Icloud claims to be first 'online' computer.
Xcerion has released Icloud, a free online virtual computer with which users can access their online bits and bobs absolutely free.
The Web-based service offers a familiar Vista-ish desktop GUI and a suite of basic applications which let you share and create text, video and photo files online.
The system has built-in Instant Messaging and news feeds and is available in English, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish and Filipino languages.
The free service offers 30 free applications, 20 free widgets and 3GB of storage space. We'll assume Xcerion will be hoping to generate income by selling additional apps and widgets, as well as expanded storage capacity.
Signing up is pretty painless and took us about 30 seconds, but we found switching applications painfully slow though not utterly unusable.
If you have a few files you want to share, are not in too much of a hurry, and can keep everything you need online under 3GB, it's probably worth a look, but serious cloud computing buffs will probably want to look elsewhere.
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Issue: 111 | April, 2010