Internet Archive's BookServer could 'dominate' Amazon

Internet Archive's BookServer could 'dominate' Amazon: "A new initiative from the nonprofit Internet Archive aims to make all books, commercial or public domain, available for digital distribution. If it works, Amazon could be in serious trouble."

Cloud Computing

Everyone has an opinion on what is cloud computing. It can be the ability to rent a

server or a thousand servers and run a geophysical modeling application on the most

powerful systems available anywhere. It can be the ability to rent a virtual server,

load software on it, turn it on and off at will, or clone it ten times to meet a sudden

workload demand. It can be storing and securing immense amounts of data that is

accessible only by authorized applications and users. It can be supported by a cloud

provider that sets up a platform that includes the OS, Apache, a MySQL™ database,

Perl, Python, and PHP with the ability to scale automatically in response to changing

workloads. Cloud computing can be the ability to use applications on the Internet

that store and protect data while providing a service — anything including email,

sales force automation and tax preparation. It can be using a storage cloud to hold

application, business, and personal data. And it can be the ability to use a handful of

Web services to integrate photos, maps, and GPS information to create a mashup in

customer Web browsers.