The Web vs The Cloud

It's still very early after the launch of Opera Unite, but already, I'm seeing some logic to the idea of saving your personal documents and media files locally, instead of 'in the cloud'.

While it's always been possible to share files from your home computer through remote management tools, the engagement of a web browser as the conduit, may well bring content sharing to the masses. By installing and activating the Opera browser, anyone can host a meeting, publish resources, or share media files.

As the open source development community begins to imagine new applications for this browser, consider a future where any mobile device might have direct access to the files and programs on any other computer. Mobile, hyper-networked computing, might completely re-wire the nervous system of today's World Wide Web.

The brief overview provided to TechCrunch tells the opening chapter of what promises to be an ongoing story.



Questions to consider:
Might traditional 'cloud computing' become less popular?
Can software be accessed and run through this browsing technology?
Why might we want to access our home files from handheld devices?
How secure will the unshared files on my computer be?
Will loopholes allow hackers to leverage our computers as drones?

And the big question on everyone's mind:
Will 'Opera-tives' really pursue facial gestures as hinted on April 1st? ;-)