Category Archives: Cloud Storage

Google Drive for the web finally goes dark – Android Police

Summary

Dark mode took off with the advent of AMOLED displays a few years ago, with many web developers and app management teams scrambling to implement the new feature. It makes reading much easier on the eyes, and some would argue it also reduces power consumption on AMOLEDs, but in any case, Google wasnt a forerunner in adoption. To this day, a vast majority of Workspace apps dont offer the convenience on the web version, but things are now starting to change, starting with Drive.

Googles Material Design principles for Android have forced system-wide Dark Mode on most Android apps, but the brand has a plethora of apps to manage, and details often slip through the cracks. Thats perhaps why just a handful of services such as YouTube and Search have dark mode support on the web, while a majority of Workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc. are missing out. A few exceptions in the suite are Google Chat and Gmail, but even in the latter, the email contents display against a white background.

Google Drive with dark mode enabled

Now, Google is rolling out dark mode for one of our favorite cloud storage services, Drive, to reduce the strain on your eyes while you browse through your cloud storage on the web and take a minute to organize all the auto-saved Workspace documents. 9to5Google reports the change is rolling out now, and you should see a pop-up on the site alerting you of the change.

However, if the pop-up doesnt show, or if you dismiss it accidentally, the toggle is located under Settings General Appearance. Drive uses a deep gray shade for the search bar background and sidebar, with a slightly lighter shade for the search bar itself.

It's important to note this toggle doesnt change much besides the file management view. As soon as you hop into a Workspace utility like Sheets or Slides to edit a document, youll be blinded by light mode on the web, again.

Although the change is rolling out already, only a few users are seeing it. We hope it reaches a wider audience soon, and this change sets the precedent for the web UI of other Workspace apps, so we can ditch hacky browser extensions and Android emulators just for dark mode.

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Google Drive for the web finally goes dark - Android Police

Fulton property tax payments back online after hack – The Atlanta Journal Constitution

So we are less vulnerable going forward, Ferdinand said.

The tax commissioners office never closed during the computer crisis, though for a time it was limited to in-person or phone functions, he said. The office processed more than $50 million in property tax payments during February, Ferdinand said.

Nonetheless, this was very inconvenient for all our citizens, he said.

Now the offices public-facing functions are restored, allowing online property tax payments; and the tax assessors office can again handle tax searches, Ferdinand said.

He spoke from county commission chambers with Commission Chair Robb Pitts, giving the latest in a series of updates on service restoration, though Pitts again said they could not discuss the ongoing investigation into the hack.

Pitts reiterated that the cyberattack did not impact our voting systems in any way whatsoever.

The county has received several questions about the ability to conduct background checks, he said. The sheriffs office and Fulton County Police Department were unimpeded in doing those checks, but background checks by third parties of county court records were unavailable, Pitts said.

Now access for third-party background checks has been transferred to a new website, accessible through the court clerks page, he said.

Those records can now be accessed through re:SearchGA at https://researchga.tylerhost.net/.

The county has restored its phone service with a very few exceptions, and more good news on system restoration should be coming soon, Pitts said.

The ransomware attack, claimed by the LockBit hacking gang, took down many county internal and external systems. Hackers set a countdown on the dark web and threatened to release stolen county documents including residents personal information if an unspecified ransom wasnt paid.

But a massive international law enforcement takedown Feb. 19, not directly related to the Fulton County hack, seized computer servers and cryptocurrency accounts used by LockBit. The ransomware deadline passed, was reset, and passed again with no release of data. The takedown apparently cut the hackers off from the data they stole.

Pitts said neither the county nor anyone on its behalf paid any ransom. At the March 6 commission meeting, County Manager Dick Anderson said there had been no further threat to release personal data.

Pitts has said if any residents sensitive personal data is exposed, the county will provide identity-theft protection for them.

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Fulton property tax payments back online after hack - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Google Rivals With Apple One With New Bundled Features For UK Subscribers – TradingView

In a strategic move to enhance its subscription services, Google One has introduced a new bundle for U.K. subscribers, adding value to its cloud storage plans with the inclusion of Nest Aware and Fitbit Premium. This development comes amid a competitive landscape where tech giants are vying for a larger share of the subscription service market.

What Happened: Google One subscribers in the U.K. now have access to Nest Aware and Fitbit Premium as part of their cloud storage plans, albeit with a catch, TechRadar reported on Thursday.

These additional features are currently exclusive to the U.K. market. Users began receiving notifications about the update via email.

Moreover, there is no mention of this update on the U.K. Google One pricing page, though it appears to be available with plans of 2TB or more.

The rollout seems to be gradual or limited, as some TechRadar staff with Google One subscriptions have not received any notification. Nest Aware and Fitbit Premium services provide additional security and health insights, respectively, and are individually priced at 8 ($10.21) and 7.99 ($10.20) per month in the U.K.

At the time of writing the article, Google has yet to respond to the queries sent by Benzinga.

See Also: Crypto Analyst Sees Dogecoin Reaching Half A Dollar Soon, Says DOGE Has Plenty More Left In The Tank

This bundling strategy positions Google One as a more formidable rival to Apple One, especially with the recent introduction of a Google One AI Premium plan featuring the Gemini Advanced AI model.

Why It Matters: The bundling of Nest Aware and Fitbit Premium into Google Ones UK subscriptions is a significant step for Alphabet Inc. in the competitive cloud services market. This move comes at a time when Google Cloud has been vocal about its concerns regarding Microsofts potential monopoly in cloud computing, which could stifle innovation in areas like generative AI.

Furthermore, the bundling strategy may also be seen as a response to recent legal challenges faced by competitors like Apple Inc. which has been accused of monopolizing digital storage through iCloud. A proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that Apple imposes restrictions that effectively bind customers to its iCloud service, highlighting the contentious nature of the digital storage market.

Read Next: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Tumble As $1.15B Worth Of Crypto Liquidations Loom: Analyst Predicts 55% Correction For King Crypto To $35K Levels

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Functionland FxBlox Cloud Storage Towers Over Competition – Design Milk

When is the last time you gave data storage any considerable thought? Cloud storage and the increasingly capacious storage on mobile devices has mostly downplayed those worries for everyday users. But for professionals operating in the realm of web3 projects, secure and ample data storage is still an important and often costly concern. Functionland FxBloxs colorfully hued skyline of desktop data towers belies a system engineered with a serious purpose: to offer users a secure decentralized data storage solution without a subscription.

Unlike your run of the mill external hard drive with their propensity for high failure rates a nightmare for mission critical projects or costly cloud-based storage, the FxBlox is the hardware end of a secure, encrypted decentralized storage network system. Aimed toward privacy-oriented storage and secure resource-sharing among different users, the FxBlox aims to be a super-secure place to host websites or store photos, music, videos, or files of the non-fungible sort.

The storage systems modular, color-coded design was handled by industrial designer Yves Bhars fuseproject. Sheathed in anodized metal with a satin bead blast finish, each monochromatic metal tower stores terabytes of data. Interchangeable covers add the option to personalize each unit, operable individually or upgradable into a small cityscape of expandable storage.

We want to bring a Box into every home. We want people to be proud to show it off to their guests, proud to put it on display, said Keyvan Sadeghi, CEO of Functionland. Yves was a natural choice: he has a proven track record of producing brilliant designs for the projects he chooses to collaborate on.

Be sure to check out more of fuseprojects other future-forward designs, including the worlds first solid-state portable power station and a tiny electric truck with a 350-miles range.

To learn more about Functionlands new FxBlox and encrypted decentralized storage network system solutions, check out fx.land.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.

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Functionland FxBlox Cloud Storage Towers Over Competition - Design Milk

Unexpected costs hit many as they move to cloud storage – ComputerWeekly.com

Most organisations spend more on cloud storage than they budget for, with large numbers migrating more data to the cloud than planned. Those numbers are even higher for companies that have adopted cloud storage in the past two years, with unexpected costs coming from storage capacity growth, egress fees and application programming interface (API) call charges.

Meanwhile, the number of organisations that expect to increase their use of public cloud storage is set to grow compared with 2023.

Those are the findings of the Wasabi 2024 global cloud storage index report, which questioned 1,200 IT decision-makers with involvement in public cloud storage purchasing in organisations with more than 100 employees.

More than half (53%) of respondents had exceeded their cloud storage budget. The main reasons organisations exceeded budgets included using more storage than planned (42%) and migrating more apps and data to the cloud than planned (45%).

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of those who were new to the cloud in 2022 and 2023 exceeded budget spend. Also, these respondents cited high storage use and growth, unanticipated egress fees and API call fees as the three main reasons for exceeding budgets.

Cloud storage is well-suited to some use cases. It offers flexibility that allows organisations to scale up and down easily in terms of capacity.

It can therefore be very well suited to applications that may experience spikes in demand that need to burst to the cloud. It can also be useful for data accessed less frequently and that is unlikely to be downloaded back to on-premise locations.

Moving data off-cloud and accessing it are key costs that go beyond mere storage, and it is these, such as egress costs, that can catch out organisations new to cloud storage.

According to the survey, 93% of organisations plan to increase public cloud storage capacity in 2024. This is 9% higher than last years survey, which indicated that 84% expected an increase in cloud storage capacity.

Meanwhile, 90% of respondents expect their cloud storage budgets to increase in 2024, up from 84% in 2023, with new data security, backup and recovery requirements among the reasons for increased spend.

Across the full set of respondents, 47% of cloud storage billing is allocated to data and usage fees (including API calls, operations, egress and retrieval), which is the same as last years survey results.

The number of respondents whose organisations are cloud-first increased in 2024 to 42%.

A big factor in cloud storage growth is artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) workload adoption.

Nearly all (99%) respondents plan to adopt or are already implementing AI/ML solutions and services.

Half of them (49%) expect AI/ML workload adoption to create challenges because data will need to be stored across a wide range of locations, such as edge, core and cloud.

Current or planned AI workload adoption is dominated by generative AI (49% of respondents), followed by AI/ML solutions for security and compliance (45%) and product design (39%).

Nearly all (97%) respondents believe their organisation has storage-related concerns associated with AI/ML.

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Unexpected costs hit many as they move to cloud storage - ComputerWeekly.com

Google’s new answer to Apple One lets you subscribe to Drive, Fitbit and Nest with one condition – TechRadar

Subscribers to Google One cloud storage plans now have some extra perks to make use of, after Nest Aware (for Nest camera video recording) and Fitbit Premium (for doing more with your Fitbit) were bundled into the packages.

There's only one condition: you have to be in the UK, at least for now. As reported on Reddit (via 9to5Google), Google One subscribers have started getting emails from Google, notifying them of the changes to their accounts.

Google has gone about this in a rather odd way. Throwing in Nest Aware and Fitbit Premium clearly adds a lot more value to Google One, and we know that it's definitely happened, as per a Google statement to 9to5Google.

At the same time, making it UK-only seems a strange choice: Google hasn't mentioned the US or anywhere else at all. There's no official announcement about the news anywhere, and at the moment it's not mentioned on the Google One pricing page in the UK though it seems this is available on 2TB and higher storage plans.

Even in the UK, it seems to be a gradual or limited roll out. Several members of the TechRadar team with Google One subscriptions are yet to receive an email with news of the extra Nest and Fitbit goodies included with their plan.

Nest Aware starts at 8 a month in the UK, adding 30 days of event history for Nest cameras, plus smart alerts. There's also a Nest Aware Plus package (12 a month) that adds 24/7 video history and 60 days of video event history. The plans cost $8/$15 per month in the US and AU$12/AU$24 per month in Australia.

As for Fitbit Premium, it gives you a deeper dive into some of your health and fitness stats you get more advanced sleep analysis, for example, plus a daily readiness score. An extensive library of workout videos and audio tracks are included too. On its own, Fitbit Premium costs $9.99 / 7.99 / AU$15.49 a month.

All of this adds plenty of value to Google One plans, on top of the cloud storage and other benefits (like a VPN) you already get, making it a stronger competitor to Apple One. Google also recently introduced a Google One AI Premium plan, which throws in access to the Gemini Advanced AI model.

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Google's new answer to Apple One lets you subscribe to Drive, Fitbit and Nest with one condition - TechRadar

Over half of cloud storage budgets are spent on usage fees in Europe, higher than the global average – ITPro

Cloud storage costs are inflicting a serious financial toll on European businesses, according to new research from Wasabi Technologies, but many enterprises are biting the bullet and ramping up investments regardless.

Analysis from the firm revealed that over half of EMEA firms exceeded their budgeted spend on cloud storage across 2023, but in the year ahead are looking to expand storage portfolios.

Fees associated with cloud storage options are a particular pain point for many firms, the study found, with a significant portion of respondents spending half - or more - of their budgets on usage fees and data access rather than direct storage capacity.

EMEA businesses typically spent more on cloud storage fees than those based in other regions, according to the study, with the global average spend on cloud storage budgets absorbed by fees reaching 47%.

Andrew Smith, senior manager of strategy and market intelligence at Wasabi Technologies, said expanding public cloud budgets is a growing trend across the globe, and that the EMEA region displays a particular appetite for cloud-first decision making.

Organizations worldwide are increasing their use and budgets for public cloud storage solutions, and Europe is no exception," Smith said.

Like the rest of the world, European cloud storage users continue to struggle with storage fees, but despite this, the region continues to show a healthy preference towards cloud-first decision making when it comes to IT services adoption.

The report specifically highlighted rapid growth in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption as a key factor in both surging cloud costs and efforts to expand budgets.

96% of EMEA respondents said they believe they will have to contend with new cloud storage concerns associated with AI and machine learning.

Of these concerns, the top ranking worries include demanding requirements to store data across a wider range of locations (46%), implementing robust mechanisms for data backup, protection, and recovery (43%), and new or expanding storage migration/movement requirements (42%).

Wasabis report indicated that Europe is marginally ahead of global markets in terms of their commitment to a cloud-first strategy for IT services adoption.

This means organizations in the region are less inclined to adopt private cloud or on-premises IT infrastructure.

The survey revealed that 44% of firms in Europe were pursuing a cloud-first approach compared to the global average of 42%. This difference was attributed to particularly strong commitments to cloud-first IT strategies in Germany (51%) and France (47%).

In addition, the study also recorded the importance of interoperability between cloud services for EMEA companies when choosing cloud storage providers.

Organizations in the region reported they prioritize integrations with existing third-party applications such as Salesforce and Veeam (43%), security and compliance features (40%), and sustainability (39%) when assessing which cloud provider to go with.

Wasabi asked respondents for the driving factors behind multi-cloud adoption in the region, 48% of whom revealed they are using multiple providers in a bid to avoid vendor lock-in.

Jon Howes, VP and GM of EMEA at Wasabi Technologies, noted the global trend toward off-prem cloud storage solutions is being driven by the AI explosion, but emphasized a growing dissatisfaction with exorbitant fees and cloud lock-in among EMEA companies.

Wasabis annual research once again shows that progress towards off-premises cloud storage solutions is a direction nearly all enterprises are taking and one thats only made more necessary by the adoption of AI/ML applications, Howes explained.

However, the ever-growing frustration with unnecessary fees and vendor lock-in, as highlighted by the investigation by the UKs market watchdog, provides a navigational challenge for cloud-first organizations in EMEA.

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Over half of cloud storage budgets are spent on usage fees in Europe, higher than the global average - ITPro

Proposed class action lawsuit alleges Apple monopolizing cloud storage for its devices – The Hill

Apple faces a proposed class action lawsuit alleging the company holds an illegal monopoly over digital storage for its customers.

The suit, filed Friday, claims “surgical” restraints prevent customers from effectively using any service except its iCloud storage system.

iCloud is the only service that can host certain data from the company’s phones, tablets and computers, including application data and device settings. Plaintiffs allege the practice has “unlawfully ‘tied’” the devices and iCloud together.

“Apple’s arbitrary prohibition on hosting Restricted Files fundamentally distorts the competitive landscape to privilege iCloud over all rivals,” the suit reads. “As a result of this restraint, would-be cloud competitors are unable to offer Apple’s device holders a full-service cloud-storage solution, or even a pale comparison.”

iCloud enjoys about 70 percent market share in cloud storage for Apple users, according to the suit. Plaintiffs also noted that the high market share has allowed prices to skyrocket, marking it “undisciplined by competition.”

“Apple has marked up its iCloud prices to the point where the service is generating almost pure profit. Apple’s ability to sustain these prices is a testament to its monopoly power,” the suit said.

The plaintiffs propose a class action suit with tens of millions of members, all iCloud platform users. 

The Hill has reached out to Apple for comment.

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Proposed class action lawsuit alleges Apple monopolizing cloud storage for its devices - The Hill

Microsoft to Remove OneDrive URL Upload Feature – Digital Information World

Microsoft is planning to remove a feature from the consumer version of OneDrive soon. This feature allowed users to upload files to their cloud storage directly using a web URL. Introduced in 2021 as a preview feature, it was designed to help people upload files from the internet to their OneDrive without having to download them to their device first.

Users could just provide a link to the file they wanted to upload, and OneDrive would download it directly from the link to the user's cloud storage. Despite its usefulness, Microsoft found that not many people were using this feature. They also discovered that keeping this feature running costs a lot of money. Microsoft thinks that this feature doesn't fit with their goals for OneDrive. They want OneDrive to be a service that syncs files across devices smoothly.

This URL upload feature will be discontinued on March 29, 2024. For those who have used this feature to upload files using a URL, the good news is that those files will stay in their OneDrive accounts.

In other news, Microsoft updated the look of OneDrive for personal users in January. The new design aims to make things less cluttered. It includes new filters to help find files faster by type and an "add new" button. This button lets users create new documents like Word files right in OneDrive without opening another app.

Read next:These Are The Best Cloud Storage Apps of 2024

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6 AWS Execs Who Left In 2024 (So Far) For Microsoft, Google, Cisco And Others – CRN

CRN breaks down six of the most significant AWS executives who left the cloud giant in 2024 and where they landed, including at Microsoft, Oracle and NetApp.

Several of AWS top executives have departed the company so far in 2024 to join fellow cloud, AI and storage rivals including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle and NetApp.

This includes former AWS vice presidents, managing directors, engineering heads and others who left this year to take top roles at other tech giants.

CRN breaks down six AWS executives who left the worlds largest cloud company in 2024 and where they landed.

Before jumping into the six executives who left, its key to note that Seattle-based AWS is the worlds No. 1 cloud market leadingowning 31 percent share of the global cloud infrastructure services market.

AWS is currently at a $97 billion annual run rate after generating $24.2 billion in revenue during fourth quarter 2023. AWS parent company Amazon has a market cap of $1.87 trillion.

[Related: AWS Vs. Microsoft Vs. Google Cloud Earnings Q4 2023 Face-Off]

Many of the executives who left AWS this year have joined fellow IT cloud giants like Microsoft, Google Cloud and Oracle.

In terms of global cloud market share: Microsoft ranks No. 2 at 24 percent share, followed by Google at No. 3 with 11 percent share, while Oracle currently owns approximately 2 percent share.

Here are six now-former top AWS executives who left in 2024 that partners, investors and customers should know about.

Ahmed Shihab

Former AWS Role: Vice President of Infrastructure Hardware

New Role: Microsoft, Corporate Vice President at Azure Storage

Ahmed Shihab was responsible for the innovation, building and operations of all of AWS storage and compute systems.

He spent about eight years at AWS from 2016 to 2024.

Shihab recently became corporate vice president of Azure Storage at Microsoft. On LinkedIn, he said hes now building out world class storage services [at Azure].

AWS and Microsoft Azure compete heavily in the cloud storage market. Shihab has also held top executive positions for the likes of storage giant NetApp and cloud provider Xyratex.

Former AWS Role: Managing Director, Worldwide Head of Sales, Enterprise Workloads

New Role: NetApp, Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, Cloud Business Unit

Ashish Dhawan was AWS enterprise workload business leader for years, tasked with helping large AWS customers migrate their infrastructure and modernize their applications.

He spent over five years at AWS, most recently as was AWS managing director and worldwide head of enterprise workload sales.

He left AWS to join NetApp this year to lead the companys cloud sales strategy. NetApp said Dhawans role was created to support NetApps continue commitment to cloud with Dhawan leading a high-performing sales team.

Prior to AWS, Dhawan was vice president of sales in Asia Pacific at Juniper Networks for over eight years.

Former AWS Role: Head of Engineering and Product Strategy, AWS Sagemaker

New Role: Cisco, Senior Director of AI/ML, Outshift by Cisco

Saurabh Gupta left AWS this year as head of engineering and product strategy for AWS Sagemaker, the companys AI and machine learning solution.

Gupta lead global organizations of AWS professionals who are building the foundational capabilities for Amazon SageMaker, which enables customers to build, train and deploy ML models at scale with familiar AWS tools.

This year, Gupta left AWS after four years to join networking kingpin Cisco as its new senior director of AI/ML for its emerging technologies business Outshift. At Cisco, Gupta will be leading generative AI development and productization at Outshift.

Gupta spent over a decade at Microsoft in top engineering positions from 2011 to 2017, as well as three years as a senior engineering manager at Meta for Facebook Ads.

Former AWS Role: Vice President, AWS Global Telco Business

New Role: Group CEO at Capita

IT veteran Adolfo Hernandez left AWS this year to become CEO of British outsourcing company Capita.

Hernandez was a prominent AWS figurehead, speaking on stage at various AWS conferences over his three years at the company as vice president of AWS global Telco Business Unit. He helped accelerate digital transformation and cloud migration initiatives for AWS telecommunications clients.

Prior to AWS, Hernandez has held top executive roles for the likes of Alcatel-Lucent, Sun Microsystems, IBM, as well as CEO of former messaging platform Acision.

Former AWS Role: Enterprise Senior Partner Sales Manager

New Role: Google Cloud, Partner Development Manager

As channel partners continue to be a critical lifeline for vendors and customers, it is key to note some senior partner managers departure from AWS, including Nicolas Dubois.

Dubois spent over seven years in various senior partner sales and partner success manger roles at AWS, most recently he was enterprise senior partner sales manager.

He joined Google Cloud in January as a partner development manager.

Google Cloud and AWS are in constant battle for channel partner mindshare on a global basis.

Former AWS Role: Head of Engineering, AWS Config

New Role: Oracle, Vice President of Cloud Customer Connectivity

Kaartik Viswanath was head of engineering for AWS Config, the companys configuration tool that helps clients assess, audit and evaluate the configurations of IT resources.

Viswanath spent nine years at AWS in various top executive positions including general manager of AWS Client VPN, as well as head of product management for AWS EC2 Networking.

He left AWS in 2024 to join cloud competitor Oracle as vice president of Cloud Customer Connectivity.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) competes in the computing market against AWS cloud.

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6 AWS Execs Who Left In 2024 (So Far) For Microsoft, Google, Cisco And Others - CRN