Today, LaCie announced a merger with Caleido AG, the creators of the innovative online storage service, Wuala.

Luzius Meisser, Co-Founder of Caleido said, “Wuala is an exciting technology that builds its reliable and secure cloud storage by harnessing idle resources.”

Wuala assembles centralized and distributed storage; the result is a reliable and scalable service. Once files are placed in Wuala, they are securely encrypted before being cut into several redundant fragments disseminated and stored on a cloud of computers.

“Users will gain online storage while trading disk space; that way, they will securely protect their valuable data. They can access it from anywhere and easily share files with selected peers. As privacy tends to be a major issue when talking about digital life and data management, everything is encrypted and a robust rights management system protects files from unauthorized access,” said Dominik Grolimund, Co-creator of Wuala, “We will also bring this technology to enterprises and professional customers, who will soon take advantage of our services with both cloud and data center-based storage.”

LaCie has plans to implement this first real “cloud storage” technology into its ranges of storage devices, offering a powerful and combined solution for storage–local storage on devices for fast access, and secured remote storage on the cloud, for easy sharing and complete data versatility.

“For 20 years, LaCie massively promoted hard drive technologies; today, as a leader on storage market, we will be a first mover in the next leading technologies: flash-based storage, and cloud storage. With this merger, LaCie will morph from a pure hardware manufacturer to a solution provider. These new technologies will be amazing for our customers and will enhance their experience,” Philippe Spruch concluded.

Social networking, you know, Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, is the new big thing. Everyone is trying to cash in on this new thing and with a ton of choices out there, how does one fine tune to the good ones? Ya, it’s tough, but for me, I just found one that socials on a wonderful drink: beer. Being a “beer snob”, I enjoy a good beer. Be it an ale, dark, pilsner, or a lager, if it’s good and tasty, I’ll happily try it. So when I saw that the community of 6 million users at LivingSocial talked beer, the new iPhone application caught my attention! Add to the finer things in fermented water like eating, music, and reading, and man, you have good possibilities with this application. And unlike many other social networks that try to compete with others, LivingSocial lets you plug into them. With linking supported for Facebook, MySpace (cough), Bebo, Orkut and hi5, you’ll be able to easily share your finds and critiques with others.

I’ve downloaded and signed up for the service and am going to give it a try. How knows, I may find a new killer beer and a nice restaurant in which to drink it at. In fact, it may be your review that guides to these jewels!

If you are ever wondering what this tech-gadget loving guy may be doing through the day, then check out my Twitter account. I’ll be using the site to also post some sites of interest and it will be a great place for you to get some “behind the scenes” stuff I may not get onto SvenOnTech. There are a lot of sites I go to in research for posts here but due to the time it takes to actually type the stuff out, a lot gets lost to the ether so to speak.

Beyond that, you’ll also get some of my witty commentary on just life. I promise, I’ll try to abstain from the gross, though I am a guy so sometimes I may stumble. So please accept my pre-emtive apology.

Oh, try to figure out what my account name, 7mary4, is about, too. I’d love to see if you can figure that out. (It’s not that hard to figure out with Google, folks. )

See you on Twitter…

GyPSii, the world’s leading geo-location and social networking service provider for mobile phones and Internet devices, is now available on the iPhone – Apple’s market-leading high-end mobile device. The iPhone has shipped more than five million units worldwide since its launch in 2007.

The new web-based GyPSii iPhone application integrates its multiple services into a single interface, making it easy for users to enjoy a wide range of new and exciting location-based features and services, along with social networking – all using the fluid, intuitive touch-screen user interface of the iPhone.

GyPSii also confirmed that it would produce a “native” version of its application using Apple’s Software Developer Kit (SDK) which is scheduled to be launched later this week, providing seamless access for all Apple users, from the desktop, to the iPhone.

GyPSii CEO, Dan Harple, said he didn’t want iPhone users who were keen social networkers to have to wait any longer for the only social networking platform specifically designed for location-enabled mobile phones to be available for their handset.

“We’ll work with the SDK as soon as it becomes available,” he said, “and then we will be uniquely offering both web and native versions of our application for iPhone users.”

GyPSii is taking advantage of its extensible product architecture enabling use of technologies (like Apple’s Safari) to make its advanced, geo-location features possible on the iPhone. In supporting these advances in web technology, GyPSii delivers an optimal location-based experience on a mobile device, or on a desktop computer, or even via a set-top box.

Some of the new GyPSii for iPhone features enabled include:

- Improved UI: The application provides users a desk-top-like web experience that is easier to activate, navigate and use via Apple’s intuitive touch-screen.

- Expanded People/Places layout: GyPSii users can have easy access to complete information on their favourite people and places that appear on the iPhone. Users simply choose their favourite People or Places, bringing up all relevant information such as proximity, details and their position on a map, all on one continuous screen. Users can also access one click dialling to phone People and Places.

- Integrated directions from the mapping interface. Users can navigate to and from their favourite People and Places.

- Improved location based search: Users can search by proximity using new easy to use categories for both People and Places.

- Seamless user interface menus which take advantage of the progressive touch screen interface that comes with the iPhone.

Commenting on the launch of GyPSii for iPhone, GyPSii CEO Dan Harple said, “With the iPhone, Apple created a game-changing handset that revolutionized the mobile device market. We are doing the same with our geo-location technologies to connect people and content to places, events, and social networks in exciting and never-before-seen ways.”

iPhone owners can use GyPSii to create and share experiences; photos, videos, audio and other content in real-time with friends, family and other network members, wherever they are in the world. Users can also search and locate people and places, as well access directions, maps and information on Points-of-Interest (POIs) – both in their immediate area and worldwide as well.

“With GyPSii on your iPhone, it becomes your mobile personal digital life recorder,” continued Harple. “You can record and share every aspect of your life as it happens with your friends, family and your online community – all via your mobile. GyPSii for iPhone makes social networking dynamic, mobile, and real-time. We’ve integrated with the deep feature set on the iPhone, with the result being an entirely new way to communicate.”

GyPSii for iPhone puts the application within reach of more than five million iPhone users worldwide, and advances GyPSii’s global strategy to be the market-leading geo-location and social networking services platform running on the broadest range of high-end and mass-market consumer mobile devices. This commitment is device-independent, with the company working to develop new mobile technologies that are faster, easier to use, and available on more devices. GyPSii is already available on other market-leading mobile phones and platforms including BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile-powered devices.

The addition of the iPhone to GyPSii’s list of compatible handsets follows hard on the heels of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where the combination of Location-based services with mobile technologies, and the award-winning GyPSii application in particular, seized widespread industry attention.

“Initiatives like GyPSii may ultimately reach a status comparable with existing social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace,” said ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte.

Praising his development team for their achievement leading up to the launch of GyPSii, CEO Dan Harple said: “Our mission is to enhance every person’s mobile experience; blending their lifestyle and how they share their lives with each other and their chosen social networks. Our first iPhone release version brings us one step closer to that goal, and adds further to our momentum.”

GyPSii is now available for iPhone users at http://www.gypsii.com/m

A demonstration of GyPSii for iPhone is also available at:
http://corporate.gypsii.com/iphone/iphone.htm