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The life cycle of technology products has never been lower – in many cases it’s down to a year or less, and frankly a lot of us struggle to keep up when faced with the choice of either paying out again or becoming “outdated”.
This high level of turnover means that many devices become not just out of date but actually unusable – meaning a lot of now supposedly useless tech lying around.
However, one firm is taking something of a stand against this and doing something about it – Neverware. They have created a piece of software called CloudReady which, in short, enables older systems to run modern software.
Neverware has developed a version of the operating system that runs on Google’s Chromebook laptops – which once loaded on to your (older) computer means it can handle modern day programs. How? Well, as Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal – who first highlighted the software – suggested, a lot of computers launched in the past 10 years actually have the built-in power to work today, especially given that most programs needed are fairly lightweight. CloudReady allows them to do just that.
It’s worth noting at this point that while CloudReady is free to try out, there is a fairly long list of requirements and list of computers that it works on.
Even if you don’t see yours it might be worth testing; just make sure to back up everything of value as CloudReady will wipe it otherwise.
A final note of caution – CloudReady can’t do anything for your battery life, so as it’s no doubt deteriorated over the years, best keep it plugged in to make sure it lasts.
