Whither the disk drive?
Beginning in 1956, with the IBM RAMAC - 4.4MB, $50k! - disk drives rapidly became the cranky workhorses of data storage. But the glory days of disk drive are fading fast. Will the cloud rescue disks?
Latest Posts
What are neural processors?
Google, Intel, and IBM have them. Even the Apple Watch has one. So you may be wondering: what the heck is a neural processor? Here's what you need to know.
The internet thinks I want dresses and I love it
When you go undercover on the internet, ad networks don’t know who you are, so you aren't targeted by ads. And the ads you do see totally miss the mark. It really reduces your online friction. Here’s how you can test your browser and do it, too.
CES 2019: Cool stuff at Eureka Park
When I go to CES I focus on the Eureka Park, where new companies tout their wares. I look for things that may not be hits today, but point to what could be hits tomorrow. Here's my list from CES 2019.
CES 2019: The battle between the edge and the cloud
I went to CES 2019 last week and focused on Eureka Park, where startups show off their wares. While there were lots of fun and inventive products, it's what I didn't see that makes me fear for our digital future. Here's why.
Biggest storage stories of 2019
We've just come off an eventful 2018 for data storage. Plunging flash and DRAM prices, continued market turmoil from the cloud sector, and, finally - NVMe has taken off in a big way. What could top that? Several things.
The biggest storage trends of 2018
The storage industry is evolving faster than ever before in the 40 years I've been following it. While I tend to focus on the cutting edge, this is a good time to look back on the two biggest trends of the year.
Why PC-as-a-Service is the next big thing
Since traditional PC sales are shrinking -- and will continue to do so for the next decade or more -- what are PC vendors to do? Simply put, they need to sell buyers on PC-as-a-service (PCaaS). Here's why.
Google adds Elastifile to cloud arsenal
The battle for cloud dominance is heating up. Google, by most accounts in third place after Amazon and Microsoft, is adding the advanced storage software from Elastifile. Here's what it means for cloud-using Enterprises.
Your therapy bot will see you now
Researchers are hard at work applying artificial intelligence to analyzing emotions and personalities. Future job interviews may see your personality and qualifications assessed by AI bots. What could possibly go wrong?
The most popular PC is in your pocket
While you weren't looking, the PC has morphed into even more personal devices. Industry analysts are ignoring this because, frankly, they need to reassure clients that their current and obsolete business models are viable. Which they aren't.
Find any file anywhere: Cloudtenna targets local and cloud file search
Cloud storage has solved a lot of problems. But it's created a huge new one: how to find files that can be scattered across several clouds as well as on-premise file servers. It's a hot area that promises to get hotter. Here's one company's approach.
Hyperscaling enterprise datacenters through logical aggregation
Enterprise data centers can't compete with hyperscale clouds, mostly due to labor costs, which are as much as 70 percent of EDC expense. But what if enterprises could logically scale far beyond Amazon and Google? That's what Maxta - among others - is working to do.
Cloud storage: Minimizing repair costs
Advanced error correction codes (ECCs) at the heart of modern storage are way beyond the RAID codes of the late 1980s. But today's codes force tradeoffs between reliability and repair costs. Can we have both reliability and low-cost data repairs?
Six months with Apple Watch 3: I'm sold
I hadn't worn a watch for 20 years when I bought an Apple Watch Series 3 six months ago. Now I wear it every day. Here's why -- and what I don't like.
