How Cloud Technology Could Have Tracked the Malaysia Airlines Plane

As the biggest ever hunt for a missing plane continues, many are beginning to wonder if we will ever know what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. If the plane has crashed, it has been suggested that it could take up to two years to find its wreckage.

But if MH370 had been fitted with technology that made use of the cloud it may never have been lost in the first place. Instead of relying on the combination of GPS, primary and secondary radar, and aircraft communications addressing and reporting systems (ACARS) to keep track of planes, we should be making sure they send regular flight information to the data centers in the cloud. This is a cluster of computers that provides reliable computing and storage as a service to large numbers of requests from computers with limited capabilities, such as those on board a plane or inside a mobile phone. Read more...