Pogoplug Personal Storage Cloud Updated: Now With More Multimedia
9:00 am, November 20th, 2009, Leander Kahney
The Pogoplug is a fantastic little gizmo that turns any USB hard drive into your own little cloud server accessible over the Internet. We gave it a very enthusiastic review.
Now the company behind the device has issued version 2 — updating both hardware and software — and it’s all about multimedia.
Christopher Louie, director of customer support at San Francisco-based Cloud Engines, fires up his iPhone and shows a movie on the Pogoplug app.
Sporting a new design, the new Pogoplug hardware supports up to four external drives and includes a software update (free to current users) that turns attached drives into a “personal storage cloud” for sharing photos, videos and slideshows.
“Multimedia is a pain in the neck,” said Cloud Engines CEO Daniel Putterman at a launch party on Thursday night. “The Pogoplug multimedia sharing device makes it easy.”
It’s possible, for example, to use the free Pogoplug iPhone app (iTunes link) to play movies stored on a Pogoplug at home, streamed over AT&T’s 3G network. A couple of Pogoplug employees showed me movies playing on their iPhones that were stored at home. It was fast and painless — and pretty impressive.
Getting multimedia onto a Pogoplug is pretty easy. The device can be synchronized to automatically import files added to any folder, or videos or photos added to iTunes and iPhoto (and Windows Media Player on a PC). Set it and forget it — the files are available anywhere with a Net connection.
The new Pogoplug will ship before the holidays for $129.
Posted by Leander Kahney in Hardware, News | Comment on this article
I’ve been excited about PogoPlug since I first heard about it. But, I will not consider purchasing any product that requires me to accept onerous conditions in their terms of service.
In theirs, Cloud Engines reserves the right to store userids and passwords — and any content that is accessed through their product.
Cloud Engines has “responded” to a some of these concerns — in an unofficial blog posting — but in typical “gee-whiz, we’re good guys, and the dog ate my homework” fashion. Maybe they are good guys, and maybe they mean well, but there’s no denying that their TOS contains many distasteful things.
Hey, Cloud Engines, if you’re really great guys, how about a terms of service policy that clearly states, “We do not track or store, and never will track or store anything related to your content or identity, anywhere. You are and always will be completely anonymous in your interactions with our services.” Nope. Instead, they predictably dole out lawyer-ese in the TOS and give us a weak, semi-apologetic “explanation” that does not modify the terms of service in any enforceable way.
And all the while, they apparently collect information that they “promise” in unofficial statements never to use.
See:
http://www.pogoplug.com/privacy.html
http://www.pogoplugged.com/forum/thread/12017/Concerns-about-their-Privacy-Policy.
I’ve got nothing against Cloud Engines. In fact, I really want a product like this, that gives me affordable access to my stuff, from a small package that’s easily upgradeable, with no annual subscription.
I’m just really tired of being taken advantage of by every Tom-Dick-and-Harry who comes along and wants pieces of my private life, claiming their “right” to, in effect, spy on me or at least capture my personal data and content for unknown purposes, while hiding behind dense legal documents and positioning their infogreed as being somehow beneficial to me. Problem is that we never really understand what we’re giving up until we slog through and carefully consider all of the implications of all of the fine print.
It’s really a shame that something as useful as PogoPlug is damaged by these terms of service.
In my opinion, the tradeoff isn’t worth it — at any price.
Zama, on November 20th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
AMEN!! I really need to read these TOS more often. Ain’t no way I’d buy or let ANYONE I know buy one of these. They may be nice guys, but hackers aren’t. What are they thinking?!
Gabriel, on November 20th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I bought a pogoplug and it’s been completely useless to me – never allows me to access my external drive over the net.
sleater, on November 20th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
God that thing is ugly and it looks like it would fall over in the slightest breeze.
Cowicide, on November 22nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm