The quality online tech phrase site that is NetLingo is ‘in da house’ again – with a phrase that we’re hearing almost daily relating to mobile nowadays:

in the cloud

Whenever you see an illustration in a magazine or newspaper about how the Internet works, there is usually a cloud drawn in the top portion of the picture to represent the technology and data transfer processes. Since these are too complex to illustrate in a simple diagram, they are shown as happening “in the cloud.”

It wasn’t all that long ago mind that Mobile devices couldn’t really access the web properly – they had to use dial-up modems, and had a ‘WAP’ browser (in monochrome!). Now, even mobile service provision can occur ‘in the cloud’ – take Apples ‘Mobile Me’ for example – that’s even got a picture of a cloud on the packaging, just to hammer home the point!

What with the new wave of Mobile Applications these days, the line is increasingly blurring between where functionality lies on the device, and on a server in the cloud – now if we could just get 4G service everywhere, all my Apps could be online 🙂

[Via: NetLingo]