One of the odd things about computer tech and the Internet is that many things are incredibly cheap.  Data storage is one.  Not so many years ago (1972) a terabit of storage, 128 gigabytes, was a room full of video tapes, and didn’t work very well. Now I’ve got 40 times that sitting on my desk.

About the same time, 1200 baud, 1200 bits per second, was about the fastest home network connection.  Now I’ve got about 18,000 times as much and could easily get more.

A consequence of this, cheap storage and even cheaper fast networks, is that it becomes more economical to keep data out in what’s now called “the cloud.”

A new beta service on the web has been announced, called “Bitcasa.” Basically, they’re going to offer unlimited storage in the cloud, encrypted and managed. I don’t know much about the company, but they’re now offering the chance to sign up for the beta.

They also have an interesting scheme with that: sign up and you get a link to pass around to friends; the more people who sign up, the higher you move in the queue to get a Bitcasa account.

Yes, that link adds to my score.  If you care, you can always take this link, which doesn’t.