Stem in Current Events Information Technology

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S T E M I N C U R R E N T E V E N T S

The idea of “cloud” storage is just another way of combining massive computing power and making it available to many users at one time.

“The cloud” is not one individual entity, but the catchy name reflects its function quite well. The cloud is a worldwide collec- tion of servers. The engineering leap behind the cloud is that storage is moving from“hard” storage, like the hard drive in your computer or the thumb drive you carry in your pocket, to cloud storage on external servers.As with much of the technology you use, you may not even know when you are using the cloud. Any time you save data without using the physical storage of your computer or smartphone, you’re likely using the cloud. For ex- ample, when you take a photo and upload it to Instagram , that picture is stored in the cloud. While Apple’s “iCloud” storage service might give you a clue that it’s a cloud-based service, if