Opera Unite lets users turn their computers into zero-effort servers, allowing easy peer-to-peer access.
Unite: store data locally, access it globally.
Cloud: store data globally, access it globally.
I'm curious about what advantages there are in Unite, other than strict peer-to-peer uses (i.e. sharing photos with just one other person) and the "I don't want Google to have all my data" argument, which I don't really buy anyway.
Can we run better analytics on a data corpus when its available in its entirety at all times, in order to make more intelligent search/recomendation algorithms? Possibly, but not necessarily, though I don't believe Unite will standardize data in any way (making inter-computer analyses difficult). Indeed, thus far the "social" aspects of Unite are limited to user-directed activities rather than algorithmic discovery, with the exception of bare esesntials like "services my friends are running" etc.
Very interested to see where this goes.