Is the Apple A7 part of a Long Term Strategic Play?

This article by Simon Bisson at ZDNet points out that the Apple A7 chip that was just announced as part of the iPhone 5S (and most likely will carry over to the rest of the product line as they refresh) is bigger than a lot of people think.  I think he may be right.  The implications to a more secure OS is delightful.

With a virtualisation-ready processor in its new phone, Apple can now start to move iOS in the direction of a hypervisor-controlled sandbox environment, perhaps using a technology like Microsoft's research OS Drawbridge.
Here the operating system component of a VM is tailored to the application it is hosting – minimising the attack surface of each secure partition. Combined with a fingerprint sensor to identify users, Apple has the tools it needs to deliver biometric access control, allowing devices to support multiple users, with files and apps for one user hidden from another using hardware encryption.

This article in Apple Insider, is another good read.  It describes what the author thinks is Apple catching one of it's biggest competitors and the field flat footed.

-- Chris Claborne

Clouds Bringing Suite Rain (pun intended)

Clouds Bringing Suite Rain (pun intended)

According to an IDG survey, top IT Mgt. continues to see value in cloud.  The following is a portion of David Linthicum’s recent article on the topic.

Three takeaways emerge from this survey: Cloud computing does not have much of a downside, considering the largely positive response from this and other surveys. The bubble that many predicted does not seem to be coming any time soon. Indeed, the use of cloud computing seems to be more of an evolution and slower growing style of technology adoption, not a mass movement. Businesses are beginning to understand the true value that cloud computing can bring. This means the strategic use of business data and access to mission-critical enterprise applications they would not be able to afford, were it not for the cloud. That's a good development away from the initial focus on just cheaper infrastructure.

- Chris Claborne

Using Amazon Glacier

I’ve been wanting to test out Amazon Web Services (AWS) Glacier storage service since it was announced in August 2012.  If you’ve been reading my BLOG for a while, you’ll know that I am a little crazy when it comes to backing up my data.  The attraction of Amazon’s Glacier is low cost ($0.01/GB) and it’s high durability (11 9s).   I was waiting for some client side tools so that I could test (which I now have).  Windows based easy to use clients came out pretty quickly, FastGlacier was one of the first and has since seen a major release in the last month. I decided to give it a try and backup my family and client photos as well as music.  I think I have a strong use case for it and I’ve estimated that I can save $180+ per year by moving some of my archives to Glacier.  So, I’ll save some money while I’m having some fun.