traditional client–server model).

Service-oriented computing – Cloud computing provides services related to computing while, in a reciprocal manner, service-oriented computing consists of the computing techniques that operate on software-as-a-service.

Open source cloud computing

Open source software has provided the foundation for many cloud computing implementations, one prominent example being the Hadoop framework. In November 2007, the Free Software Foundation released the Affero General Public License, a version of GPLv3 intended to close a perceived legal loophole associated with free software designed to be run over a network.

For many enterprises, cloud computing is becoming a reality in their IT infrastructures today. The technologies used by today's cloud environments, public and private, have been heavily based on open source software, which offers:

Robust application frameworks

Rapid development

Standards support

Vendor neutrality

Avoidance of vendor lock-in

To advance the development of open source cloud computing Red Hat is pleased to present its second online Open Source Cloud Computing Forum on February 10, 2010, hosted by Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens.

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Backed by Rackspace, NASA, Dell, Citrix, Cisco, Canonical and over 50 other organizations, OpenStack has grown to be a global software community of developers, technologists, researchers and corporations collaborating on a standard and massively scalable open source cloud operating system. Our mission is to enable any organization to create and offer cloud computing services running on standard hardware.

Architecture of Cloud computing

Cloud architecture, the systems architecture of the software systems involved in the delivery of cloud computing, typically involves multiple cloud components communicating with each other over application programming interfaces, usually web services and 3-tier architecture. This resembles the Unix philosophy of having multiple programs each doing one thing well and working together over universal interfaces. Complexity is controlled and the resulting systems are more manageable than their monolithic counterparts.

The two most significant components of cloud computing architecture are known as the front end and the back end. The front end is the part seen by the client, i.e. the computer user. This includes the client’s network (or computer) and the applications used to access the cloud via a user interface such as a web browser. The back end of the cloud computing architecture is the ‘cloud’ itself, comprising various computers, servers and data storage devices.

How works Cloud computing

Cloud computing utilizes the network as a means to connect the user to resources that are based in the 'cloud', as opposed to actually possessing them. The 'cloud' may be accessed via the Internet or a company network, or both. Cloud services may be designed to work equally well with Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. With smartphones and tablets on the rise, cloud services have changed to allow access from any device connected to the Internet, allowing mobile workers access on-the-go, as in telecommuting, and extending the reach of business services provided by outsourcing.

The service provider, such as Google, may pool the processing power of multiple remote computers in "the cloud" to achieve the task, such as backing up of large amounts of data, word processing, or computationally intensive work. These tasks would normally be difficult, time consuming, or expensive for an individual user or a small company to accomplish, especially with limited computing resources and funds. With 'cloud computing', clients only require a simple computer, such as netbooks which were created with cloud computing in mind, or even a smartphone, with a connection to the Internet, or a company network, in order to make requests to and receive data from the cloud, hence the term "software as a service" (SaaS). Computation and storage is divided among the remote computers in order to handle large volumes of both, thus the client need not purchase expensive hardware or software to handle the task. The outcome of the processing task is returned to the client over the network, depending on the speed of the Internet connection.

Keys architecture of Cloud computing

Agility improves with users' ability to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision technological infrastructure resources.

Application Programming Interface (API) accessibility to software that enables machines to interact with cloud software in the same way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. Cloud computing systems typically use REST-based APIs.

Cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and in a public cloud delivery model capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. This ostensibly lowers barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained with usage-based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house).

Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile phone). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.

Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:

Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)

Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load-levels)

Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilized.

Reliability is improved if multiple redundant sites are used, which makes well designed cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery.

Scalability via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads.

Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.

Security could improve due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford. However, the complexity of security is greatly increased when data is distributed over a wider area or greater number of devices and in multi-tenant systems which are being shared by unrelated users. In addition, user access to security audit logs may be difficult or impossible. Private cloud installations are in part motivated by users' desire to retain control over the infrastructure and avoid losing control of information security.

Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, because they do not need to be installed on each user's computer. They are easier to support and to improve, as the changes reach the clients instantly.