3.6 billion people will use cloud-based services by 2018, suggests report

Newsbrief: A new report from Juniper Research suggests that more than 3.6 billion unique people will utilize cloud-based services by 2018, with video games helping to drive consumer demand. Cloud-based services were used by an estimated 2.4 billion people last year, but Juniper says that advances in cloud-based storage, music and games will help to significantly drive this figure over the next five years. In particular, Juniper suggests that the impending launch of PlayStation Now will help to stir up the cloud-based video game space, while the relaunch of OnLive earlier this year may lead to a renaissance in the near future. The research firm is keen to stress, however, that latency in cloud-based video games is still currently hampering the success of this opportunity.