Wyse Technology is launching a new app for Android users today called Wyse PocketCloud Explore, which will allow you to search for files you have stored on any phone, tablet, PC or Mac. The app works in conjunction with a software client installed on your computer, so you can perform universal file searches, then view the files, rename them, move them into folders, share them or download them to your device.

The software lets you perform unlimited copying and moving of video, image and audio files between your Windows or Mac computer and your Android device. Meanwhile, other files types can be opened or edited in your preferred Android application (e.g., QuickOffice). You can also choose to email the file via Android’s email client.

PocketCloud is somewhat of an attack on cloud storage products like Dropbox or Box.net, which provide you with a set amount of free online storage, but then charge you when you need more. Instead, this app appeals more to the host-it-yourself crowd, since there’s only the one-time fee of $4.99 and no monthly service charges.

That said, hosting your files in the cloud may be pricier, but it’s often more secure. Unless you regularly backup, your computer is a single point-of-failure for your most valuable documents, while cloud storage providers have multiple copies of files spanned across servers which are backed up religiously.

But for $5, PocketCloud Explore is not a bad app to have on hand in case of a file emergency. Wyse also offers a full version of PocketCloud that provides remote access to your computer (iOS and Android). You can grab Explore from the Android Market here.

Enter, the Cloud

Is the Cloud a bad thing? Not necessarily, however it seems to me that power and control of what we do is moving back to corporations. The introduction of the personal computer in the late 70′s (although some may argue it was the “Simon” in 1949) was the beginning of individuals having the power to do what was before only available by expensive enterprise computers.

Look at the power and the things we can do now on a little silicon box in front of us!

Add to this the Internet and we have an ecosystem that allows us to find and collaborate with people all over the world! The Internet has brought us such power as to be able to topple governments!

And now it seems, corporations and governments have figured out how to fight back. This past week, Nicolas Sarkozy, at the G8 summit in Paris said; “As long as the internet is part and parcel of the daily lives of our citizens, it would be a contradiction to leave government out of this massive discussion,”. Jeff Jarvis has more to say on this. I fear that this very thing that gives us freedom and power as a collective is slowly being taken away from us.

It’s About Control

One feature of Apple’s iCloud is iTunes Match, which, for a monthly subscription will scan our computers for “music obtained from other sources” and replace it with iTunes music. The music industry has been looking for a way to get that control back for some time now.
Look at books. We no longer buy books, we “lease” electronic copies from Amazon. Even the operating system that runs our personal computers is not even ours. Even though we own the hardware we do not own the software.

In the industrial age, the big corporations dictated to us what to buy and mass marketing was the norm. Over the last decade the Internet has eroded mass marketing down to the point of small targeted vertical marketing by “long tail“.
I think the Cloud is a way for the big players to be back in control.

I think that as time goes on we will physically own less and less. Just as we lease cars now, we may lease just about everything in the future. We already lease music and software. Why not the computer, printer and everything else? Many business lease all the technology in the building. The desktop computer means less and less and even now is being given away. The power and control what we do and how we spend our lives (think Facebook) is moving to the Internet and back into the control of major corporations.

The physical box we work on is becoming less and less important. It is the software and services that run on it that have the value, the power – and most companies are moving to a SAAS (Software as a Service) model – in the Cloud.

Is the Cloud convenient? Sure! We can get to it using almost any device; phone, tablet, computer. Again, the device is becoming less important, the service is where it’s at. Who controls the services? The big players who have the financial resources to reach out to the world.

I’m beginning to fear that the next generation, even with tremendous technical abilities, may still be tied to big corporations, as they have previously been.

I for one would like to see it differently.

What do you think?

Apple’s push about security may no longer the case, as is shown by this article from ZDNet in their interview with Charlie Miller, 2009′s winner of the Pwn2Own contest.

Here’s the quote:

” Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit. The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don’t do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don’t have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you’d find in Windows.

It’s more about the operating system than the (target) program. Firefox on Mac is pretty easy too. The underlying OS doesn’t have anti-exploit stuff built into it.

With my Safari exploit, I put the code into a process and I know exactly where it’s going to be. There’s no randomization. I know when I jump there, the code is there and I can execute it there. On Windows, the code might show up but I don’t know where it is. Even if I get to the code, it’s not executable. Those are two hurdles that Macs don’t have.

It’s clear that all three browsers (Safari, IE and Firefox) have bugs. Code execution holes everywhere. But that’s only half the equation. The other half is exploiting it. There’s almost no hurdle to jump through on Mac OS X.”

For all you people out there that are looking to the Apple Mac systems as an alternative to Microsoft Windows, and use the “it’s safer” argument, you may want to reconsider.

I’m pretty neutral when it comes to Operating Systems and have used Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you are looking to move to a particular system, you want to evaluate it based on what you want it to do for you, not the coolness factor or perceived protection from threats.

As far as protection from hackers goes – more is better and multi-level security is recommended. You want would-be hackers to fight their way through the router, and also your desktop or laptop firewall. In your Windows environment don’t rely on what comes with Windows, get a separate program.

Other articles in our Apple_Windows series:

• How to use Time Capsule with a Windows PC
• Easter to Hack Apple than Windows
• How to setup Activesync on your iPhone or iPod Touch
• How to use AppleTV with Windows