CES 2012 reveals the increasing consumer cloud

Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a yearly corporate exposition that takes place in Las Vegas and showcases new innovations in the technology industry. With the rise of cloud computing, this year, many products incorporated state-of-the-art cloud technology, and shed light on consumer cloud trends.

At CES 2012, cloud-based systems were seen in everything from DVD players to automobiles. PC companies like Acer announced cloud services that enable users to store data remotely, while Mercedes-Benz and Ford revealed computer systems that enable a car to interact with the road and weather conditions intuitively. The essential goal of the inclusion of such systems is to turn the car into a giant mobile device - an accounting executive could access secure financial information while finding out where a particular restaurant is located, for instance.

Since cloud services are being incorporated into so many everyday items, information security will need to adapt to the multitude of new devices. Managed security services will have to look for backdoor threats to a dashboard computer as well as prevent direct attacks on a network, and consumers will have to be careful when choosing which devices to upgrade to the cloud.