This week Sanbolic unveiled the latest new release of its flagship product, Amazon had two major updates, and Kyt Dotson discussed the viability of the cloud for gamers.

A few days ago Sanbolic launched the fifth version of Melio, its flagship storage management platform. Melio5 qualifies as a full-blown software-led infrastructure solution, thanks to a built-in abstraction layer that reduces the complexity of hybrid environments where flash is used in conjunction with disk-based systems: the platform removes the need for redundant flash caching, and automatically assigns frequently accessed data to the fastest storage devices in order to optimize end user productivity.   To top it all off, the solution delivers a broad set of services that include replication and snapshots.

Another company that made headlines this week is Amazon. We’ve learned that that the company landed a a hush-hush contract with the CIA, and that it’s rolling out a new perk for Kindle owners.

According to a recent report, Amazon landed a $600 million deal with the CIA to build it a secure private cloud environment. The spy agency is adopting the cloud because it needs to “keep up with emerging technologies like Big Data in a cost-effective manner.”

Also this week, Amazon rolled out an offline reading button that enables web users to send selected articles to their Kindle for offline reading.  The new feature, which is already supported by Time, The Washington Post, Boing Boing and other major publications, is very similar to the social sharing icons that readers are already accustomed to see on many websites.

The ability to access content offline is an important part of user experience for both readers and gamers. In a Wednesday article, our very own Kyt Dotson discussed how EA’s decision to make SimCity a multiplier game harms consumers.