Acer debuts iCloud 'clone'

Look out, iCloud, you’ve got company: Taiwan-based computer maker Acer has announced a cloud service for its devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

 

The service, dubbed AcerCloud, will enable easy though limited sharing of documents and photos on Acer devices, tech site Mashable reported.

 

AcerCloud can enable automatic sharing of photos and documents, but only for 30 days – and those files are ultimately backed up on one’s PC and not in the cloud, Mashable said.

 

In contrast, Apple’s iCloud is primarily designed to sync media in the background.

 

With the AcerCloud, one can take photos with a smartphone, and AcerCloud puts them in on a service called PicStream, which can push the photos back to an Acer PC or device.

 

Similarly, documents saved to AcerCloud are accessible for 30 days.

 

On the other hand, Acer’s clear.fi application lets users stream or download music or video files anytime from the cloud, without the 30-day limit, Mashable reported.

 

For now, the service works for phones running Google’s Android OS, even as Acer said support for Microsoft’s Windows Phone may be coming soon.

 

Mashable quoted Acer as saying users can user their phone to retrieve files from the “main PC” anytime via AcerCloud, even if the machine is in sleep mode. — TJD, GMA News