These names describe a system of disparate machines, giving shape to the network. Which name we choose has a large effect on how we perceive the structures that carry our photos, emails, bank balances and other data.
With the shift in the infrastructure as all this information became stored remotely came a shift in language, and of perception. Now so central to our lives, how did the language of the internet, and the cloud, evolve?
The symbols on our screens are things we can manipulate in the real world: cogs, pulleys, files, magnifying glasses, binoculars, waste paper bins, compasses, calendars. These pictures use pre-digital imagery as a way to represent invisible processes. "You may not be able to see what is really happening inside this box," they tell us. "But it is in your control."
When computers first spread in use, these symbols made it easier for technology firms to communicate what our machines were doing. Many of them are still used today.
If the tendency has been to ground computer interactions in the language of industry, the symbolism of the cloud goes in the opposite direction. "You may not be able to see what is really happening inside your rectangle," the cloud tells us. "But it doesn't matter. It doesn't even happen in there any more. It happens in something you cannot hope to grip."
The irony, of course, is that you can grip it. The cloud is not an invisible layer of data. It is a network of buildings full of servers. It uses a network of remote computers to process and store data instead of a single machine, but it is still a physical process.
