Get Matrixed - Microsoft Wants You To Get Ready to Start Flying in the Clouds

Next week your world is about to change dramatically. You might not know it at first but it will. Now, I know lots of people say that about lots of things like elections and what have you, but this time it's true. 

Because you are reading this.

Online. On a computer.

Could be at home, could be at work, could be at school, could even be on a plane. Doesn't matter. Could be at someone else's home, someone else's work, someone else's school or on some airline’s device. Doesn't matter.

What matters is you have online access and that's what Microsoft are going to want to get your attention with next week in LA when they roll out their new Windows operating system.

That's not the real big deal. The real big deal is that in these tough economic times, the company that Bill Gates and Paul Allan built on software sales for your PC is putting their heads in the clouds.

Cloud computing to be exact.

Cloud computing is where you don't house your files, documents, music, photos or even software on your own computer but on remote servers, which are referred to as "clouds." None of that needs to sit with you, it can be accessible where ever you are, as will all the software you use and need from word-processing, spread sheets, and photo editing to your internet bookmarks, your groups and the really big behind the scenes stuff like your applications and your user identity. Think of it as an extension of web-based email like Gmail, a really big USB stick, Flickr with wings or a full deal Facebook.

And that social network reference wasn't just for effect. The reality is in today's economy and in today's interdependent and interacting culture, people are sharing so much online, be it pics or documents for crafting business strategies, presentations or the neighborhood kids activities schedules, that being able to connect and share from multiple points of entry is a fact of modern life.

So, better late than never, the gang from Redmond, Washington are pulling away from the installation CD and towards putting more and more of its software online. The next step for the usually cumbersome Microsoft is, as you can be sure they are in the process of doing, developing a fully loaded ubernetwork for you to log on to and digitally live through the clouds on - because in a Blackberry "I need it now" world that where we and the money are going.

They are by no means the first to join the party. There's a big cloud computing conference in San Jose from November 19-21 were you can expect some of the smaller players in the industry to show off what they've been working on and where its going with it. Google have already started offering a free Low Fi cloud-type program called Google Docs, that lets you access documents online. As you can get candy for free on Halloween you will also be able to download the jam packed virtual computer of G.ho.st at www.g.ho.st. that day too. A while back Apple introduced its Time Capsule which allows you to upload everything on your computer to a remote server, thereby protecting you against crashes, theft, spilt coffee and other ways you can lose your digital contents.

But the best, or the worst, depending on your perspective, is about to happen.

Right now you're reading this on a computer packed with applications and software. Soon you could be reading this on a virtually dummy terminal anywhere ... packed with all your applications, software and data at the entering of a password.

Now, you might want to put the brakes on a bit before you join the tech rah-rah team and remember the lessons of The Matrix. That's right, the Keanu Reeves move. If we're all connected and all floating our jacked in-data, then, in our increasingly surveillance oriented society, that also means that it will be just that little bit easier for government agencies to find out what you've got and for telecommunications companies and other corporations to share it if asked. As we've learned in recent years, with companies handing over information to the likes of Beijing, Washington, Paris and London, the privacy balance is proving a real seat of your Homeland Security pants of late. In the UK, where mandatory ID cards are on the way, there is talk of full monitoring of all emails, phone calls and other electronic communication. If the National Security Agency's fabled Echelon eavesdropping and tracking system seemed pervasive before, cloud computing, which on many desktops or laptops in the future will automatically link you online to your stored profile and data, could bring some pretty grey skies.

Then again if you're not an enemy of the state, or haven't watched the Will Smith movie of the same name too many times, you might not care about such things.  What you might care about is that all this won't even be on your computer, soon it will be on your handheld device and after that .... in a world where nothing has come to so define our popular culture like technology, well, it's all going to get very mobile isn't it? 

Might want to check for cloud cover or call Morpheus.