Q: A few years ago, there was a company that was going to manufacture the ultimate police car in Atlanta. I've not seen anything on it since. What happened?
— Dan Wilmarth, Marietta
A: Carbon Motors had looked to build the E7, a high-performance police car, in Georgia, but moved its headquarters from Atlanta to Connersville, Ind., in 2009. The AJC reported in July of that year that Georgia economic development officials had tried to keep the company from leaving by offering a 520-acre site near Braselton in Hall County. The U.S. Department of Energy recently denied a $310 million loan to Carbon Motors, forcing the company to look for other means of financing the E7. Production was scheduled to begin this year. The company says it has reservations for 20,176 cars from 584 law enforcement agencies.
Q: Cloud computing seems to be the new technology buzzword. In laymen's terms, what exactly is that?
— Billy Peeler, Norcross
A: Cloud computing is used to describe "anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet," according to the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council, a nonprofit group established in 1997 at the National Center for Higher Education in Washington. This can be as simple as Google Docs and Gmail, according to PCMag.com. It allows programs and applications (or apps) to be synced and shared between devices like laptops, smartphones or tablets. Clouds can be public or private. The private clouds often are used by businesses, which can save money by storing data on the cloud rather than purchasing their own servers, according to BusinessInsider.com. In 2010, The Economist called cloud computing "the first truly global utility."
Andy Johnston wrote this column. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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