vault

SmugMug, a photo host geared toward prosumer and professional photographers, launched a new service Monday called SmugVault.

As the name would suggest it's all about storage, but not just for the standard slew of files you'll see supported on sites like Flickr or Google's Picasa. Instead, SmugVault is all about the files professional or advanced users end up with, like the RAW and TIFF files from high-end digital SLRs, and the PDF and PSD files from post-processing.

The service is tapping into Amazon.com's S3 cloud storage to serve up all that space, and offering users … Read more

VaultStreet is a clever new company that you'll instantly get if you're sick of dealing with paper financial records from your bank, brokerage, employeer, and so on. It's s simple pitch: You sign up for electronic statements from your financial providers, and direct them to be sent to VaultStreet. It then collects them for you and keeps them organized.

Of course, you can sign up for electronic statements without using a third-party organizer. Few people do, however. VaultStreet CEO Carter Kirkwood says it's less than 10 percent of U.S. consumers, despite the growing awareness of … Read more

Check out Google CEO Eric Schmidt's keynote presentation at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference (see the video below). He makes the argument for Google harnessing its search platform for dealing with the major inefficiencies and ills of the healthcare system.

The first principle, "It's the consumers data," Schmidt said. "Users can access the data and can control who can see it." And, because the data is in the cloud, it can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

With both Google and Microsoft, with its HealthVault, investing heavily in gaining converts to their respective … Read more

Apple has confirmed a security glitch that, in many situations, will let someone with physical access to a Macintosh computer gain access to the password of the active user account.

The vulnerability arises out of a programming error that stores the account password in the computer's memory long after it's needed, meaning it can be retrieved and used to log into the computer and impersonate the user.

"This is a real problem and it needs to be fixed," said Jacob Appelbaum, a San Francisco-area programmer who discovered the vulnerability and reported it to Apple. He said … Read more

Friday, the end of the work week, the denouement, if you will, which means it's the perfect time to get Hepatitis A! Or at least that's what happened to some A-list celebrities at Ashton Kutcher's birthday party. D'oh! Also, Portal 2 might be in the works (we hope) and Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive" will be included in a Rock Band downloadable content pack.

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PGP Corp. is planning to release a version of its whole-disk encryption software for Apple Macintosh computers running OS X.

Jon Callas, PGP's chief technology officer, told me on Monday that the software is "in active development" and will run on Intel-based Macs. Callas didn't want to elaborate on a shipping date, unfortunately.

This promises to be a boon for OS X users, especially laptop users who are more likely to lose their machines or run into snoopy border police and airport security guards who want to poke around the contents of their hard drives. Right … Read more

I've been using an Apple MacBook Pro for a little over a year now, and I'm pretty happy with it.

I didn't immediately upgrade to Leopard, the new version of Mac OS X, when it shipped back in November for reasons I discussed here, but last weekend I decided to go for it.

There's a new update coming to version 10.5.2, which according to a release note available to Apple developers includes a raft of bug fixes, but I wanted to upgrade to Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 as soon as possible, so I … Read more

This certainly isn't the first personal safe that's controlled by biometrics, but its design is a definite improvement over previous models we've seen. The "BioVault 2.0 Fingerprint Safe" from Sequiam Biometrics has the kind of futuristic look that's appropriate for a security technology of the future--in fact, it reminds us of the Enterprise's sliding doors on the original Star Trek.

It does seem kind of curious, however, that one of its highly touted features is the ability to work with the fingerprints of up to 50 people; we thought the idea was … Read more

Thanks to certain other Cravers who fancy themselves oenophiles, we've managed to keep up on all manner of wine refrigerators and preservers. But surprisingly enough in this world where everything is converging, we haven't seen an appliance that could provide both functions until now.

The "Pek VinoVault" claims to be the first wine refrigerator of its kind, using argon technology to preserve open bottles while keeping them chilled. Luxist says it holds 14 bottles, which may not seem like much until you think about it. (Why would you have that many unfinished bottles in the first … Read more