GDrive from Google

There has been a lot of chatter that Google might be introducing GDrive soon. GDrive is expected to let the user access their files from anywhere, anytime, from any device (desktop, web browser or mobile phone). Nothing new about the concept of Cloud storage, but coming from Google and typically with a large free allowance it might be interesting to watch the space.

Recently tried Zumo Drive which essentially adds a z: drive and seamlessly synchronizes all files to the Cloud. Files from the drive are available in the Cloud and can be synchronized to any device including the iPhone. There is also a web interface to manage the files in the cloud. The client application installed in the windows PC was using jetty (embedded java webserver) and hsqldb (in-memory/disk based small database written in java). Hmm... did you know you were letting them run a webserver and a database in your machine just by installing the client ?

There are many products already in the online storage space and GDrive is really a late entry. Microsoft LiveMesh, SugarSynch etc... Most of them support from anywhere to any device. Another interesting technology which has been around since 1996 and has been gaining more attention recently after the Cloud storage scene became hot is WebDAV.

I am getting a feeling that the next big thing "Semantic Web" is slowly shaping up.