Unified memory can one day let us say the sentence in the title. The thought of having unlimited memory, by uploading everything that is yours ranges from definitions and meaning, from unified memory to cloud computing.

Four companies currently participate in this are: DreamSpring, Accenture, Microsoft, and Nokia.

A simple example of this is Dossier, which is part of DreamSpring's Riyala Services. The application is an “archive of messages, emails, documents, photos, media, and activities attached to contacts, stored in the cloud. Users can view these at any time, anywhere, free from the storage limitations of the device,” according to the booklet I was given at DreamSpring's booth at the Symbian Smartphones Show 2008.

[Picture: HowStuffWorks]

Accenture calls this technology “Unified-memory-as-a-service”. “Such a service will provide unified,  remote memory capacity over the wireless internet. Users will be able to create and use remote memory from the device of their choice, delivering an experience similar to using local memory residing on their device,” according to page 4, “Driving High Performance through Mobile Computing: Eight Trends to Watch” by Mehul B. Patel, Accenture.

Windows Azure is a cloud computing environment that is coming together soon, which not only allows memory storage, but also using the computer power itself for processing, for example. The benefits, according to Microsoft, are: “Add Web service capabilities to existing packaged applications; Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premises resources; Perform services (large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or large-volume computations, etc.) off premises; Create, test, debug, and distribute Web services quickly and inexpensively; Reduce costs of building and extending on-premises resources; Reduce the effort and costs of IT management.”

Nokia's Files on Ovi provide online storage at a certain cost. Could this become a replacement for memory cards in the future?

Mobile data costs will be a factor for those who do not have unlimited data plans, but by the time unified memory is introduced in the mobile computing ecosystem, network operators will have improved in their offerings, and allow the web to replace expensive memory cards.